Mustafa Amine Badreddine, who was believed to be Hezbollah’s top military commander, was killed on Tuesday in an explosion near the Damascus airport, according to a statement by Hezbollah. Some Arab media reports have attributed the blast to an Israeli airstrike but social media accounts associated with Syrian rebel groups have claimed that he was actually killed south of Aleppo and that Syrian rebels were responsible for the attack. Badreddine has been involved in Hezbollah’s military operations since 1982 and was a close associate and relative of Imad Mughniyeh, who previously held Hezbollah’s top military post until he was assassinated by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. He was indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as the mastermind of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and was involved in the 1982 Beirut barracks bombing and bombings in Kuwait in 1983 targeting U.S. and French diplomats. David Daoud and Amir Toumaj write: Mustafa Badreddine, the head of Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria, was recently killed in an explosion near Damascus International Airport. Although the assassination bears some signatures of an Israeli operation, the Shiite militia has blamed Sunni jihadists. Bogged down in Syria, Hezbollah and its Iranian patron have every reason to downplay Israeli responsibility, thereby lifting pressure to retaliate in kind and risk a war with the Jewish state. – National Interest
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