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Reports: Top Hezbollah commander killed in alleged air strike
Hezbollah has announced that one of its senior commanders, Mustafa Badraddine has been killed in Syria.
Although the Lebanese-based terror group did not explain how he died, some media reports have suggested that Badraddine was killed in an Israeli air strike earlier this week.
An announcement released by the group this morning said that Badraddine had become a “martyr” and described him as “the great jihadi leader”. It said that he “took part in most of the operations of the Islamic resistance since 1982″.
The announcement did not specify how Badraddine died, indicating only that there was an explosion at a base near Damascus’ airport. Hezbollah’s Al-Madayeen television originally reported that the explosion had been caused by an Israel Air Force strike on Tuesday. However, local media have since stopped reporting Israel’s alleged involvement. A Reuters report says that an Israeli military spokeswoman said “We decline to comment.”
Badraddine is thought to have constructed the bomb which killed 241 Americans at a US Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983. He was also tried in absentia at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, for the assassination of former-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
In addition, Badraddine was sentenced to death in Kuwait, but escaped under the fog of Saddam Hussain’s invasion in 1990. Last year the US Treasury Department announced sanctions on Badraddine, saying he has been “responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria since 2011.” He is credited with leading Hezbollah’s forces in fierce battles at the Lebanese border town of Qusair.
Badraddine is also thought to have been the successor to arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who headed Hezbollah’s military operations and was assassinated in Syria in 2008. Although Mughniyeh’s death has been widely attributed to Israel, such responsibility has never been confirmed.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recently indicated publicly for the first time that air strikes have been carried out in Syria, to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.