The fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was the crescendo of a remarkably bad year for the Iranian regime. 

The Islamic Republic suffered major blows in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, diminishing the power of its so-called Axis of Resistance. Its currency officially became the lowest valued in the world and when Israel decimated its proxy forces, the U.S. elected a president whom Iran so despises that it spent years trying to assassinate him. 

Here’s a look back at blows suffered by Ayatollah Ali Khameini and his regime over the past year: 

In April, Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, prompting Iran to strike back with more than 300 drones and missiles aimed into Israel. But Israel worked with the U.S., Jordan and Saudi Arabia to shoot down nearly every missile and drone. 

The late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash while visiting a remote area. Iran has blamed the crash on dense fog. Raisi was a protégé and potential successor of Iran’s supreme leader, Khameini. 

While Iran inaugurated a new president this summer, Israel infiltrated to take out Hamas commander Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Tehran for the inauguration. While Haniyeh was staying in a VIP government guest house, Israel detonated a remote-controlled bomb. 

TRUMP TANGLES WITH REPORTER ON IRAN PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE: 'IS THAT A SERIOUS QUESTION?'

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took out Hamas head Yahya Sinwar after encountering him on a routine patrol in the Gaza city of Rafah. Sinwar was the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and was one of the most wanted men of the war. 

Hamas has lost thousands of fighters and much of its leadership ranks to Israel’s attacks and is nowhere near the threatening force on Israel’s borders Iran hoped it would be. 

Iran’s currency tanked to an all-time low upon news of the Trump election, and the expectation that he might bring back a "maximum pressure" policy. 

The Iranian rial is down 46% this year, making it officially the least-valuable currency in the world.

Iran has long vowed revenge for Trump approving the 2019 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani – and U.S. intelligence revealed Tehran plots to kill the president-elect. 

After the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, it imposed harsh sanctions on the regime to stop its funding of proxies abroad, banning U.S. citizens from trading with Iran or handling Iranian money. 

It also punished entities in other countries that did business with Iran, by cutting them off from the dollar. 

TENSIONS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND TURKEY ESCALATE OVER SYRIA: 'IT’S TIME TO PAY ATTENTION'

President Joe Biden often waived enforcement of such sanctions, keen to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons and fearful of driving up global oil prices. 

Iran gained access to more than $10 billion through a State Department sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to continue buying energy from Iran, which the Biden administration argues is necessary to keep lights on in Baghdad.  

In the fall, Israel reoriented much of its efforts toward pummeling Hezbollah after a series of cross-border attacks from the Lebanese militant group. Israel targeted Hezbollah’s leadership and detonated hundreds of pagers the group had been using to communicate. At the end of November, Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire where it and Israel must both end their armed presences in southern Lebanon. 

Both sides have claimed the other has broken the fragile truce, but it has ostensibly held for weeks.  

Syrian rebels sent Iran's Quds forces, an extension of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, running as they captured Damascus and pushed out President Bashar al-Assad. Iran's forces had been in Syria propping up Assad since civil war broke out in 2011, but had been diminished since the outbreak of war elsewhere in the Middle East. 

Syria's new government is set to be run by Sunni Muslims, hostile to Iran's Shiite government. And Iran lost a key supply line through Syria it had used to arm Hezbollah in its fight against Israel. 

• The Syrian Democratic Forces, a US partner in Syria, downed an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
• The incident shows the SDF has acquired air defenses of some sort.
• It's very possible that the SDF downed a low-flying Reaper with a shoulder-fired missile.

America's ally in Syria accidentally shot down an advanced US drone, suggesting these Kurdish-led forces have acquired some kind of air defenses.

A $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone wasn't the only victim. A day later, the Syrian Democratic Forces — who partnered with the US to fight the Islamic State in Syria a decade ago — purposely shot down a Turkish drone.

A US official confirmed to Defense News that the SDF misidentified the MQ-9 as a threat on December 9 and shot it down, without specifying what kind of weapon was used; the SDF hasn't publicly acknowledged the incident. However, the SDF did release footage purportedly showing its forces shooting down Turkey's Aksungur drone.

"The SDF would need more capable air defense systems than older MANPADs (man-portable air defense system) like the Strela-2 to shoot down an MQ-9 Reaper unless the drone was flying far below its typical operating ceiling, possibly due to mission requirements or technical issues," Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, told Business Insider.

A Reaper drone has a 66-foot wingspan and can fly up to 50,000 feet in altitude, beyond the range of shoulder-fired Strela-2 missiles. The remotely piloted aircraft frequently carry Hellfire ground-attack missiles.

"A SHORAD (short-range air defense) or medium-range radar-guided SAM (surface-to-air missile) system would be required to effectively engage a Reaper drone operating at its standard altitude," Khoueiry said.

It is more likely that the SDF has shoulder-fired missiles due to their proliferation, which also have the benefit of being harder to spot than truck-mounted missile launchers. If the MQ-9 was downed by a MANPAD, it suggests it was flying very low, Khoueiry said.

The Aksungur is a much larger and more advanced drone than Turkey's widely exported Bayraktar TB2, but it is not in the same league as the American MQ-9.

"Aksungur drones are capable, 'middle-class drones' that are typically used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, although increasingly modified to carry weapons," Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told BI.

Syrian soldiers abandoned their bases and weapons stockpiles during the dramatic fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in early December. Israel has already moved in and bombed large quantities of them. Turkey has also moved to prevent the SDF from capturing weapons. Turkish intelligence destroyed 12 trucks with missiles and other heavy weapons in the northeastern Kurdish city of Qamishli, and Turkish drones targeted abandoned tanks, armored vehicles, and rocket launchers strewn across northeast Syria.

"It is unlikely that the SDF captured and were able to quickly operationalize Syrian regime air defenses within the past week," RANE's Khoueiry said. "Furthermore, Israeli strikes have significantly degraded such systems across Syrian territory, making it even more difficult for a US-backed militia to acquire and effectively operate them."

Turkish media reported earlier this year that US troops in northeast Syria were training the SDF how to use the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger short-range air defense system, which fires Stinger missiles. However, sources in Syria cited by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said only US troops operate the Avengers, which protect their bases against Iran-backed militia drone attacks.

"The challenge for the SDF to use systems such as the SA-2s (Soviet-made S-75s) or Avengers is that these anti-air systems require a logistical network to operate that is cumbersome for a non-state actor, especially if that non-state actor doesn't have accompanying anti-air capabilities to protect those systems," Heras said.

Ceng Sagnic, chief of analysis of the geopolitical consultancy firm TAM-C Solutions, believes it is possible the SDF is "independently operating" some air defenses in Syria.

"However, it should be noted that Kurdish groups have long had access to short-range air defense missiles, particularly those acquired from the black market and not NATO standard," Sagnic told BI. "There is also a possibility that an operator of one of these systems got lucky that day."

"In any case, the incident demonstrates the readiness of Kurdish groups in Syria to respond to drone operations, especially those conducted by Turkey," Sagnic said.

The Kurdistan Workers Party, commonly known by its PKK acronym, had Strela-2 missiles as far back as the 1990s and shot down two Turkish helicopters over northern Iraq in 1997.

The Middle East Eye news outlet reported earlier this year that Iran had transferred air-breathing anti-drone loitering missiles to the PKK. One such munition purportedly brought down an Aksungur over Iraqi Kurdistan in May. Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have used the Iranian-made 358 missile to shoot down Israeli and American drones, including a number of MQ-9s.

