Lebanon's Hezbollah announced today that its top military commander had been killed in an attack in Syria where the Shiite militant group has deployed thousands of fighters backing the Damascus regime.
Hezbollah said 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 was assassinated in the Syrian capital in 2008.
The death of Mustafa Badreddine, who had led Hezbollah's intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime since the start of the five-year war, came as a fragile truce in Syria teetered on the brink of collapse.
A six-day-old ceasefire in battleground second city Aleppo expired early yesterday without being renewed and rebel sniper fire on the city's government-held sector killed two civilians, one a woman, a monitoring group said.
Heavy air strikes pounded Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front in its Idlib province stronghold in the northwest, killing 16 fighters including a senior commander.
Badreddine, who was in his mid-50s, was a key player in Hezbollah's military wing.
He was on a US terror sanctions blacklist, was a key suspect in the 2005 assassination in Beirut of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and was one of Israel's most wanted men.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah did not say which of Badreddine's many enemies it held responsible for his death.
"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," it 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."
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 Hezbollah 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 Hezbollah's failure to apportion blame.
But Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV listed Israel among the enemies of the group.
Hezbollah lawmaker Nawwar al-Sahili told the network 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".
