Hezbollah commander assassinated by IDF
A SENIOR commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan commando unit was assassinated in an Israeli air strike yesterday in Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed.
Ali Ahmed Hassin, the Radwan commander in the Hajir region, was killed in Sultaniyeh in southern Lebanon along with two other Hezbollah members under his command.
“Ali Ahmed Hassin was a senior operative in the terrorist organisation and held a rank equivalent to that of brigade commander. In his role, he was responsible for planning and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in northern Israel,” the IDF said.
The army also said that Hassin had carried out “numerous” rocket attacks against Israel since Oct 8, when Hezbollah joined Hamas in its attacks against Israel. Hezbollah has fired 3,100 rockets at Israel since then, while Israel has launched some 4,700 strikes along its northern border, most against Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Jan 8, an Israeli air strike killed Wissam Tawil, another top commander of the Radwan unit.
Israel is on alert in the north after the killing of a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander in Damascus last week. Both Iran and Hezbollah have promised to retaliate.
Mohammad Bagheri, the IRGC’S chief of staff, said the response “will be carried out at the right time, with the necessary precision and planning, and with maximum damage to the enemy so that they regret their action”. Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, threatened Israel’s embassies globally, saying: “The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe.”
During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said Iran “stands behind its proxies’ many attacks” against Israel.
Mr Netanyahu said: “Whoever harms us or plans to harm us – we will harm them. We are carrying out this idea in practice, all the time.”