It's unclear if the SDF — whose main Kurdish component Turkey charges with inextricable PKK links — acquired such a system.

"The claim that Iran supplies the PKK (and, by extension, the SDF) with a significant number of anti-drone missiles is highly questionable," Sagnic said. "Only a consistent pattern of successful anti-drone strikes by the SDF in the near future could indicate enhanced capabilities by the Kurdish group, and a single drone interception is not sufficient proof."

"However, there have been at least two reported interceptions of Turkish drones over northern Iraq in recent months, suggesting that Kurdish groups are adapting to the so-called drone wars, though their continued success remains uncertain."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

It's a bird! It's a plane! Yeah, it's probably just a normal plane.

President-elect Trump tangled with a reporter who asked him Monday if he would entertain the idea of preemptive strikes on Iran.

Trump, following remarks at Mar-a-Lago, took questions from the media, and one reporter asked if he would target Iran’s nuclear facilities,

"Well I can’t tell you that. I mean, it's a wonderful question, but how can I – am I going to do preemptive strikes? Why would I say that?" the president-elect responded.

"Can you imagine if I said yes or no? You would say, ‘That was strange that he answered that way.’ Am I going to do preemptive strikes on Iran? Is that a serious question? How could I answer a question like that?" Trump continued. 

ISRAEL EYES IRAN NUKE SITES AMID REPORTS TRUMP MULLS MOVES TO BLOC TEHRAN ATOMIC PROGRAM 

The reporter then asked if Trump would be in support of Israel striking Iran. 

"How could I tell you a thing like that now?" Trump responded. "You don't talk about that before something may or may not happen. I don't want to insult you, I just think it's just not something that I would ever answer. Having to do with there or any other place in the world." 

CHRISTIAN LEADER IN LEBANON URGES US, ALLIES TO INTERVENE TO STOP HEZBOLLAH 

"We're trying to help very strongly and getting the hostages back, as you know, with Israel and the Middle East," Trump added Monday. 

"We're working very much on that. We're trying to get the war stopped, that horrible, horrible war that's going on in Ukraine with Russia. We're going to, we've got a little progress. It's a tough one. It's a nasty one. It's nasty," he also said. 

Hezbollah lost its most important supply route from Iran through Syria with the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, the group’s chief admitted Sunday. 

It was the first public acknowledgment of how upheaval in Syria had hurt the Iranian proxy, which had propped up Assad and is now fighting a war in Lebanon with Israel. Weapons to counter the Israeli campaign flowed from Iran through Syria and into Lebanon for Hezbollah. 

"Yes, Hezbollah lost in this phase its military supply line through Syria, but this loss is merely a detail in the overall of the resistance," said Naim Qassem in a televised address.

"The supply line might come back normally with the new regime, and we can always look for other ways, the resistance is flexible and can adapt," he added.

Assad’s ousting jeopardized Syria’s close ties to Iran. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the overthrow of Assad, had lamented that Syria had become a "playground for Iran." Hezbollah had fought off the rebel groups on Assad’s behalf. 

TURKEY SEEKS TO PURGE PRO-US KURDISH FORCE THAT HELPED DEFEAT ISLAMIC STATE IN SYRIA

As it became clear Assad’s grip on power was coming undone, Hezbollah and Iran’s military forces made their exit from Syria. 

Qassem took over as Hezbollah’s secretary general in October after its leader for three decades, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in Israeli airstrikes south of Beirut. Hezbollah and Iran had long intervened on behalf of Assad in Syria’s 13-year civil war, but depleted by war with Israel, refused to come to his defense during the swift takeover of Damascus. 

Israel has also used the chaos of Assad’s fall to destroy the Syrian army’s strategic and chemical weapons in more than 350 airstrikes across the country. And it has moved into the buffer zone that separates it from Syria – the first time the Golan buffer zone has seen Israeli forces since 1973. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is not interested in meddling in Syria’s domestic politics but is looking to protect Israel’s borders. "We have no interest in a conflict with Syria. We will determine Israeli policy regarding Syria according to the reality on the ground," he said Sunday, adding Israel would continue to strike "as necessary, in every arena and at all times" to prevent the rebuilding of Hezbollah. 

SYRIAN DICTATOR BASHAR ASSAD FLEES INTO EXILE AS ISLAMIST REBELS CONQUER COUNTRY 

HTS, a former al Qaeda affiliate, has sought to portray itself as a moderating force in Syria, and the U.S. has been in direct contact with the leading rebel group. But Israel is leery of the group’s long-term intentions. 

"The immediate risks to the country have not disappeared, and the latest developments in Syria are increasing the intensity of the threat – despite the moderate appearance rebel leaders are pretending to portray," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday.

Hezbollah kicked up its cross-border attacks on Israel after Oct. 7, 2023, in support of Hamas, another Iranian proxy. Since late November, the cease-fire has mostly held, despite some Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah operatives. 

Qassem defended his decision to stick to the cease-fire, saying it did not mean the end of Hezbollah's "resistance," but was necessary to "stop the aggression" of Israel in Lebanon. 

• F-35 combat operations have often been against terrorist and militant targets.
• Israel used the fighter jet in widespread strikes against Iran in late October.
• The success of that operation underscores the F-35's ability to battle higher-level threats.

F-35 stealth fighters have been flying combat missions in the Middle East for years now, though largely in permissive airspace against lower-level targets. The jet's recent victory against Iran's air defenses, however, highlights its ability to combat higher-level threats.

Britain's top military officer shared last week that when Israel used its fifth-generation F-35s to execute retaliatory strikes against Iran in late October, it wiped out nearly all of Tehran's air defenses and hammered its missile production sites.

The suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses through penetrating strikes — that is the kind of higher-level mission for which the jet was made.

The F-35 has historically been used against weaker targets with either limited or nonexistent air defenses. Israeli F-35s have previously battled Syrian surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft batteries and engaged in strikes on Iranian targets, but the expensive fighter jet has largely been employed against non-state actors like ISIS, the Taliban, and the Houthis.

Israel's recent operation against Iran, which fielded very capable Russian-made surface-to-air missile systems, emphasizes how the jet is capable of engaging in combat at a higher level.

Mark Gunzinger, a retired US Air Force colonel who flew the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, told Business Insider that without the F-35, it would've probably been "a far more risky mission."

The 'power' of the F-35

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is an advanced single-engine, multi-role strike stealth fighter jet made by American defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Multiple variants of the aircraft are in use by several countries, including Israel.

Michael Bohnert, a licensed engineer at the RAND Corporation, said that the F-35 was designed to replace existing fighter jets like the F-117, F-16, and F/A-18 with increased stealth, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and other capabilities.

"The F-35 is a great plane conceived out of the 1990s Pax Americana," Bohnert told BI.

Israel, which operates a subvariant of the F-35A model designed for air force operations, was the first to fly the fighter jet in combat in 2018. The US military has since used it in missions across the Middle East.

The F-35 fighter faced probably its most daring operation in late October, when Israel struck Iran in response to Tehran's huge missile attack at the start of the month.

"Israel used more than 100 aircraft, carrying fewer than 100 munitions, and with no aircraft getting within 100 miles of the target in the first wave, and that took down nearly the entirety of Iran's air-defense system," said Adm. Tony Radakin, the UK's chief of defense staff.

