Report: Hezbollah chief ‘secretly’ meets with Iran’s Khamenei to discuss Assad support

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had recently “secretly” met with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran to discuss the ongoing Syrian crisis, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper.

Sources told Al-Rai newspaper in remarks published on Sunday that Nasrallah also met with elite al-Quds Forces, Qassem Suleimani.

The daily quoted the source as saying that the two men discussed an “Iranian-Syrian defense system” in the case rebels gain more control with the support of the U.S., France and some Arab countries.

“Iran is willing to send hundreds of thousands of its men to Syria to defend Assad’s government and its resistant role if the west continues to support armed [groups],” the newspaper quoted an unnamed Iranian source as saying.

A journalist expert in Iranian affairs told Al Arabiya that such meetings were routinely held between Iranian officials and the Lebanese militant group.

“The meetings between Nasrallah and Iranian officials have never stopped and are nothing new,” said Najah Ali, adding: “They are secretly held and on a regular basis.”