Iran-backed Islamist group Hezbollah has confirmed that its top military commander in Syria has been killed by a massive explosion near the capital of Damascus in an attack the Shia group blamed on Israel.
It has not been reported when Mustafa Badreddine died, or what caused the blast, but in announcing his death on Friday Hezbollah said an ongoing investigation is seeking to confirm whether it was the result of an air strike, a missile attack, or an artillery bombardment.
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A top former Israeli security advisor publicly welcomed Badreddine’s death, but officials have refused to be drawn on Israel’s possible involvement.
Badreddine’s death is the biggest loss to Hezbollah since its military chief Imad Moughniyah was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. The commander was described by a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court as “untraceable ghost.”
Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest-ranking officials in the group, and was believed by the US government to be responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria, where it is fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad.
The killing of Badreddine, a brother-in-law of Moughniyah, is the latest blow sustained by Hezbollah and Iran in Syria despite Russian military intervention in support of Assad and his allies.
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.
‘We should not pre-empt the investigation but certainly Israel is behind this’
Nawar al-Saheli, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon’s parliament, said Israel was behind the killing. “This is an open war and we should not pre-empt the investigation but certainly Israel is behind this,” he told the Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar TV station. “The resistance will carry out its duties at the appropriate time.”
The Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen also reported Badreddine had been killed in an attack by Israel, which has struck Hezbollah targets in Syria several times since the conflict began in 2011.
There was no immediate response from Israel, which deems Hezbollah its most potent enemy and worries that it is acquiring more advanced weaponry.
Hezbollah, a political and military movement which is Lebanon’s most powerful group, has 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.
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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.
Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, said Badreddine’s killing was good news for Israel but stopped short of saying Israel was responsible.
“We don’t know if Israel is responsible for this,” he 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 US 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.
Announcing his death, Hezbollah cited Badreddine 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’s al-Manar TV said he would be buried at 5.30pm local time in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
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 UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik al-Hariri. The group denied any involvement and said the charges were politically motivated.
The US Treasury statement also 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.
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