Radakin, speaking in London at a December 4 lecture hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, said Israel demonstrated "the power" of jet and the "disproportionate advantage of modern ways of fighting" in its strikes against Iran.

His remarks appeared to mark the first confirmation from a Western government that Israel used the fifth-generation aircraft in the strikes. It was reported shortly after the operation that Israel flew its F-35s and fired air-launched ballistic missiles.

Radakin's praise of the F-35 came after Elon Musk criticized the jet and dismissed its stealth capabilities. The aircraft is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program, but it is widely considered a key warfighting capability for US allies and partners.

The F-35 is not just a fighter jet; it also acts as a bomber with penetrating ISR capabilities, a battlespace command and control platform, and an electronic warfare aircraft.

"The F-35's capabilities are not a theory — they're a reality," said Gunzinger, the director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, "and now they're proven in combat against Russian-imported S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries that have been touted as the answer to stealth."

Bohnert said the F-35 "did exactly what it was designed to do" against Iran.

In the aftermath of the strikes on Iran, an Israeli security official told BI that the hits "accurately targeted" Iran's radar and air-defense systems, putting the country at a "disadvantage."

While the F-35 demonstrated its combat prowess against Iran, the jet would face a tougher fight in a conflict between Western powers and Russia or China, which field more advanced air-defense systems and have their own fifth-generation aircraft.

And the F-35 isn't without its own challenges. The program faces rising costs and readiness issues. Mission capable rates are declining, even as program costs go up. Bohnert said it will be important to increase the aircraft's maintenance and logistics capacity for any higher-end conflict.

Still, the F-35 is demonstrating its combat potential today, as Radakin and others have said. And the fighter jet's advanced combat capabilities are not lost on Congress, where House lawmakers in their 2025 fiscal year defense spending bill called for more F-35s than what the Pentagon initially requested.

The jet's development came with more than its fair share of difficulties, but, Gunzinger said, the "F-35s today are operational and ready for the fight."

• Mysterious aircraft sightings have been reported around New Jersey lately.
• The incidents have fueled theories, including that Iran may have launched the systems from a ship.
• Iran does have drone-carrying vessels, but satellite images show they're far from the US right now.

Newly captured satellite imagery shows that Iran's drone carriers are off its southern coast, thousands of miles away from the eastern United States.

The images back up the Pentagon's refutation of a New Jersey lawmaker who suggested that one of the Iranian ships was operating nearby and responsible for the rash of reported drone sightings in the congressman's state lately.

An image captured on Thursday by Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite-imagery operation, and obtained by Business Insider shows three Iranian vessels that were modified to carry drones in the Persian Gulf off the southern coast of Iran.

Iran's drone ships aren't anywhere near the US. There's been significant hysteria surrounding developments in New Jersey, with some misidentifying crewed aircraft as drones. That doesn't, however, mean the US doesn't have a drone problem.

The military has been increasingly concerned about the threat posed by drones, which lower the barrier to entry for surveillance and attack operations, as has been seen in global conflicts and a range of incidents in the US.

The New Jersey sightings

Since mid-November, dozens of suspected drones have been spotted at night flying over New Jersey, including near several military installations, raising concern among civilians and state officials and drawing comparisons to similar incidents in other areas.

US Northern Command said it was "aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey," including near the Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle.

A drone swarm was also observed near a US Coast Guard vessel off the Jersey coast, and local police in the state have also detailed incidents around critical infrastructure such as water reservoirs and train stations.

The Pentagon has assessed that the drones don't appear to be the work of a foreign adversary or entity, but there doesn't yet appear to be any explanation for the mysterious incidents.

John Kirby, a White House National Security Council spokesperson, said the US had "no evidence" that the reported drone sightings were a national security or public safety threat. He added that the government hadn't been able to confirm the reported visual sightings and that some suspected drones were crewed aircraft operating lawfully.

Amid the confusion about the drones, which have been described as bigger than hobbyist drones and able to avoid detection, a theory about the reported drones emerged from Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who, citing "very high sources," said these drones were linked to an Iranian mothership.

"Iran launched a mothership, probably about a month ago, that contains these drones," the Republican congressman told Fox News on Wednesday, adding that "it's off the east coast of the United States of America." He said that "they've launched drones."

The Pentagon challenged that theory, saying that "there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States."

Iranian drone carriers

Iran has turned several container ships into militarized drone carriers in recent years. Satellite imagery disclosed that the newest of the vessels, the Shahid Bagheri, had left its berth for the first time by the end of November. There was some speculation the ship was off to sea trials.

Open-source intelligence accounts tracked these ships to Iranian coastal waters as recently as Wednesday. The new satellite images BI obtained show the vessels were still there as of Thursday, contradicting Van Drew's claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying drones could have been launched from hundreds of miles out at sea. The congressman stressed that the drones could be from another adversarial country such as China.

"Here's the deal," Van Drews said. "They don't know what it is. They don't know what it's about. They haven't taken one down to analyze it. They have no idea where it came from."

"We are not being told the truth," he said.

The congressman has said the drones should be shot down. There are real challenges, though, to employing some sort of kinetic or electronic-warfare countermeasures in civilian areas. The military has been grappling with this issue.

The military's drone problem

The reported New Jersey incidents aren't a new phenomenon. They follow other mysterious drone sightings, some around sensitive military sites in the US and overseas, such as Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and RAF Lakenheath in the UK, which hosts American forces and aircraft.

Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of Northcom and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said in October that there had been hundreds of drones reported flying over US military installations in recent years.

The general, according to reports on the roundtable discussion, said many might be hobbyists, but he also said the drone threat and the need to counter it were "growing faster" than the military could react to from a policy and procedure standpoint.

The Pentagon recently announced a new counter-drone strategy to address the growing threat posed by uncrewed systems operating over American soil and abroad to US installations and troops. The priority is figuring out better ways to defeat the threat.

"The Department is mitigating the potential negative effects of unmanned systems on US forces, assets, and installations — at home and abroad. A critical portion of our efforts, particularly in the near-term, comes from improving our defenses, with an emphasis on detection as well as active and passive defenses. The Department will ensure our forces and priority installations have protection," the Pentagon said in a fact sheet.

While US officials have said there's no clear link between the New Jersey incidents and America's adversaries right now, the developments still highlight concerns over the national security implications of drone incursions.

Just this week, for instance, federal investigators said a Chinese citizen residing in the US was arrested while preparing to board a China-bound flight after being accused of flying a drone and taking photos of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

• The Pentagon denied the claim that drones hovering over New Jersey were from an Iranian mothership.
• Rep. Jeff Van Drew made the claim to Fox News on Wednesday, citing "very qualified" sources.
• Federal, state, and local officials have been probing unexplained drone activity over the state.

The mysterious drones spotted hovering over New Jersey did not come from an "Iranian mothership," according to the Pentagon.

The statement was issued after dozens of drones were spotted across sensitive military locations across New Jersey.

Drones have also been seen over President-elect Donald Trump's New Jersey golf course.

Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew told Fox News on Wednesday that "very qualified" and "reliable" sources had indicated they came from an "Iranian mothership" in the Atlantic.

"They've launched drones into everything that we can see or hear," Van Drew said, adding that the drones should be "shot down."

Van Drew sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Aviation Subcommittee.

However, at a press briefing on Wednesday, Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary, said: "There is not any truth to that."

"There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones toward the United States," she said, adding that at this time, there is no evidence that these activities are coming from a "foreign entity or the work of an adversary."

