Major Blow to Hezbollah: Top Commander Killed in Syria

JERUSALEM, Israel – Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanon-based terror proxy, is blaming the death of key commander Mustafa Badreddine on extremist Sunni insurgents.

"According to preliminary reports, a large explosion targeted one of our positions near Damascus international airport killing brother commander Mustafa Badreddine and wounding other people," Hezbollah said in a statement.

The group set out to determine the nature and cause of the explosion and early reports claimed that Israel targeted a weapons convoy destined for Hezbollah.

But the group now blames an "artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups in the area", reports the Washington Post. 

"Takfiri" is a term used by Hezbollah to describe its extremist Sunni Muslim enemies, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

They did not specify which group killed him.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a statement saying he was responsible for Hezbollah's military operations in Syria since 2011, including the movement of troops there, and coordination of its military activities since 2012.

Badreddine is the brother-in-law and cousin of the late Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's former second-in-command, who was assassinated by a car bomb in an upscale Damascus neighborhood in 2008.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for Mugniyeh's assassination, vowing to avenge his death against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide. At the time, his widow (and Badreddine's sister) blamed Syria for her husband's death.

Mugniyeh is believed to have masterminded the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon and an attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon that same year, which killed 260 Americans.

Hezbollah's Shadowy Past

In 2012, the U.S. blacklisted Badreddine as commander of Hezbollah forces supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Several years earlier, the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the 2005 assassination of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, indicted Badreddine and three other Hezbollah members in Hariri's death.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah vowed it would never allow U.N. prosecution of any of its members. The terror chief blamed Israel for the roadside bomb that killed Hariri and 22 others traveling in an armed convoy in downtown Beirut.

Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, was later appointed prime minister. He eventually agreed to grant Hezbollah 10 seats in a national unity government.

When Hariri was on a state visit to President Obama in Washington, the Hezbollah ministers, joined by one other minister, succeeded in toppling the government. Analysts said the move was meant to force Hariri to reject the tribunal's findings on his father's assassination.

The two terror commanders served in Hezbollah's "military wing" from its inception and both liaised with Iran.

Badreddine's funeral was held in Beirut late afternoon on Friday.