Ibrahim Aqil, who Israel mentioned it killed in an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs Friday, headed Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit and had been on a US sanctions listing for practically a decade.
America described Aqil as a “key chief” within the group and supplied a $7 million reward for details about the person who turned the second prime Hezbollah commander killed in practically a 12 months of clashes between the militant group and Israel over the Gaza battle.
Like most of Hezbollah’s army management, little was identified about Aqil, whom group members knew solely by his nom de guerre Hajj Abdul Qader.
A supply near Hezbollah described him because the second-in-command within the group’s army after Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the group’s southern Beirut stronghold on July 30.
Israel has repeatedly demanded via worldwide mediators that Radwan Pressure fighters, who spearhead the group’s operations on the bottom, be pushed away from the border, Lebanese officers have informed the media.
– Embassy bombing –
The Radwan is Hezbollah’s most formidable offensive drive and its fighters are educated in cross-border infiltration, a supply near the group informed AFP.
This specialist unit consists of skilled fighters, a few of whom have fought outdoors Lebanon together with in Syria, the place Hezbollah has brazenly backed the forces of President Bashar al-Assad since 2013.
The US Treasury mentioned Aqil “performed an important position” within the teams marketing campaign in Syria.
Hezbollah has already misplaced the commanders of two of its three regional models within the south since October: Mohammed Naameh Nasser, killed in an Israeli airstrike on his automobile in south Lebanon on July 3, and Taleb Abdallah, killed in a strike on a home within the south a month earlier.
The Radwan Pressure additionally misplaced prime commander Wissam Tawil, who was killed in January.
Washington mentioned Aqil was a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, the celebration’s highest army physique.
The US Treasury mentioned he was a “principal member” of the Islamic Jihad Organisation — a Hezbollah-linked group behind the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut that killed 63 folks and the assault on the US Marines in Beirut that very same 12 months that killed 241 US troopers.
The Treasury mentioned Aqil was concerned within the hostage-taking of two Germans within the late Eighties and bombings in Paris in 1986.
In 2015, the US Treasury sanctioned Aqil and Shukr as terrorists and in 2019, the US State Division branded him a “Specifically Designated World Terrorist”.