The state police said on November 19 that officers had witnessed "drone activity" the night before over Morris County after rumors were "spreading on social media."

The officers' sightings prompted the FBI to open an investigation and the Federal Aviation Administration to impose flight restrictions.

Last week, Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, said he convened a briefing with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and senior officials from the DHS, the state's Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and the state's police to discuss reported drone activity.

On Monday, he told reporters they didn't have answers about where the drones were coming from or what they were doing but that he took the sightings "deadly seriously."

He said that 49 drone sightings were reported on Sunday alone, but the DHS, the FBI, the Secret Service, the state police, and authorities at all levels of government didn't have any concerns for public safety.

However, on Wednesday, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia dismissed the claim that there is no known or credible threat as "incredibly misleading."

In an X post, Fantasia described the drones as six feet large in diameter, operating in a coordinated manner, with lights turned off, appearing to avoid detection by traditional methods, and not identified as hobbyist drones or related to DHS.

"At this point, I believe military intervention is the only path forward," she said, adding: "There will be no answers in the absence of proactivity."

More than 20 mayors across New Jersey signed a letter on Monday calling for "transparency" about the investigations.

"Either higher-level officials know what's going on and are not concerned, or they are negligent for not apprehending and identifying one of these drones," they wrote, per reports.

The FAA told BI that it continues to support interagency partners to assess the situation and the reported sightings.

The FBI, the New Jersey State Police, and the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness didn't immediately respond to requests for comments from Business Insider.

With the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad over the weekend and a new White House on the horizon, Iranian resistance leaders and U.S. lawmakers alike have begun expressing hope that Iran will topple its own leadership in a similar fashion, with U.S. help. 

"There’s a real chance for regime change right now, that’s the only way you’re going to stop a nuclear weapon," Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador for International Religious Freedom, told Fox News Digital at a Senate panel on Iran on Wednesday. 

"It’s not just now or never, it's now or nuclear," he said, as Iran enriches uranium to near-nuclear-capable levels. 

A bipartisan group of senators spoke in support of toppling the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khameini – both through a return to former President Trump’s "maximum pressure" campaign through sanctions and supporting the Iranian resistance movement – a piece that was missing during the first Trump administration. 

Khameini has ruled Iran for 35 years. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF BASHAR AND ASMA ASSAD

"We have an obligation to stand together with allies in making sure this regime’s suppression will come to an end," said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., at the event, which was hosted by the Organization for Iranian American Communities. 

"Iran is projecting only weakness," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. "Now is the time to think about how we invest more in the core values that we all share: democracy, human rights, justice for everyone."

"I have, for a long time, been willing to call quite unequivocally for regime change in Iran," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R–Texas. 

It was a stronger message than has often recently been heard in Washington, D.C. circles, where there has been little appetite for getting further involved in the Middle East.

"The ayatollah will fall, the mullahs will fall, and we will see free and democratic elections in Iran. Change is coming and it’s coming very soon," the Texas Republican predicted.  

"We will return to a maximum pressure policy," he added, "cut the cruel regime from resources from every direction possible – we are going to shut down nuclear research facilities, we are going to cut off their oil." 

ISRAEL'S UN AMBASSADOR INSISTS NATION IS 'NOT GETTING INVOLVED' IN SYRIAN REGIME CHANGE

"There is a cottage industry in Washington to promote the goals and objectives of this regime," said Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. ambassador to Morocco. "You saw here there were Democratic senators to say to you, ‘We don’t buy this. We can make this a bipartisan effort.'"

The Biden administration has issued Iran sanctions waivers in hopes of future nuclear negotiations, and has expressed no interest in helping to topple the ayatollah. On Wednesday, Biden renewed a sanctions waiver granting Iran access to $10 billion in payments for energy from Iraq. 

And asked if he would like to see Iran change its ruling system, Trump told Iranian American producer Patrick Bet David in October: "We can't get totally involved in all that. We can't run ourselves, let's face it."

"I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is, they can't have a nuclear weapon," he also said. 

But Brownback, a Trump appointee, insisted the U.S. must involve itself in regime change through supporting Iran’s opposition.

"I think we need to support politically the opposition inside of Iran," he said. "Provide them equipment, provide them information… the regime is not just going to walk away. You’ve got to force them out." 

And Iran watchers believe the fall of Assad, who was heavily backed by Iran and its proxy force Hezbollah, is the perfect moment to do that. 

"The tectonic shift in the Syrian government… should mean to the people of Iran that change is in fact possible in the Middle East," said Gen. James Jones, former White House national security adviser and supreme allied commander of Europe. 

"The change in administration has already caused tectonic shifts in geographic alignments," he went on. "Appeasement does not work. Iranian regime does not do nuance."

Maryam Rajavi is president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the main resistance group in Iran.

"The people, who are deeply discontented and angry, along with the resistance units, who are part of the Army of Freedom and the main force of change in Iran, they are preparing an organized uprising," she told the panel. 

Rajavi and her political group have a 10-point plan for regime change that calls for rebuilding an Iranian government based on separation of religion and state, gender equality, abolition of the death penalty and denuclearization. 

"Our goal is not to seize power but to restore it to its rightful owners, the people of Iran and their vote."  

Unlike the first Trump administration, Iran is now facing military attacks on other fronts through its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It's unclear whether this weakened position would prompt them to bow to U.S. pressure or lash out even further. But one thing is clear: U.S. support for regime change would be a massive escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran with unknown consequences. 

President-elect Donald Trump described Richard "Ric" Grenell, his former acting director of National Intelligence, as a "fabulous person" and "A STAR" in response to a news report about him potentially serving as a special envoy for Iran.

Reuters reported that Trump is considering appointing Grenell to the position, citing "two people familiar with the transition plans." 

"He's definitely in the running," a person familiar with deliberations told the outlet under conditions of anonymity. Grenell, however, said the report is "made up."

Trump shared the Reuters report on Truth Social Wednesday night. While he did not confirm or deny the information in the article, he wrote, "Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR. He will be someplace, high up!"

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Grenell shared a link to the Reuters article on his X account on Wednesday evening and denied the information presented.

"Wrong. Again," he wrote. "I hope there’s an actual editor somewhere at @Reuters who is doing journalism. This is made up."

Grenell was previously rumored to be a candidate for various spots in Trump's second term, including Secretary of State before Sen. Marco Rubio was appointed and special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict before retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was selected.

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Whoever is chosen for the Iran position would be responsible for "developing, coordinating, and implementing the State Department's Iran policy," per the job description.

The person would report directly to Rubio – assuming the Senate approves his nomination.

Grenell has been a loyal ally to Trump since his first presidential term and often appeared on the 2024 campaign trail to show his support for the now president-elect.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Reuters for comment.

The Republican says it was launched a month ago off the east coast of the U.S. and should be shot down.

The Biden administration has renewed a controversial sanctions waiver that will allow Iran access to some $10 billion in payments from Iraq – an action that came just two days after President-elect Trump emerged victorious on Election Day.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken again extended the waiver for humanitarian trade, which permits Iran to access accounts in Iraq and Oman. However, Republican critics have said that allowing the Iranian regime access to these funds frees up money Iran can use to support terrorism in the Middle East or advance its nuclear program.

"On November 7th, the department did renew Iraq's electricity waiver for the 23rd time since 2018. It was done so for an additional 120 days," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel confirmed last week. 

