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Slain Hezbollah military commander Mustafa Badreddine.
Hezbollah says its top military commander had been killed in an attack in Syria in a major blow to the coalition supporting the Damascus regime.
The Lebanese group said it was still investigating the cause of the blast near Damascus airport but it did not immediately point the finger at Israel as it did when Mustafa ÂBadreddine’s Âpredecessor was assassinated in the Syrian capital in 2008.
The death of ÂBadreddine, who had led Hezbollah’s massive intervention in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, came as a fragile truce in the country’s five-year conflict teetered on the brink of collapse.
A six-day-old ceasefire in battleground second city Aleppo expired on Thursday without Ârenewal and rebel sniper fire on the government-held sector of the city killed two civilians, one of them a woman.
Badreddine had been a key player in Hezbollah’s military wing virtually since its inception.
He was on a US terror sanctions blacklist, was a key suspect in the 2005 assassination in ÂBeirut of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and was one of Israel’s most wanted men.
The Shia militant group, which dominates Lebanon’s government, did not specify which of Badreddine’s many Âenemies it held responsible for his death.
“According to preliminary reports, a large explosion targeted one of our positions near DamÂascus international airport killing brother commander Mustafa Badreddine and wounding other people,†it said.
“We are going to pursue an inquiry to determine the nature and causes of the explosion and ascertain whether it was the Âresult of an airstrike, a missile or artillery fire.â€
Badreddine’s predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh, his cousin and brother-in-law, was killed in ÂDamascus 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 it did in 2008, but Israeli media Âunderlined Hezbollah’s failure to point the finger.
In its 2012 terror blacklisting of Badreddine, Washington charged that he was the key pointsman for Hezbollah’s operations in Syria alongside major foreign backer Iran in support of Assad’s regime.
“Badreddine is assessed to be responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria since 2011, including the movement of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon to Syria, in support of the Syrian regime,†the US Treasury said. “Since 2012, Badreddine Âco-ordinated Hezbollah military Âactivities in Syria,†it said, adding he liaised personally with Assad.
His funeral was to be held in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut at 5.30pm (12.30am today AEST).
Hezbollah’s intervention was vital in shoring up Assad’s Âregime at its lowest point in the war against rebels backed by Gulf Arab and Western countries. Its fighters secured most of the Lebanese border region, Âcutting vital rebel supply lines, and reasserted government control in most of the southern suburbs of Damascus, including the Sayyida Zeinab Shia shrine district, revered by Hezbollah’s followers and by its Iranian backers.
The intervention of Moscow last September in support of ÂDamascus has sharply expanded the military coalition backing it.