Top Hezbollah Military Commander Killed in Syria

The death is the biggest blow to the militant group since the 2008 assassination of his predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh

Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group said Friday its top military commander Mustafa Badreddine was killed in an explosion in the Syrian capital of Damascus, a major blow to the militant group.

Badreddine, 55, had been supervising the group's involvement in Syria's civil war since Hezbollah fighters joined the battles along with President Bashar Assad's forces against militant groups trying to remove him from power, according to pro-Hezbollah media.

Hezbollah said several others were wounded in the blast. It said it was investigating the nature of the explosion and whether it was the result of an air raid, missile attack or artillery shelling. The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV that is close to the group earlier said Badreddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike but later removed the report.

Badreddine was one of four people being tried in absentia for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The 2005 suicide bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others was one of the Middle East's most dramatic political assassinations.

Badreddine's death is the biggest blow to the militant group since the 2008 assassination of his predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a bomb attack in Damascus. After that, Badreddine, known among the group's ranks as Zulfiqar, became Hezbollah's top military commander.

"Early information from the investigation shows that a strong explosion targeted one of our centers near the Damascus International Airport leading to the martyrdom of brother commander Mustafa Badreddine and wounded several others," Hezbollah said in a statement issued Friday.

Hezbollah said Badreddine was a "great jihadi leader" that he had joined "the convoy of martyrs on top of them his comrade and close friend Mughniyeh.

The group said it will be receiving condolences starting Friday morning in their stronghold south of Beirut.

Badreddine was the brother-in-law of Mughniyeh and was suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait that killed five people. He was detained in Kuwait and imprisoned for years until he fled jail in 1990 after Iraq's Saddam Hussein's forces invaded Kuwait.

Over the past 30 years, Israel has killed some of the group's top leaders. In 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed the motorcade of Sayyed Abbas Musawi, killing him, his wife, 5-year-old son and four bodyguards. Eight years earlier Hezbollah leader Sheik Ragheb Harb was gunned down in south Lebanon.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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