Lebanese Shia group says one of its highest-ranking officials Mustafa Badreddine killed in an air strike in Syria.
Top Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine was killed in an Israeli strike in Syria this week, the Lebanese Shia group has said.
“He took part in most of the operations of the Islamic resistance since 1982,” Hezbollah said in a statement on Friday, announcing his death and describing him as a “great jihadi leader”.
Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest ranking officials in the group, and believed by the US government to be responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria, where it is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
He was killed on Tuesday night, the statement said, adding that the attack targeted one of Hezbollah’s bases near Damascus airport.
The group said it was working to “define the nature of the explosion and its cause, and whether it was the result of an air strike, or missile [attack] or artillery”.
Ali Rizk, a political analyst and an expert on Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera that the attack targeted the group’s operations centre in Damascus.
“It was a big explosion which targeted Hezbollah’s operations centre in Damascus. Israel is most likely behind the attack, however it has not yet been confirmed,” Rizk said.
“Mustafa Badreddine replaced Imad Mughniyah, who was killed in 2008 in an Israeli raid. This will not change Hezbollah’s role in Syria at all, on the contrary it will make Hezbollah more determined to stay involved in Syria until the end”.
The Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen earlier reported that he had been killed in an Israeli attack.
There was no immediate response from Israel which has attacked Hezbollah targets in Syria several times during the country’s five-year conflict.
“We decline to comment,” an Israeli military spokeswoman said.
‘A significant blow’
Badreddine, a brother-in-law of Mughniyah, was indicted by the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the 2005 killing of a former prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, and was also sanctioned by the United States.
Badreddine was sentenced to death in Kuwait for his role in bomb attacks there in 1983. He escaped from prison in Kuwait after Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded the country in 1990.
Mathew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and the author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, told Al Jazeera that Badreddine killing would hurt the group.
“This is a pretty significant blow to Hezbollah … He was extremely close to the Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah,” Levitt said.
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