Hizbullah Holds 'Takfiris' Responsible for Badreddine Assassination
Hizbullah party stated that takfiri groups were responsible for killing the party's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine in Syria in an artillery attack, the party's al-Manar TV said on Saturday.
“An investigation has shown that the blast that targeted one of our positions near the Damascus international airport that led to the martyrdom of the brother commander Mustafa Badreddine was caused by artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri (Sunni extremist) groups present in that region,” a Hizbullah statement said.
It did not name any particular group and there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, which pro-Hizbullah media said happened on Thursday night.
On Friday, Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said that the party will announce the results of its investigation into the assassination of Badreddine “within hours.”
“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.
Hizbullah had said on Friday that it was still investigating the cause of a 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.
Hizbullah has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Badreddine led its intervention in support of President Bashar Assad.
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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