DAMASCUS - Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani met with leaders of the radical Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as the head of the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Iranian sources said Thursday.

Rafsanjani is on a four-day visit to the Syrian capital amid worldwide alarm over Iran's announcement Tuesday that it had successfully enriched uranium, a process that can lead to the production of fuel for nuclear power plants or the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

"The Palestinian resistance has today reached a new phase which requires the support of all Muslim countries... to reach victory," Rafsanjani said, according to an Iranian source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rafsanjani met Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah late Wednesday at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the source said.

Nasrallah said that Iran's ability to enrich uranium would "be a large moral boost to the resistance."

An Iranian diplomatic source also said that on Wednesday night Rafsanjani met Hamas's political supremo Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad's secretary-general Ramadan Shaleh.

"The Muslim world is proud that Tehran has acquired nuclear technology," Meshaal reportedly said during their meeting.

"Uranium enrichment provides a great deal of moral support to the Palestinian people and heroes of the resistance," he said.

Rafsanjani assured that Iran would continue its support for the Palestinian resistance and criticized "Western states that have suspended aid the Palestinian Authority."

Rafsanjani also met with Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otri and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem over "external pressures confronting Syria and Iran," the official SANA news agency said.

On Wednesday, Rafsanjani vowed Tehran would not give in to UN pressures to halt its enrichment of uranium, which he hailed as a great achievement.

Tehran's announcement put Iran on a collision course with the UN Security Council, which has given the country until April 28 to accede to demands that it halt enrichment or face possible sanctions.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is aimed purely at producing nuclear power, but the country is widely suspected of using it to conceal efforts to develop atomic weapons.

Asked about international pressures on Syria over issues ranging from its alleged interference in neighboring Lebanon to alleged support for Iraqi rebels, Rafsanjani said Wednesday: "Iran and Syria are in the same boat."

Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's powerful Expediency Council, is slated to hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad at some point during his visit.

On Friday, Rafsanjani is to visit the tomb in Qarhaba of the president's father and predecessor in office, Hafez al-Assad. The following day, he is set to visit Shiite Muslim holy sites in Damascus before heading home.

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