And we heard from the leader of that main rebel
group in Syria, HTS, as you mentioned, for the first
time this morning since all this happened.
I want to listen to it.
This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire
Islamic nation.
This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in
the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers,
leaving Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism,
stirring corruption.
It became the world's leading source of Captagon.
But today, Syria is being purified by the grace of
God Almighty and through the efforts of the Euro Mujahideen.
And we heard him describe Syria there during the Assad
regime as a, quote, playground for Iranian ambition.
Walk us through what he might have meant by that.
So this is really quite an interesting way of describing
things, Jessica.
But Iran had a lot of presence in all of
these areas.
They had main headquarters for their efforts in Damascus.
They had bases throughout the country in many of these
areas.
They were funneling weapons right here into Lebanon.
And of course, those those weapons were used by Hezbollah
to attack Israel, which is right down over here.
So basically, Syria could be looked at as a staging
area for Iran to conduct operations against targets of various
types, including American targets in Iraq, American targets potentially in
Turkey, targets in Jordan, and of course Israel and Lebanon.
So with the elimination of Syria as a jumping off
point for the Iranians, that makes a huge difference and
it really constrains Iran's power.
So what Al Jilani was talking about here was he
doesn't want Syria to be used as a base for
Iranian activity because he sees that as detrimental to Syria
as well as to the interests of of any future
Syrian government that he might lead.