IDF kills Hezbollah’s top commander wanted by the US for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy and Marine Corps barracks that left 241 military personnel dead
10 more of terror group’s military leadership also killed in the rare Beirut strike, as they met underground, IDF says
A US State Department “Wanted Poster” for Hezbollah Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil.
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that it killed Hezbollah’s top military commander and at least 10 other senior commanders in a rare airstrike targeting the terror group’s stronghold in Beirut, as the sides appeared closer than ever to entering a full-fledged war.
The IDF said the most prominent target of its airstrike, Ibrahim Aqil, was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, the acting commander of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, and was overseeing a planned operation to invade the Galilee.
Aqil was also the most senior military member of the Jihad Council, Hezbollah’s top military body, after Israel’s assassination of Fuad Shukr in a strike in Beirut in July.
Hezbollah released a statement late Friday confirming Aqil’s death, saying “one of its great leaders” was killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” the phrase it uses to refer to fighters killed by Israel.
The statement also said the “great jihadist leader” had “joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements, and victories.”
Aqil had also been wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 bombings of the American Embassy in Lebanon and the US Marines barracks in Beirut.
In a curt statement issued on Friday evening, soon after the start of Shabbat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Our goals are clear, and our actions speak for themselves.”
Hezbollah military commander Ibrahim Aqil
Before and after the strike targeting Aqil, Hezbollah fired some 200 rockets Friday at the northern Galilee and the Golan Heights. No casualties were reported following the barrages, which happened as the IDF alerted residents in the area to remain close to bomb shelters.
Gathered underground, below residential buildings
Alongside Aqil, the top brass of Hezbollah’s operations array and the leadership of the Radwan Force were killed in the strike, according to the military.
An IDF infographic shows senior commanders in Hezbollah's Radwan Force killed in a September 20, 2024 strike in Beirut.
“They gathered underground, under a residential building, in the heart of the Dahiyeh, while using civilians as a human shield. They met to coordinate terror activities against Israeli civilians,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press conference.
Hagari said that at least 10 members of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and operations array were killed in the strike, which Lebanese media reported was carried out by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet using two missiles.
An Axios report quoted an Israeli official saying that some 20 Radwan Force commanders were killed.
According to figures from Lebanon’s health ministry, 14 people were killed and 66 were wounded. The ministry said the strike leveled the apartment building in the Dahiyeh area of south Beirut where Israel said Aqil and the other Hezbollah leaders had been meeting below ground.
The strike inflicted another blow to Hezbollah after the terror group suffered a pair of unprecedented attacks earlier this week in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. That attack was widely believed to have also been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution for the blasts. The terror group did not immediately respond to Friday’s strike.
“Aqil and the Radwan Force commanders who we attacked are the commanders who drew up and led the Hezbollah terror group’s plan, to be carried out on the day the order was given, to attack into the northern territory of the State of Israel — what they called ‘The plan to conquer the Galilee,’” Hagari said at his press conference on Friday evening.
In this planned invasion, “Hezbollah intended to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, and murder and kidnap Israeli citizens — similar to what Hamas did on October 7,” Hagari continued.
“The commanders who we eliminated today” had been overseeing attacks on Israeli citizens since October 8, and planned to carry out more such attacks,” he added, calling Aqil “a terrorist with a great deal of blood on his hands, responsible for the deaths of many civilians and innocents.”
Wanted by the US
Aqil joined Hezbollah in the 1980s, and was also responsible for the terror group’s attacks outside of Lebanon, according to the IDF. The military said he participated in many attacks in other countries, including targeting civilians.
Since 2004, Aqil has been serving as the head of Hezbollah operations, responsible for the terror group’s bombing and anti-tank attacks on Israel, air defenses, and other aspects of the organization, the military said.
The IDF said Aqil was involved in an anti-tank guided missile attack against an army post near Avivim in 2019, a bombing attack at the Megiddo Junction last year, and several attempts by Hezbollah operatives to infiltrate into Israel amid the war.
The US had accused Aqil of a role in the Beirut truck bombings at the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and a US Marine barracks six months later that killed 241 people. He was also wanted for directing the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The US had placed a $7 million bounty on Aqil’s head.
Following the strike, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi vowed that the military would reach anyone who threatens Israeli civilians.
“The Hezbollah commanders we eliminated today had been planning an ‘October 7’ on the northern border for years. We reached them and we will reach anyone who threatens the security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” Halevi said in remarks provided by the IDF.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that, “Even in the Dahiyeh in Beirut, we will continue to pursue our enemy in order to protect our citizens.”
