A statement released on Saturday said: “Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus global airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups in the area”.
Advertisement
‘An investigation has shown that the blast that targeted one of our positions near the Damascus global airport that led to the martyrdom of the brother commander Mustafa Badreddine was caused by artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups present in that region, ‘ a Hezbollah statement said.
A US Department of the Treasury statement detailing sanctions against Badreddine past year said he was assessed to be responsible for the group’s military operations in Syria since 2011, and he had accompanied Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during strategic coordination meetings with Assad in Damascus.
“There has been no recorded shelling or firing from the Eastern Ghouta area onto Damascus International Airport for more than a week”, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.
Badreddine was the most senior member of the organisation to have been killed since the death of his predecessor and brother-in-law, Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated by a joint Mossad/CIA operation in the Syrian capital in February 2008.
Hezbollah announced earlier on Friday that Badreddine died in an Israeli strike near the Damascus airport, Al Jazeera reported.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah did not say which of Badreddine s many enemies it held responsible for his death.
But it has come at a heavy price, with more than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters killed. “Takfiris” is a term for Sunni extremists.
Extending his condolences to the Lebanese Hezbollah, the nation and the family of martyr Badreddine, Larijani hoped the spirit of Lebanese commander be resurrected in Paradise together with pure spirits of martyrs. Hezbollah has never publicly named a successor for Moughniyeh.
He may have honed his skills as a bomb-maker in the attacks on the U.S. and French military barracks in Beirut in 1983, which killed 305 people. Sentenced to death in Kuwait in the 1980s, he fled in a dramatic escape after Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded the oil-rich Gulf country in 1990.
It did not name any particular group and there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, which pro-Hizbollah media said happened on Thursday night.
“This is a prince of Hezbollah, second only to the late Mughniyeh”, said Levitt.
Hezbollah has paid a steep price for its bloody foray into Syria’s civil war, beyond its casualties.
Advertisement
Mourners carried Badreddine’s coffin, adorned with the yellow flag of the Lebanese Shia movement, through the suburbs of southern Beirut, with many calling for revenge.
