Qassem Says Hizbullah to Announce How Badreddine was Killed 'within Hours'
Hizbullah will announce the results of its investigation into the assassination of the party's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine “within hours,” Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Friday afternoon.
“Israel and the takfiris received painful blows in the past few years,” said Qassem at Badreddine's funeral in Beirut's southern suburbs, hinting that any of them could be involved in the operation that occurred in Syria near Damascus' airport.
“Our brothers are probing the nature of this blast and who might be behind it, and due to the presence of several hypotheses, we do not want to get ahead of the investigation or to announce anything based on a political analysis,” Qassem noted.
“But within hours, by tomorrow morning at the latest, we will in detail announce the cause of the blast and the identity of the perpetrators and we will act accordingly,” Hizbullah number two went on to say.
He however pointed out that Hizbullah is already in possession of “clear indications about the identity of the perpetrators and the modus operandi.”
“But we need some time to become 100% sure about the conclusion and we will then announce it to the public opinion,” Qassem added.
“We only have one enemy – Israel and its allies... They might be in several locations, but they are all part of the Israeli scheme,” the senior Hizbullah official said.
"By killing you, they gave a new push to our drive that produces a martyr after another, as well as a commander after another," Qassem said, addressing the slain commander.
Hizbullah's al-Manar TV meanwhile said that party leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will deliver a speech next Friday during a ceremony commemorating Badreddine.
Earlier in the day, Hizbullah issued a statement saying it was still investigating the cause of the blast near Damascus airport but it did not immediately point the finger at Israel as it did when the commander's predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated in the Syrian capital in 2008.
Badreddine, who was in his mid-50s, was a key player in Hizbullah's military wing.
He was on a U.S. terror sanctions blacklist and a key suspect in the 2005 assassination in Beirut of ex-premier Rafik Hariri in addition to being one of Israel's most wanted men.
"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," Hizbullah said in a statement.
"We are going to pursue an inquiry to determine the nature and causes of the explosion and ascertain whether it was the result of an air strike, a missile or artillery fire," it added.
Badreddine's predecessor, Imad Mughniyeh, his cousin and brother-in-law, was killed in Damascus in 2008 in an attack that drew immediate threats by Hizbullah of heavy retaliation against Israel.
It made no such threats after Badreddine's death.
Israel made no comment, as was also the case in 2008, but Israeli media underlined Hizbullah's failure to apportion blame.
Hizbullah lawmaker Nawwar al-Sahili told Hizbullah's al-Manar TV that it was too soon to prejudge the results of the investigation into Badreddine's death, but noted that the group faces "an open war" and "will retaliate at an opportune moment."
In its 2012 terror blacklisting of Badreddine, Washington charged that he was the key pointman for Hizbullah's operations in Syria alongside major foreign backer Iran in support of President Bashar Assad's regime.
Damascus airport is east of the capital in an area where various rebel groups have a strong presence, although pro-government forces have secured the highway to it for the past two years or more.
Badreddine's death comes months after another Hizbullah figure, Samir Quntar, was killed in an December 2015 air strike near Damascus which the group blamed on Israel.
Y.R.
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