“The sequence of operations in the new phase [of the war] will continue until our goal is achieved: The safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” he added on X.
A third strike
Friday’s strike was just the third time Israel has targeted Beirut since the IDF began responding to cross-border fire from Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
In July, an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s military chief Shukr, and before that in January, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an IAF strike in the Lebanese capital.
Hezbollah has pledged to continue its fire until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Most of the strikes by both sides have been contained to the border area, but have forced tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to evacuate their homes.
While Israel has repeated for months that it would prefer a diplomatic solution that would allow its residents to return to their homes, it has said it would use military force if necessary.
The US has sought to broker a deal, which among other things would see Hezbollah retreat 10 kilometers away from the border, in line with UN Security Resolution 1701, which the terror group has long violated. However, it has acknowledged that the surest way to strike such an agreement will be by first reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, which has also remained elusive.
Still, US special envoy Amos Hochstein told Israeli leaders during a visit earlier this week that launching a war against Hezbollah isn’t any more likely to secure Israel the conditions it is seeking to return its 60,000 evacuated residents to their homes and argued that the sides will ultimately be pushed to agree to the same deal currently on the table after both suffering major losses.
US not told in advance
US President Joe Biden said Friday that he is “working” on allowing people to return to their homes on this week’s Israeli-Hezbollah tensions.
Biden told reporters at the start of a cabinet meeting that he wants to “make sure that the people in northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to go back to their homes, to go back safely.”
“The secretary of state, the secretary of defense, our whole team are working with the intelligence community to try to get that done. We’re going to keep at it until we get it done, but we’ve got a way to go,” Biden said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said he was unaware of any Israeli heads-up on Friday’s strike. He stressed that the US wasn’t involved and was still working to avoid further military escalation through a diplomatic arrangement.
An Israeli official told the Axios news site on Friday that Jerusalem had reached the conclusion that a diplomatic solution would not be possible without a military escalation first, indicating Jerusalem’s hope that this week’s strikes will coax Hezbollah into agreeing to terms that it has yet to accept.
“This is why we have been gradually taking our gloves off and increasing our attacks against Hezbollah,” the Israeli official said.
Israel announced earlier this week that it was amending its war objectives — formulated after Hamas invaded southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, slaughtered some 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages — to add the additional imperative to return displaced northern residents safely to their homes.
‘Increasing price’
Speaking to troops on Wednesday, Gallant said: “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price” as Israel tries to “ensure the safe return” of its citizens to border areas. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, delayed his scheduled departure to the United States, where he is due to address the UN General Assembly, by a day, from September 24 to September 25, with an official citing the situation on the northern front.
For his part, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of giving “no weight to any humanitarian, legal or moral considerations.”
Earlier Friday, Hezbollah said it targeted at least six Israeli military bases with salvos of rockets after an overnight bombardment that people in south Lebanon described as among the fiercest so far.
Rocket sirens sounded in northern Israel’s Safed, Rosh Pina and numerous other nearby communities shortly after the strike.
Footage of rocket interceptions over Safed was posted online.
עשרות יירוטים בשמי העיר צפת במטח האחרון | צפו בתיעוד
צילום: אליאס פארס/TPS pic.twitter.com/4PaZH39gTz— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) September 20, 2024
The IDF said it responded to the rocket barrage by targeting a Hezbollah operative via drone strike in southern Lebanon’s Kafr Kila and having fighter jets strike buildings used by Hezbollah in Kafr Kila, as well as Aitaroun, Mays al-Jabal, Taybeh, Odaisseh and Yaroun.
The IDF posted footage online of those strikes.
מוקדם יותר היום, כוח מיחידה 869 זיהו מחבל של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה שנכנס למבנה צבאי של הארגון במרחב כפר כילא שבדרום לבנון, בסגירת מעגל מהירה, כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקף את המבנה בו פעל המחבל>> pic.twitter.com/4Vu8cK4laI
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) September 20, 2024
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 483 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 79 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Meanwhile, Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy operating in Iraq and Syria that is not directly affiliated with its Lebanese namesake, announced, the death of a member in an alleged Israeli airstrike near Damascus on Friday morning.
The terror group said in a statement that Abu Haidar al-Khafaji served as a security advisor in the Damascus area.
2 comments:
I wonder if the IDF will get the reward.
You f*ck with the Bull, You get the horns! Anyone wanted for terrorist acts carrying a communication device can and will be found.
Post a Comment