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"We remain committed to reducing Iran's malign influence in the region. Our viewpoint is that a stable, sovereign and secure Iraq is critical to these efforts," he added, pointing out that this sanctions waiver began in 2018 during the first Trump administration. 

Congress has passed several sanctions targeting Iran that give the president authority to temporarily suspend, or "waive" the sanctions if the president determines doing so is in the interests of U.S. national security. 

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The waiver is set to expire after Trump takes office in January. It is unclear whether the Trump administration would again extend the sanctions relief. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, argued Tuesday that the sanctions waiver allows Iran to fund proxy terror groups that have attacked U.S. forces in the Middle East.

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"The House voted to eliminate these waiver authorities — twice. But the Biden administration is still waiving the sanctions, putting more money in the Iranian regime’s pockets to fund its terrorist proxies and nuclear weapons program," McCaul posted on X. 

"The U.S. should not be subsidizing Iran’s malign activities." 

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is looking for answers from the FBI after a selection by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the bureau was reportedly targeted by Iranian hackers. 

"For an Iranian-backed group to have targeted the potential next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is extremely alarming. Also alarming is the speed at which sensitive and potentially classified information about this attack spread to the news media," the North Carolina senator penned in a Monday letter to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. 

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It was reported by several outlets last week that Kash Patel, who Trump has chosen to be his nominee for FBI director in his new administration, was the target of an Iranian hacking attempt. 

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In response to reports of the hack attempt, Trump Transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told Fox News Digital, "Kash Patel was a key part of the first Trump administration's efforts against the terrorist Iranian regime and will implement President Trump’s policies to protect America from adversaries as the FBI Director." 

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In his letter, Tillis pointed to various law enforcement sources that apparently communicated with news publications. 

"As you know, it is imperative that the FBI and other intelligence agencies maintain confidentiality to ensure the American people are safe from enemies at home and abroad. The release of this information raises major national security and personal safety concerns," he wrote.

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The Republican asked Abbate a series of questions, including whether FBI employees shared information about the cyberattack with either media or with third parties that could've given it to media.

The FBI told Fox News Digital that it received the letter but had no further comment. 

Patel has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill and meeting with senators as he looks to shore up support before Trump is inaugurated in January. 

The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the culmination of years of civil war, has given way to a power vacuum with different factions protecting their own interests – and vying for power in the Middle Eastern nation. 

The U.S., worried about the resurgence of an ISIS stronghold, has struck targets associated with the Islamic State in central Syria. 

Turkey, which controls a zone of Syria on its northern border, has continued to attack U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. 

Both work with different proxy groups. 

Here’s a look at the different forces vying for control in the region:

HTS was the key faction behind the fall of Damascus and the fleeing of Assad, and now controls the capital city. But the Islamist militant group is far from a U.S. ally – its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head and has been designated a terrorist since 2013. The group governed just a sliver of northwest Syria in Idlib. 

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The group, founded as an al Qaeda affiliate, still remains largely aligned with al Qaeda but focuses on establishing fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria rather than a global caliphate. 

The U.N., U.S. and Turkey all designate HTS as a terrorist organization. The group, in recent years, has worked to soften its image and lobbied to be delisted as a terrorist group, highlighting its government services in Idlib and promising to protect religious and cultural sites, even churches, in Aleppo. 

Experts believe Turkey, which has long looked to topple Assad, may have been at play in HTS’ offensive. 

Syria’s forces loyal to Assad have staved off coup attempts since 2011, often through violent crackdowns on protests and rebellion. 

By 2020, government troops backed by Iran, Russia and Lebanese Hezbollah had pushed rebel forces back to the northwest corner of Syria. 

In the waning days of November, rebel factions swiftly overpowered government troops, seizing control of Aleppo – a city previously reclaimed by Assad's forces in 2016. Eight days later, the insurgents successfully captured not only Aleppo, but also Hama, Homs and Damascus.

On Monday, HTS granted Assad’s forces "a general amnesty for all military personnel conscripted under compulsory service."

"Their lives are safe and no one may assault them," the group said in a statement.

The SNA is a loosely bound coalition of Turkish-backed forces primarily intent on fighting Kurdish forces. But the coalition, which carries out Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s anti-Assad efforts, was also involved in the fall of Damascus. The groups have – in the past – also battled HTS and other Islamic State terrorists. 

The SNA coalition believes U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria to be linked to Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that has launched Kurdish nationalist attacks in Turkey.

SDF is a coalition of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, centered in northeastern Syria. They have long worked alongside the U.S. in battling Islamic State forces in Syria.

In addition to fighting the Islamic State, they’ve been fending off attacks from Turkish-backed fighters. 

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Kurdish forces were not involved in the offensive that toppled Assad, but they hailed the offensive campaign. 

"In Syria, we are living through historic moments as we witness the fall of the authoritarian regime in Damascus. This change presents an opportunity to build a new Syria based on democracy and justice that guarantees the rights of all Syrians," said Mazlum Abdi, the commander of the SDF, on Sunday morning. 

After relatively friendly relations with Syria throughout the early 2000s, Turkey condemned Assad over the violent 2011 crackdown on protesters. 

While Turkey and the U.S. are allies – bound to protect each other through NATO – they are on opposing sides in Syria, even as both celebrated Assad's downfall. The Turkish military fired on U.S.-backed forces in Syria over the weekend, where fighting erupted between rebel groups in Manbij, a Kurdish-controlled city near Syria's border with Turkey. Turkey has long had a goal of pushing the Kurds away from its border, and is looking to use the current turmoil to capture control along the border and decimate the Kurdish population there.  

Kurdish separatists have fought Turkey for years, looking to carve out their own autonomous nation. 

Russia has long propped up the Assad regime, and days ago granted the ousted leader asylum.

Since 2015, Russia has effectively acted as Assad’s air force, but its capacity to intervene on the dictator’s behalf has diminished since resources were needed for the war with Ukraine. 

Iran was Assad’s biggest supporter, providing arms and military advice and directing its proxy Lebanese Hezbollah to fight the insurgents. But Hezbollah had to direct its troops back to Lebanon to fight Israel, leaving Assad’s forces in a weakened position. 

HTS leader al-Golani lamented in a speech on Sunday that Syria had become "a playground for Iranian ambitions."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credited his forces’ weakening of Hezbollah for playing a key role in the fall of Assad. Israel has consistently launched strikes against Syria with the strategic aim of disrupting the channels Iran uses to supply arms to Hezbollah.

After Assad’s fall, Israel, on Sunday, struck Assad’s chemical weapons facilities within Syria, for fear of what hands they may fall into in his absence. 

Israel also captured control of a buffer zone within the Golan Heights, the first time they’ve captured territory in Syria since the war in 1973. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moved in on Sunday and told residents to remain in their homes until further notice. They said they needed to capture the territory to ensure border security. 

They also captured Mount Hermon – the highest point on the border between the two countries and a blind spot in their defenses that Iran had been exploiting to send low-flying drones. 

Some 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria, where they are partnered with the SDF to fight ISIS. 

On Sunday, President Biden said U.S. troops would remain there to "ensure stability." 

The U.S. carried out dozens of precision strikes on more than 75 ISIS targets in central Syria over the weekend to prevent the terrorist group from exploiting the unrest to rebuild. 

