TEHRAN – President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi of Iran on Thursday said the axis of resistance, including and Hezbollah forces, has gained the “upper hand” in the region, saying the U.S., whose power is on the wane, has transferred Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorists from Syria to Afghanistan.

In a meeting with the families of Iranian martyrs in the shrine city of Qom on Thursday night, Raisi also said the American forces have been completely evicted from Afghanistan and the remaining of their forces are being driven out from Iraq and Syria.

“Today, the Americans are weaker than ever. In the region, Hezbollah forces and the (resistance axis) combatants, including Palestinians, have the upper hand and the initiative,” Tasnim quoted the president as saying.

Paying tribute to late Iranian commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and other martyrs for devoting their lives to security of the region, the president said the enemy has not backed off and transferred Daesh terrorists from Syria to Afghanistan.

Denouncing Daesh as a group created by the U.S. with the purpose of destabilizing the entire region, the president said such the group still poses a great threat to Afghanistan.

What guaranteed security in the region was the fortitude that the young, Muslim and firm believers displayed in the face of Daesh, he stated.

The president also said security of Afghanistan and Iran are interlinked. The two neighbors have great affinities and their fates are interconnected, he remarked.

Raisi renewed Iran’s call for the establishment of an inclusive government in Afghanistan that would represent all Afghan groups and ethnicities and would ensure clam for the entire Afghan citizens.

He also warned against attempts to threaten peace and security in Afghanistan, saying the attacks on mosques and killing of Muslims resemble the measures by the Zionists.

In comments in October, the Iranian president condemned the terrorist attacks in Afghanistan as a plot to incite religious division and war in the country, saying Daesh terrorists are seeking to accomplish the failed mission of the Western occupiers in that country.

More than 60 people were killed in three back-to-back explosions that hit the Bibi Fatima Mosque during Friday prayers on October 15, one of the biggest blasts in Kandahar. It came just a week after a bomb attack killed more than 150 people and left scores of others injured at a Shia Mosque in the northeastern city of Kunduz.

Both tragedies were claimed by a local affiliate of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which has a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shiite minority.