Ali Akbar Velayti. Photo: Alchetron.

The Islamic Republic will always back nations and groups that fight Israel, a top Iranian official vowed on Tuesday, the Tehran regime-aligned Tasnim news agency reported.

Speaking to reporters in the Iranian capital, Ali Akbar Velayti — a senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — said Iran’s “stance is unchanging and that is providing full and continued support for the resistance line, which begins from Iran and passes through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and reaches Palestine.”

Explaining Iran’s ongoing effort to bolster the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Velayti stated, “Given that Syria is an important link in the chain of resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran has sided with the country’s people and government since the very beginning of the regional and international conspiracy against Syria, and will continue to do so.”

When Iranian officials speak of “resistance groups,” they are generally referring to Tehran-backed anti-Western and anti-Israel terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The term is also used by Iran to describe the Houthis in Yemen, who are receiving Iranian support as they battle for control of that southern Arabian Peninsula country against the Saudi-backed government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

At the end of November, IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Yosef Kuperwasser — a former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy — told The Algemeiner that Iran was stepping up the speed at which it was arming its proxies in the Middle East due to its fear that after Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January, its room to maneuver in Syria will be greatly hampered.

Last month, Hamas’ representative in Tehran declared ties between the Gaza-ruling Islamist terror group and the Iranian regime were “getting better every day.”