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"We're clear-eyed about the fact that ISIS will try to take advantage of any vacuum to re-establish its capability to create a safe haven," Biden said. "We will not let that happen."

Biden said the U.S. would support Syria's neighbors – Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel – "should any threat arise from Syria during this transition."

The president added that the fall of Assad created a "historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria."

• Rebels toppled the Assad regime in Syria after a brutal 13-year civil war.
• Once again, the region's power dynamics have been dramatically reshaped.
• And there are risks and opportunities for the US.

In a lightning two-week campaign that shocked the world, Syrian rebels led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group deposed Bashar Assad, the longtime ruler of Syria.

President Joe Biden cautiously welcomed Assad's removal on Sunday, calling it a "moment of historic opportunity."

With Assad gone, there is a lot at stake for the US, and analysts warn that it must work carefully to further its goals in the region, and avoid the country collapsing into chaos.

Burcu Ozcelik a senior research fellow for Middle East Security at the UK's Royal United Services Institute think tank, said Assad's defeat presents the US with an opportunity to further its longtime goal of denting Iranian regional power.

"With the overthrow of Assad, Iran has been dealt a strategic blow, meeting overarching US objectives to diminish and dismantle Iran's so-called axis of resistance," she said.

But Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab British Understanding, said that since the Arab Spring of 2011, the US has had no diplomatic relations with Syria, and its role in the country in recent years has largely been limited to defeating ISIS.

This means it is still figuring out how to handle the situation.

"All of a sudden, I think they're dusting down documents," he said of the US.

A divided country

When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, it quickly became a brutal struggle for power between rebel militias, government forces, and their powerful foreign backers, including the US, Turkey, Iran, and Russia.

The US provided training and support for some rebel groups, notably Kurdish militias and moderate groups, but stopped short of direct involvement in the conflict.

When Islamic State militia seized swaths of northeastern Syria in 2014, and used it as a base for terror attacks in the West, the US led an international campaign to destroy the group.

But it's played a largely limited role in the country since, and has around 900 troops in the northeast, whose task is to quash IS operations and defend the US' Kurdish allies.

This could limit its ability to play a larger role now.

Developing ties

Andreas Krieg, a Gulf specialist at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London, told BI that the US will likely limit its role to a "low-level campaign" fighting ISIS until a new authority is in place in Syria.

One key goal for the US will be to help restore order, defend its allies, and prevent another brutal power struggle among rival militias and religious groups that could spill over into neighboring countries.

According to Mohammed Albasha, founder of Basha Report, a Virginia-based consultancy specializing in Middle East affairs, the end of Assad's rule has led to a "significant security vacuum" that extremist groups could exploit to regroup and expand.

Against that backdrop, the "caretaker government may struggle to deliver basic services," worsening the already dire humanitarian situation, he said.

On top of that, he said the US will likely have to contend with Iran and Russia as they seek to rebuild influence. Both countries will likely act "swiftly" to strike favorable deals with emerging power brokers in Syria, he said.

"Without effective coordination, this could spiral into another civil war."

Iran's power damaged

For years, Iran helped prop up the Assad regime, providing vital economic and military support during the civil war.

With Assad gone, Iran's "Axis of resistance" of states and militias whose mission is to eradicate US regional influence and destroy Israel looks much weaker, according to the Royal United Services Institute's Ozcelik.

She added: "As the dust settles, Iran will seek to carve out a reformed role for itself in a post-Assad Syria in the months and years to come, but for now, Tehran is weakened in its foreign policy adventurism and reputation in the Middle East."

Russia has also suffered a defeat with the overthrow of Assad.

Russian forces played a key role in rolling back advances by rebels when Russia entered the conflict in 2015. According to reports, Assad and his family have taken refuge in Moscow.

With Assad gone, Russia may have lost access to strategically vital military bases in Syria.

Who will take over?

Speculation is swirling on who will take power in the vacuum left by Assad's deposal.

Among the key contenders is Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militia that played a central role in defeating Assad, and who fought alongside an Al Qaeda affiliate during the US occupation of Iraq.

The HTS — a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the United Nations — has controlled Syria's northwestern Idlib Province, where analysts say it worked to consolidate power and transform its image while pursuing its ultimate goal of toppling Assad.

But the group's roots as an affiliate of the terrorist group al Qaeda will likely be of concern in Washington, which has a $10 million bounty on the head of al-Jolani that US officials are now reportedly discussing removing.

"The terrorist designation of HTS and al-Jolani's own violent legacy in Iraq against American troops makes him far from an ideal partner for peace from the perspective of Western policymakers," said Ozcelik.

In a post on Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said the US should stay out of the conflict.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, an international organization formed to combat the threat from extremist ideologies, said the main US concerns revolve around whether the HTS would seek stable governance, or continued insurgency.

"Some aspects of their rule in Idlib have been exclusionary and tyrannical," he said, "yet they claim to have cut ties with Al-Qaeda and to embrace diversity (Christians, Kurds, etc.) as part of Syria's identity."

Yaniv Voller, a senior lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Kent, meanwhile, said he struggles to see how Washington could work with al-Jolani directly unless he completely abandons his jihadist rhetoric and animosity toward Israel.

"Jolani is associated with al Qaeda and throughout much of his 'career' has expressed staunch anti-American and anti-Western views," he said.

However, he said another risk is that Syria breaks into territories controlled by competing militias and warlords, which he said would turn Syria into a potential base for terrorist activities.

From a US perspective, that would arguably be far worse.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the fall of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria on Sunday and argued that it was a "direct result" of Israeli attacks on Iran and Hezbollah.

Netanyahu made the remarks in a public address shortly after news broke that Assad had fled Damascus on Saturday night with his family. Islamist rebels took over the city on Sunday. Netanyahu cautioned that the fall of the Assad regime is nevertheless "fraught with significant dangers."

"This is a historic day for the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers. This collapse is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters. It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression," Netanyahu said.

SYRIAN DICTATOR BASHAR ASSAD FLEES INTO EXILE AS ISLAMIST REBELS CONQUER COUNTRY

The Israeli leader also noted that the fall of the Syrian regime also prompted action by the Israel Defense Forces, who were forced to take positions abandoned by the Syrian Army near the border with Israel.

"But it also means that we have to take action against possible threats. One of them is the collapse of the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria. This agreement held for 50 years. Last night, it collapsed," he continued. "The Syrian army abandoned its positions. We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found."

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Netanyahu closed by offering a "hand of peace" to people in Syria, including to "Muslims who want to live in peace with Israel."

"Equally, we send a hand of peace to all those beyond our border in Syria: to the Druze, to the Kurds, to the Christians, and to the Muslims who want to live in peace with Israel. We're going to follow events very carefully. If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that's our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel," Netanyahu finished.

• Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has resigned and fled his country.
• Rebel forces said they seized control of the capital, Damascus.
• The collapse of Assad's government could have major global implications.

Syrians around the world celebrated as rebels, after more than a decadelong fight, finally toppled the country's longtime leader, Bashar Assad, on Sunday.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday that Assad had resigned from his position as Syrian president and left the country. Russian state news reported that Assad had arrived in Moscow, where he's been granted asylum.

Syrian anti-government forces announced early on Sunday morning that they had advanced into Damascus, Syria's capital.

In a post on social media, rebel commander Hassan Abdul-Ghani said: "We declare Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad."

"Today 8-12-2024 Syria is officially free," he added in a later post.

