Iran Focus
London, 10 Mar – Hassan Nasrallah, a leading Hezbollah member, was seen mourning the death of Mustafa Badreddine, his most senior militia commander, in May last year.
When the news that Badreddine died in Syria was made public, Lebanese media reported the same story as Hezbollah surrounding his death. Yet doubts were raised.
Hezbollah was ordered to fight in Syria in 2013 and Nasrallah commanded Badreddine to lead the forces there. He was to work along with Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force. However, it soon became clear to Badreddine that Soleimani was putting the safety of the revolutionary guards over the safety of Hezbollah.
While in Syria, Badreddine was tried in absentia at the International Tribunal regarding the Rafiq Hariri assassination.
Soleimani was pressuring Nasrallah to remove Badreddine from the battlefield in Syria.
Badreddine apparently arrived at the international airport in Damascus with 3 other people on 14th May last year, but he was the only one who died.
Israel was initially blamed for the attack, then the story changed to it being a vacuum bomb sent from the nearest fighter group which was 12 km away.
An employee at the airport who was there that night said that everyone was barred from entering the airport as the operation took place. “As I was approaching to go to work, I saw a lot of people crowding near the airport. At approximately 10 PM that night we suddenly heard a loud bang and what sounded like fire from three rifles. We tried approaching the scene to see what was going on but we were stopped by Hezbollah fighters telling us we weren’t allowed to enter. They did not even allow Syrian senior army officer or the Syrian police from entering the airport.”
Ariel view images of the scene were studied, showing that the site was untouched.
Abbas Hoteit, a Shiite cleric, said that “Badreddine was killed by two treacherous bullets”.
A gathering of eyewitness accounts and evidence indicates that four people met near the airport – one of whom was Badreddine. Another person was Soleimani and a third person was Badreddine’s bodyguard. The final man was identified as Ibrahim Hussein Jezzini – someone Badreddine fully trusted and his killer.
It is believed that Nasrallah and Suleimani plotted to kill him.
Al Arabiya questions: “Badreddine fell on the altar of Suleimani’s ambitions and Nasrallah’s reputation, raising the question of whether it was an individual incident, or the beginning of dire divisions and a period of darkness within the ranks of the Hezbollah Shiite sect in Lebanon.”
