Top Hezbollah commander killed in Syria

(Vatican Radio) The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said on Friday that its commander Mustafa Badreddine has been killed in an attack in Syria. He was one of Hezbollah’s highest ranking officials and well known on the international radar. The US said, since 2011 he was responsible for the militant group’s military operations in Syria and was one of five Hezbollah members indicted by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri.

It’s reported he was killed in an Israeli air strike near Damascus airport although Israel has yet to comment on the claim.

Badreddine, was the a brother-in-law of the late Hezbollah military commander, Imad Moughniyah.

His militant role can be traced back to the early 1980’s.  He was sentenced to death in Kuwait for his role in bomb attacks there in 1983 but escaped from prison in 1990 and for years, organized military operations against Israel from Lebanon and overseas.

The Hezbollah commander is the latest in around 1,200 Hezbollah of its fighters who are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian conflict.