Hassan Akkad, who fled Syria in 2015 and is now based in the UK, posted to X, "Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free."

World leaders react

President-elect Donald Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday that Assad had "fled his country" after losing Russia's support.

"Assad is gone," Trump wrote. "His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer."

In a press briefing on Sunday, President Joe Biden called the fall of Assad's government "a fundamental act of justice" and "a moment of opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country."

Biden said the US would support Syria's neighbors Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel "should any threat arise from Syria during this transition." Biden said the United States would also "maintain our mission against ISIS" inside the country, referring to the terrorist group operating in the region.

The US military conducted at least a dozen airstrikes inside Syria on Sunday, "targeting ISIS camps and ISIS operatives," Biden said.

The United States will also support Syria through the United Nations to create a new government through a process determined by the Syrian people, Biden said.

"The United States will do whatever we can to support them, including through humanitarian relief, to help restore Syria after more than a decade of war and generational brutality by the Assad family," Biden said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a Sunday statement, echoed the president's sentiment, saying the US "will support international efforts to hold the Assad regime and its backers accountable for atrocities and abuses perpetrated against the Syrian people, including the use of chemical weapons and the unjust detention of civilians such as Austin Tice."

The Syrian people, Blinken added, "finally have reason for hope."

Kaja Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, called Assad's resignation "a positive and long-awaited development."

"It also shows the weakness of Assad's backers, Russia and Iran," Kallas said in a statement. "Our priority is to ensure security in the region. I will work with all the constructive partners in Syria and in the region."

Geir Pedersen, the UN's Special Envoy for Syria, said in a statement, "Today marks a watershed moment in Syria's history."

How rebels took control of Aleppo

In late November, the coalition of rebel groups launched a surprise offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which traces its origins to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. It has more recently promoted more moderate views.

The rebels quickly took control of Aleppo, one of Syria's largest cities, Hama, and the strategic city of Homs, which sits at an important crossroads linking Damascus to the coast.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of HTS, is a Syrian who fought against US occupation in Iraq with Al Qaeda. He is believed to have cut ties with the terrorist organization in 2016 but is still designated a terrorist by the US, which has placed a $10 million bounty on his head.

Al-Jolani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader and promoted messages of religious and ethnic inclusivity as HTS pushed toward Damascus. Still, HTS has a reputation as a hardline Islamist faction.

"This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation," Al-Jolani said in a speech to his followers this weekend, per a translation by CNN. "This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region."

What Assad's ousting means for Russia and Iran

The collapse of Assad's government could have significant global implications, especially for Russia and Iran, which have been two of Assad's strongest allies.

Moscow operates two major military facilities in Syria — the Hmeimim airbase and the Tartus naval base — which have given its forces crucial access to the Mediterranean Sea and a base to launch operations into Africa.

Losing access to these bases would scupper many of Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans in the region, Zineb Riboua, a research fellow and program manager at the Hudson Institute's Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, wrote on X: "Without a strong Russian military base in Syria, all of Putin's plans collapse."

While Russia intervened to prop up Assad in 2015, its priorities have since shifted to the war in Ukraine, and it had appeared reluctant to divert any significant resources to help Assad this time around.

On Sunday, Russia's foreign ministry said there was no security threat to its military bases in Syria but that they were on high alert.

For Iran, Syria has been part of an important land corridor stretching from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut, helping it support key regional proxies such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"For Iran, Syria is absolutely essential in order to maintain its proxy network," Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously told Business Insider.

But Tehran, too, has been distracted by its conflict with Israel, while Hezbollah has been left in disarray after Israel killed its longtime leader and wounded thousands of its fighters with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies.

In a separate post on TruthSocial on Saturday, Trump called on the United States to stay out of the situation in Syria, writing: "Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"

This story is being updated as the situation unfolds.

• Syria's embattled president is losing ground to advancing rebels after years of stalemate.
• In the past, Iran orchestrated the interventions that stopped the opposition forces' momentum.
• "I'm not sure Iran can muster the numbers in time to turn this situation around," an analyst said.

Since the early stages of Syria's bloody civil war that began in 2011, Iran has supported Syria's strongman president, Bashar Assad. Now with the loss of Syria's second city, Aleppo, to Assad's opponents, Tehran has vowed to continue this support — but it almost certainly has less to offer than a decade ago.

Syrian rebel forces spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group seized Aleppo in a shock offensive last week, surprising the world and returning the Syrian conflict to the headlines for the first time in years. The rebels did not stop there. Advancing in the face of Russian and Syrian airstrikes, they overran Syria's fourth-largest city, Hama, on Thursday.

"The Syrian government has lost a lot of terrain, including the city of Aleppo. You can't really overstate the seriousness of that," Aron Lund, a fellow with Century International and a Middle East analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, told Business Insider. "Aleppo is a huge city, a really large urban area that will be difficult to retake once lost if Assad is unable to move on it before the insurgents dig in."

Earlier in the Syrian conflict, Iran helped orchestrate interventions on Assad's side by its powerful Lebanese proxy Hezbollah in 2013, and Russia in 2015.

These decisive interventions helped him turn the tide, culminating in a ferocious, scorched-earth campaign against opposition groups in east Aleppo in 2016.

The latest offensive has prompted some outside intervention. Hundreds of Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq are entering Syria. Russia has carried out airstrikes to impede the opposition's advance. However, these are small-scale compared to past interventions. And Hezbollah isn't intervening for now.

"I'm not sure Iran can muster the numbers in time to turn this situation around," Lund said. "Hezbollah, which was Tehran's primary instrument in Syria over the past decade, is now stuck in Lebanon, tending to its wounds and trying to get back on its feet after being mauled by Israel over the course of a two-month war."

Hezbollah is estimated to have upwards of 100,000 fighters and a vast missile arsenal, but those have been battered by Israel's airstrikes and occupation of southern Lebanon.

"The Lebanon ceasefire is really brittle, and as long as conflict could re-erupt at any moment, I don't think Hezbollah has the manpower to spare," Lund said. "Even if they're able to send some men Assad's way, I doubt it would be a game-changing number."

Iran's other options are mobilizing more Iraqi militias or sending personnel from its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary or its regular army.

"It's possible that Iran will try to send more arms and ammunition," Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and founder and former director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told BI.

"It is also probably counting on Russian airstrikes to stall the HTS offensive and it is clearly having back-channel talks with Turkey," Slavin said. "The Turks may be angling to get Iran to turn a blind eye to new attacks on the Kurds in return for urging HTS to hit pause."

HTS is not a Turkish-controlled proxy like the self-styled Syrian National Army coalition of opposition militias that is also advancing across Aleppo province. However, Turkey has closely coordinated its army's deployment in Syria's Idlib with HTS, which has been the predominant power in that northwestern Syrian province for years now.

"Iran is also looking to cultivate a relationship with Trump, which further limits its freedom of maneuver in the region," Slavin said.

"Iran is in a terrible situation currently without the necessary military, economic, and political capacity to spare," Arash Azizi, senior lecturer in history and political science at Clemson University, told BI.

"Its myriad of problems includes the fact that many Iraqis are reluctant to get involved in a renewed war in Syria."

While Iran will undoubtedly remain committed to supporting Assad, it's unlikely to prove capable of organizing a 2016-style counteroffensive to recapture Aleppo.

"That would require a lot of planning and a lot of diplomatic bargaining with Turkey and other powers," Azizi said.

