Hezbollah lost its most important supply route from Iran through Syria, the Lebanese militia’s chief Naim Qassem said, the first time he has publicly acknowledged how the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime has hurt the group’s ability to rearm after a punishing Israeli campaign.

The ascendance of Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria should be viewed with great caution by Western powers, but the Assad regime’s collapse disables a critical node in Iran’s regional proxy network, a counterterrorism expert explains.

The militant group’s leader admits that the toppling of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, cut off an important land route from Iran.

Hezbollah has lost one of its main supply routes because of the fall of the Syrian government, the group's leader confirmed in a televised statement Saturday.

A severely hobbled Hezbollah was in no position to help defend former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally, from the lightning-fast insurgency that toppled him.

Follow the latest on Syria For years, Hezbollah broadly castigated the Syrian rebels opposed to president Bashar Al Assad, labelling them terrorists as the Lebanese armed group sent thousands of fighters to prop up the regime in the neighbouring country.