Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, head of the Hezbollah Executive Council, pays his condolences to Ali Badreddine, the son of top Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine who was killed in an attack in Syria, in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon May 13, 2016.
Image by: AZIZ TAHER / REUTERS
Image by: AZIZ TAHER / REUTERS
Hezbollah's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine has been killed in a blast at a base near Damascus airport, the Lebanese Shi'ite group said on Friday, one of the biggest blows to its leadership the Iranian-backed organisation has ever sustained.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing and Hezbollah said it was still investigating the cause of the explosion.
At least one Hezbollah figure blamed the group's age-old enemy Israel, which has struck Hezbollah targets in Syria several times in the past since civil war started there in 2011. Israel declined to comment, but a former Israeli official said the government would be glad Badreddine was dead.
Hezbollah also has many other foes in Syria, where it fights in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad against a range of Sunni Muslim groups including Islamic State.
The U.S. government believed Badreddine, 55, was in charge of Hezbollah's military operations in Syria. He was a brother-in-law of Imad Moughniyah, Hezbollah's long serving military commander, who was killed by a bomb planted in his car in Damascus in 2008 that Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
The latest killing follows other recent losses for Hezbollah and Iran in Syria, despite Russian military intervention in support of Assad and his allies in a five year multi-sided civil war that has drawn in neighbouring states and world powers.
At least four prominent figures in Hezbollah have been killed since January 2015. A number of high-ranking Iranian officers have also been killed, either fighting Syrian insurgents or in Israeli attacks.
Hezbollah said an investigation was underway into whether the explosion at the base was caused by an air strike, a missile attack or artillery bombardment. It did not say when he was killed.
"This is an open war and we should not preempt the investigation but certainly Israel is behind this," said Nawar al-Saheli, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon's parliament. "The resistance will carry out its duties at the appropriate time."
When asked by an interviewer on Israel Radio about possible Israeli involvement, cabinet minister Zeev Elkin, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to comment.
Hezbollah, a political and military movement, is Lebanon's most powerful group, having grown stronger since forcing Israel to end its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. The sides fought a 34-day war in 2006, their last major conflict.
Israel deems Hezbollah its most potent enemy and worries that it is becoming entrenched on its Syrian front and is acquiring more advanced weaponry.
"We don't know if Israel is responsible for this," Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, told Israel's Army Radio. "Remember that those operating in Syria today have a lot of haters without Israel."
"But from Israel's view, the more people with experience, like Badreddine, who disappear from the wanted list, the better," he said.
A U.S. Department of the Treasury statement detailing sanctions against Badreddine last year said he was assessed to be responsible for the group's military operations in Syria since 2011, and he had accompanied Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during strategic coordination meetings with Assad in Damascus.
HIJACKERS SOUGHT HIS RELEASE
Announcing his death, Hezbollah quoted Badreddine as saying he would return from Syria victorious or as a martyr. A photo released by the group showed him before his death, smiling and wearing a camouflage baseball cap.
Hezbollah said he would be buried at 5:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) in the southern suburbs of Beirut. His death sparked wide condemnation from Lebanese political allies.
"His martyrdom is a big loss for the Lebanese in their fight against Israeli-Zionist aggression and Takfiri terrorism," Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil told Hezbollah's al-Manar TV in reference to Israel and Sunni miliant groups.
"His loss will leave a vacuum but the lesson is to continue on the path that he chose -- resistance and Jihad until victory is achieved."
Badreddine was sentenced to death in Kuwait for his role in bomb attacks there in 1983. He escaped from prison in Kuwait after Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded the country in 1990.
His release from jail in Kuwait was one of the demands made by the hijackers of a TWA flight in 1985, and of the hijackers of a Kuwait Airways flight in 1988.
For years, Badreddine masterminded military operations against Israel from Lebanon and overseas and managed to escape capture by Arab and Western governments.
Badreddine was also one of five Hezbollah members indicted by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik al-Hariri, one of Lebanon's most prominent Sunni Muslim figures. Hezbollah denied any involvement and said the charges were politically motivated.
The U.S. Treasury statement said he had led Hezbollah ground offensives in the Syrian town of al-Qusayr in 2013, a critical battle in the war when Hezbollah fighters defeated Syrian rebels in an area near the Syrian-Lebanese border.
Around 1,200 Hezbollah fighters are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian conflict. These include prominent fighters Samir Qantar and Jihad Moughniyah, the son of Imad Moughniyah, who were killed in separate Israeli attacks last year.
Hezbollah responded in both cases, though the incidents were contained, with the sides seeking to avoid any repeat of the 2006 war which exacted a heavy price in Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah accuses Israel of carrying out the 2008 killing of Moughniyah, who was on the U.S. most wanted list of attacks on Israeli and Western targets.
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