The man believed to be Hezbollah’s most senior military commander in Syria’s war has been killed in Damascus. Mustafa Amine Badreddine died in a large explosion near Damascus airport, the lebanon-based militant group said in a statement on its al-Manar website.
Hezbollah supports Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and has sent thousands of fighters into Syria. In 2015, the US said that Badreddine was behind all Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria since 2011.
The US treasury, which imposed sanctions on Badreddine last July, said at the time he was behind the movement of Hezbollah fighters from lebanon to Syria, and was in charge of the key battle for the town of al-Qusair in 2013.
Badreddine was also charged with leading the assassination of former lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in the lebanese capital, Beirut, in 2005. Badreddine’s predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh, his cousin and brother-in-law, was killed in Damascus in 2008 in an attack that drew immediate threats by Hezbollah of heavy retaliation against Israel.
It made no such threats after Badreddine’s death. Israel made no comment, as was also the case in 2008, but Israeli media underlined Hezbollah’s failure to apportion blame.