“The enemies tried to use this Takfiri and inhuman group (Daesh) to cause trouble for the resistance current, but the pious youth took action in a motivated manner and brought the enemy to its knees,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a gathering of Iranian Basij (voluntary) forces, held in Tehran on Wednesday.
The Leader also hailed the high morale of popular forces as the main factor in the elimination of “the cancerous tumor of Daesh”.
Describing the influential role of young Iranian forces in the region as a “miracle” of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “You young folks have been able to bring the arrogant America to its knees and defeat it.”
The Leader went on to say that the successive defeats the enemies have suffered in the region confirm Iran’s power and capabilities.
Several plots hatched by the US, Zionism and the reactionary states in the region have been thwarted thanks to Iran’s might, the Leader added, referring to the destruction of Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate as one example.
On November 19, the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group was flushed out of its last stronghold in Syria’s Al-Bukamal. The city’s liberation marked an end to the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate it had declared in 2014.
Daesh militants made swift advances in northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large areas of Syria.
But the timely support by Iran helped Syria and Iraq fight off Daesh. In addition, formation of military units by volunteers in Iraq, known as Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Units, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and later made the terror group withdraw from the territories it had occupied.