Century's Lund recalled that the last time Iran intervened to help Assad recapture Aleppo, it did so in close collaboration with Russia.

"If they're going to replicate that success now, the Russians would probably need to bring the air component," Lund said. "Iran has no air force to speak of and if Iranian jets were to show up in Syria, Israel would go after them immediately."

Russian jets and air defenses afford Iran some protection since Israel is more hesitant to clash with Russian forces than they are with Syrian or Iranian ones.

But it remains to be seen how much airpower Russia can spare with its fighters and bombers engaged in the invasion of Ukraine.

"It's worth noting that the Syrian conflict is so small-scale compared to Ukraine that even a relatively small contribution of assets could have an impact there," Lund said.

The Iraqi militiamen entering Syria are more likely to serve as a holding force to help Assad avoid losing more territory.

"Assad needs to hold onto the capital and its immediate environs if he has a chance to survive as Syrian leader," Stimson's Slavin said.

Since Syria doesn't have a sizable Shia minority like Lebanon, Iran has been unable to stand up a local proxy as effective or powerful as Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.

Any efforts Iran may take to help Assad coincide with its own priorities to seek an acceptable deal with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. "Iran also wants to at least try for a deal with Trump, so a more aggressive regional posture will not work as regional issues will be on the table this time along with the nuclear file," Slavin said.

As this crisis unfolds, it's striking how "unimportant and absent" the US has been, Azizi noted.

"The US has forces on the ground and also airpower that it has used to attack certain forces on Syrian territory," Azizi said. "But it's clearly not a main player and doesn't seem to have a clear, strategic goal or any particular focus on Syria."

And it remains unclear what President-elect Trump will do about Syria upon reentering office in January.

"As with most other matters, President Trump remains unpredictable," Azizi said.

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

• Iran has spent the past few years turning a container ship into a militarized drone carrier.
• New satellite images show the Shahid Bagheri has left its home port for the first time.
• The vessel's development highlights Tehran's efforts to project power farther out.

A container ship that Iran has spent the past few years turning into a militarized drone carrier has left its home port for the first time, recent satellite imagery obtained by Business Insider shows.

In an image captured on November 12 by BlackSky, which provides space-based real-time intelligence, the new Shahid Bagheri can be seen at an Iranian shipyard located along the Persian Gulf.

But an image captured a little more than two weeks later, on November 28, shows the Bagheri missing from its berth at the Iran Shipbuilding & Offshore Industries Complex, just west of the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

Open-source intelligence gathered by H I Sutton, an independent defense analyst, suggests that the Bagheri left the port to begin sea trials off Iran's coast. It's unclear if these are still ongoing. When asked to comment on the situation, a US defense official said the military does not provide assessments on adversary capabilities or actions.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Iranian security and defense affairs, told BI that the Bagheri's development underscores Tehran's efforts to project its power overseas — far beyond nearby waters.

Expanding Iran's reach

The Bagheri started as a container ship known as the Perarin, but in 2021, Iran began working on the vessel to transform it into a functional drone carrier for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.

At nearly 790 feet long, the Bagheri somewhat resembles a Soviet aircraft carrier with a distinctive ski-jump ramp, which was added in 2023. The ship's angled flight deck, used for launching and recovering drones, measures just under 600 feet.

It's unclear what type of drones — or how many — might be included in the Bagheri's future carrier air wing. It could consist of a mix of one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles, in addition to reconnaissance and strike platforms that can return to the after their missions are completed.

Nadimi said that the Bagheri will increase Iran's flexibility by allowing it to carry out long-range surveillance and strike missions and recover the drones used. In turn, Tehran can invest more in developing more sophisticated and larger systems that won't just be used for one-way attack operations.

The Bagheri isn't the only container ship that the Iranians have turned into a military vessel. Last year, the IRGCN commissioned the Shahid Mahdavi, a modified expeditionary sea base that was formerly known as the Sarvin. This vessel can carry helicopters, drones, special forces units, and missiles.

Earlier this year, the Mahdavi completed a weekslong deployment in the Indian Ocean. During this voyage, it sailed near a key US base on the island of Diego Garcia in what appeared to be a demonstration of Tehran's reach to the American military.

Nadimi said that the IRGCN's push to convert merchant ships into sea bases and drone carriers reflects its desire to engage in longer-range operations farther from Iran, possibly in an attempt to mirror the US Navy aircraft carriers that regularly deploy to the region.

The capabilities of the Bagheri and Mahdavi don't come close to those of the American carriers, which can launch and recover advanced fighter jets and travel with smaller but powerful warships. However, the Iranian vessels could still have an impact in an asymmetrical naval warfare role, especially if they're armed with missiles, helicopters, and drones.

The Middle East has seen a sharp increase in unconventional naval warfare in recent years, ranging from Iranian harassment of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to the missile attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes carried out by Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Heavily armed drone carriers like the Bagheri could allow Iran to engage in this kind of warfare at greater distances rather than being constrained to its neighborhood or having to rely on proxy forces.

"They should be considered a threat not only to sea lines of communication and freedom of shipping and things like that but also to coastal and inland facilities and infrastructure as well," Nadimi said.

• The UK's top military officer confirmed Israel used F-35s during its October strikes against Iran.
• Adm. Tony Radakin said the operation demonstrated the "power" of fifth-generation aircraft.
• His remarks came after Elon Musk criticized the F-35 and its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.

Israel showed the "power" of the F-35 stealth fighter jet during its late October retaliatory strikes against Iran, Britain's top military officer said on Wednesday.

Adm. Tony Radakin, the UK's chief of defense staff, disclosed that Israel used its F-35s to carry out the widespread October 26 strikes against military sites across Iran, including air-defense systems and missile-manufacturing facilities.

It appeared to mark the first confirmation from a Western government that Israel had used its fifth-generation aircraft in the operation, which came in response to a massive Iranian missile attack at the start of the month. It was reported at the time that Israel flew its F-35s and fired air-launched ballistic missiles.

"Israel used more than 100 aircraft, carrying fewer than 100 munitions, and with no aircraft getting within 100 miles of the target in the first wave, and that took down nearly the entirety of Iran's air-defense system," Radakin said during a Royal United Services Institute lecture in London.

"It has destroyed Iran's ability to produce ballistic missiles for a year and left Tehran with a strategic dilemma in how it responds. That is the power of fifth-generation aircraft, combined with exquisite targeting and extraordinary intelligence," Radakin said. "And that was all delivered from a single sortie."

He said the operation demonstrated the "disproportionate advantage of modern ways of fighting." Business Insider contacted the Israel Defense Forces about Radakin's remarks but has yet to receive a response.

The F-35 is a single-engine, multi-role stealth aircraft made by the US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. There are several variants of the fighter jet, which took its first flight nearly 20 years ago and is now flown by a handful of countries around the world.

Israel was the first to use the F-35 in combat in 2018. It operates just under 40 F-35I jets, a subvariant of the F-35A model, though this fleet is set to expand to 75 in the coming years.

The F-35I is Israel's only fifth-generation aircraft. It also has older, American-made F-16 and F-15 fighter jets.

Radakin's praise of the fifth-generation platform came after Elon Musk criticized the F-35, which is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program but widely considered a cornerstone of US airpower. The SpaceX CEO and advisor to President-elect Donald Trump took to social media last month to rag on the aircraft over its design and brush off its stealth capabilities. Airpower experts quickly pushed back on some of his remarks.