Commander Hezbollah Salim Jamil Ayash, who is responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in Israeli air strike in Syria, the media in Saudi Arabia reported. The news was first published by "Al Arabia" newspaper. According to unconfirmed information on social networks, he was hit near the Syrian city of Al-Qusair, The Times of Israel reported.
According to the US State Department, Ayash, whose head Washington has put a price of ten million dollars on, was a senior member of Hezbollah's assassination squad "Unit 151".
In 2020, he was sentenced in absentia by a United Nations tribunal to life in prison for his role in the 2005 suicide bombing in Beirut that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli attack at the end of September, refused to hand him over to the authorities along with three other defendants who were eventually acquitted.
Ayash faced a separate case at the tribunal for three other deadly attacks on Lebanese politicians in 2004 and 2005.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the ongoing limited ground operation in southern Lebanon that was launched on October 1 aims to eliminate the immediate threats posed by Hezbollah to border communities in northern Israel.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health states that the death toll in that conflict exceeded 3000, according to the IDF's assessment, including Hezbollah operatives.
Source: Times of Israel
