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3. From Strategic Depth to Strategic Disruption: Hezbollah’s Next Move in Syria

Hezbollah is seeking to disrupt Syria’s security, according to the country’s authorities. They accused the Iran-backed group, which fought alongside Bashar Assad’s ousted regime, of providing weapons to a cell that conducted rocket attacks on Damascus’s Mazzeh district.

The authorities said they seized weapons, including several drones prepared for terrorist attacks, and blamed Hezbollah for supplying them. But why would Hezbollah, still reeling from military setbacks inflicted by Israel in 2024, seek to maintain a foothold in Syria after its former regime allies were removed from power?

Hezbollah’s moves in Syria are dictated by Tehran, which suffered a painful blow with Assad’s toppling, and is trying to compensate for the strategic setback by unsettling the new administration in Damascus, led by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, according to analysts interviewed by This is Beirut.

“Hezbollah is working for the interests of the Iranian regime. Any instability in Syria serves Iran, as it would allow it easier and larger movement especially after the blows that Hezbollah suffered at the hands of Israel,” argued Lebanese-Syrian political analyst Alia Mansour.

“Hezbollah and Iran realize that without Syria there’s no hope of reviving Iran’s project in the region. They believe that destabilization is not impossible through tapping on internal and external actors who have been harmed by the fall of Assad’s regime,” she added.

“Today, a cornered Hezbollah benefits from instability in Syria so that it can use Syrian territory to smuggle weapons and drugs, a main source of income.”

According to security analyst Riad Kahwaji, Iran likely sees Hezbollah’s activities in Syria as part of a broader effort to preserve what remains of its regional security architecture after suffering major blows in the Levant — namely Hezbollah’s weakening in Lebanon and Assad’s fall.

“Hezbollah is acting on behalf of Iran. It is aiming to undermine Sharaa’s regime, hoping that it will fall into chaos, providing the group with the opportunity to re-establish itself and rebuild the land corridor that connected Iran with Lebanon via Iraq and Syria,” Kahwaji said.

Syria’s new authorities have worked to stop the smuggling of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Israel has conducted airstrikes along the Lebanese-Syrian border aimed at trying to prevent such shipments.

In December 2024, following the fall of the Assad regime, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said that his organization had “lost its military supply route through Syria,” while voicing hope this supply corridor could be revived.

“While it no longer has a direct foothold in Syria, Hezbollah does have allies and connections that it had developed during its large-scale military presence from 2011 until the collapse of Assad’s regime,” Kahwaji said.

“These have been helping the group traffic weapons from Iraq and from arms depots that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the former regime had scattered in many parts of the country,” he added.

Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters to Syria during the civil war to help shore up the Assad regime, playing decisive roles in battles against opposition forces. The intervention advanced Iran’s strategic aims but cost Hezbollah dearly. Between September 2012 and February 2016, at least 865 of its fighters were killed in Syria, according to the Washington Institute.

The organization denied its involvement in the December 9, 2025 and January 3, 2026 rocket attacks in Damascus, saying that it no longer has a presence in Syria and does not maintain ties with any groups in the country. Hezbollah has been cautious in its public statements on Syria, voicing support for unity in the country while saying it hopes Damascus will eventually adopt a stance in line with Iran’s Axis of Resistance against Israel.

Syrian activists have accused Hezbollah of providing assistance to the anti-Sharaa forces, including in the Alawite coastal heartland of the ousted Assad regime. On July 26, 2025, Syria’s Interior Ministry announced it had arrested the head of an insurgent cell in Latakia, saying he was receiving logistical support from Hezbollah.

Imad Salamey, a political science professor at the Lebanese American University, argues that Hezbollah still has the capacity to disrupt Syrian security, despite the military setbacks suffered by the group in Lebanon.

“Hezbollah could be tasked with backing groups opposed to the new order. In that sense, Hezbollah’s security implications in Syria are not eliminated; they are simply transformed into more flexible and less visible forms of influence,” Salamey said.