Hezbollah commander Mustafa Amine Badreddine killed

Mustafa Amine Badreddine

A senior Hezbollah commander has been killed in Syria, the Lebanon-based Shia militant organisation says.

Mustafa Amine Badreddine died in a large explosion near Damascus airport, Hezbollah said in a statement on the website of its al-Manar network.

It rolled back on an earlier claim that Israel was responsible. Badreddine is accused, with three other alleged Hezbollah members, of assassinating former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in Beirut in 2005.

 Lebanon's al-Mayadeen TV had earlier said that Badreddine died in an Israeli air strike. Israel has not commented on the claim.


Announcing Badreddine's death, Hezbollah said in an initial statement: "He took part in most of the operations of the Islamic resistance since 1982."

The second statement, on al-Manar's website, said: "The investigation will work on determining the nature of the explosion and its causes and whether it was a result of an air, missile or artillery attack. "We will announce further results of the investigations soon."

Born in 1961, he is believed to have been a senior figure in Hezbollah's military wing. He was a cousin and brother-in-law of Imad Mughniyeh, who was the military wing's chief until his assassination by car bomb in Damascus in 2008.