Top Hezbollah commander killed

Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest ranking officials in the group, and assessed by the US government to be responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria, where it is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

The Lebanese group Hezbollah said Badreddine had been killed in a big explosion targeting one of its bases near Damascus airport, and an investigation was on to find out whether it was caused by an air strike, a missile attack, or artillery bombardment. The Lebanese TV station alMayadeen earlier reported he had been killed in an Israeli attack. 

There was no immediate response from Israel. Israel has attacked Hezbollah targets inside Syria several times during the five-year conflict. “We decline to comment,” an Israeli military spokeswoman 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 in strategic coordination meetings with Assad in Damascus. 

Badreddine, brother-in-law of the late Hezbollah military commander, Imad Moughniyah, was indicted by the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the 2005 killing of statesman Rafik al-Hariri. 

He was sentenced to death in Kuwait for his role in bomb attacks in 1983. He escaped from prison in Kuwait after Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded the country in 1990. 

For years, he masterminded military operations against Israel from Lebanon and overseas and managed to escape capture by Arab and Western governments by operating clandestinely.