Hizballah has blamed the killing of one of its top commanders on jihadists in Syria.
The Lebanese Shi'ite militant group announced the death of Mustafa Badreddine near Syria's Damascus airport on May 13.
In a statement on May 14, the group said its own investigation concluded that Badreddine was killed by “artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups,” a word used by the group to refer to hard-line Sunni extremist groups like the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda.
The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to the group, had initially said Badreddine was killed in an Israeli air strike.
Badreddine's death is the biggest blow to the militant group since the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the chief of Hizballah’s military wing, who was killed in a bomb attack in Damascus.
