AP, Bassem Mroue
Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah
group mourned on Friday the killing in Syria of its top military
commander, Mustafa Badreddine, who died in an explosion in Damascus — a
death that is a major blow to the Shiite group, which has played a
significant role in the conflict next door.
Badreddine, 55, had been the mastermind of the group’s involvement in
Syria’s civil war since Hezbollah fighters joined the battle on the side
of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces against those trying to
remove him from power, according to pro-Hezbollah media. Hezbollah,
along with Iran, has been one of Assad’s strongest backers.
But there was little information as to how he was killed. Hezbollah said
the attack occurred near the Damascus airport without giving details.
The airport is close to the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab where the
group has wide presence and several military positions.
Hezbollah said several others were wounded in the blast and that it was
investigating the nature of the explosion — whether it was the result of
an air raid, missile attack or artillery shelling.
It didn’t say when the explosion happened, and Hezbollah’s media office
said they also had no information about the timing of the attack. On
Tuesday night, Hezbollah denied reports that Israel’s air force targeted
a Hezbollah convoy on the Lebanon-Syria border.
The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to the Lebanese Shiite
group, earlier said Badreddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike but
later removed the report.
Badreddine (“Ba-dre-deen”) 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. The trial is
ongoing near The Hague, Netherlands. A billionaire businessman, Hariri
was Lebanon’s most prominent politician after the 15-year civil war
ended in 1990.
Hezbollah denies involvement in Hariri’s assassination and says the charges are politically motivated.
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 and
adviser to the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Badreddine’s nom de guerre, Zulfiqar, was the name of double-headed
sword of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law and the
Shiite sect’s most sacred martyr.
“The message is that a martyred commander has joined the convoy of
martyred leaders,” Hezbollah Cabinet Minister Hussein Haj Hassan told
The Associated Press. “He boosts us with his martyrdom with strength,
glory, will and intention to continue the fight against the Zionist
enemy and the takfiris (Sunni extremists) until victory is achieved, God
willing.”
One of the group’s most shadowy figures, Badreddine was also known by
aliases Elias Saab and Sami Issa. He was only known to the public by a
decades-old black-and-white photograph of a smiling young man wearing a
suit until Hezbollah released a new image of him in military uniform.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions twice on Badreddine for
his involvement in the Syrian war, in 2011 and in 2015. According to
U.S. officials, Assad and Nassrallah coordinated Hezbollah’s actions in
Syria on a weekly basis, with Badreddine present at top Damascus
meetings.
Badreddine was also known for his expertise in explosives, apparently
developing what would become his trademark explosive technique by adding
gas to increase the power of sophisticated explosives.
In its statement announcing his death, Hezbollah said “a strong
explosion targeted one of our centers near the Damascus International
Airport, leading to the martyrdom of brother commander Mustafa
Badreddine and wounding several others.” It said Badreddine was a “great
jihadi leader” and that he had joined “the convoy of martyrs, on top of
them his comrade and close friend Mughniyeh.
Top Hezbollah officials, including the group’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim
Kassem, attended a mourning ceremony at a hall in southern Beirut on
Friday, where Badreddine’s family members were receiving condolences.
In an emotional gesture of grief, Badreddine’s brother Adnan raised his
hand to touch a giant poster of the killed Hezbollah operative.
Badreddine’s only son, Ali, wept, as top Hezbollah official Hashim
Safieddine hugged to comfort him.
A funeral was to be held Friday afternoon at a Shiite cemetery south of
Beirut where Badreddine was to be laid to rest next to Mughniyeh, who
was also his brother-in-law.
Badreddine 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 where he was sentenced to death and imprisoned for years
until he fled jail in 1990 after Iraq’s Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded
Kuwait.
Since Hezbollah was founded in 1982, Israel has killed some of the
group’s top leaders. In 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed the
motorcade of Nasrallah’s predecessor, 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.
In December, high profile militant Samir Kantar, who spent 30 years in
an Israeli prison, was killed along with eight others in an airstrike on
a residential building in Jaramana, a Damascus suburb.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Hezbollah has paid a very steep price for its public and bloody foray
into Syria’s civil war, where more than 1,000 fighters have been killed.
Once lauded in Lebanon and the Arab world as a heroic resistance
movement that stood up to Israel, his staunch support for Assad has been
criticized at home, even among his Lebanese support base.
The Arab League designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in March. A month earlier, Saudi Arabia
cut $4 billion in aid to Lebanese security forces after Lebanon’s
Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil declined to join Arab and Islamic league
resolutions critical of Iran and Hezbollah.
The predominantly Sunni Gulf Arab states, led by the kingdom, have taken
other punitive measures. They have warned their citizens against
traveling to Lebanon as well as cut Lebanese satellite broadcasts, and
closed a Saudi-backed broadcaster in Lebanon. The Gulf countries are
also expelling Lebanese expatriates they say have ties to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, which maintains a dominant militia force in Lebanon, has also
aligned itself with the Saudi-opposed Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen’s
civil war.
Hezbollah’s statement quoted Badreddine as saying in Syria a few months
ago: “I will only return from Syria as a martyr or carrying the banner
of victory.”
