Ibrahim Aqil, who’s reported to have been killed by an airstrike in Beirut on Friday, was one of many final founder members of Hezbollah’s navy wing to have survived greater than 40 years of battle with Israel.
Aqil, who was in his early 60s, had risen by way of the ranks and reached a senior place within the organisation. Precise particulars of his position are unclear, however the Israel Protection Forces described him as “the head of the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s operations team, the acting commander of the Radwan [special forces] unit”.
“He was one of the really senior old-timers but was never really the face of anything. He was always a number two or number three, but had just been promoted in the last five to 10 years,” mentioned Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a analysis fellow on the Basis for Protection of Democracies in Washington and an skilled on extremism in Lebanon.
Aqil was considered one of a bunch of younger Shia males initially from the south of Lebanon however residing in Beirut who had been energised by the 1979 Iranian revolution and recruited by the nation’s Revolutionary Guards right into a community identified initially as Islamic Jihad after which later as Hezbollah.
Their navy intention, guided by their Iranian mentors, was to struggle the US, which had despatched a peacekeeping pressure to Beirut; and Israel, which had occupied a lot of Lebanon. Their political goal was to show Lebanon into an Islamic state aligned with Tehran. Virtually all have been killed since, most likely by Israel.
Fuad Shukr was killed in an airstrike in July, virtually definitely by Israeli safety companies working with the IDF. Shukr, who was 63 when he died, was Hezbollah’s chief of workers, and reportedly tasked with acquiring its strongest weapons.
Essentially the most outstanding member of the unique group was Imad Mugniyeh, who was blamed for dozens of deadly assaults on US, Israeli and Jewish targets over 25 years and died in a car-bomb explosion in Damascus in 2008 that was attributed to the Mossad.
The US had accused Mugniyeh of taking part in a central position within the bombings of the US embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 folks, and the US Marine Corps barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 US personnel. A French barracks was additionally bombed at the moment, killing 58 folks.
Aqil was additionally accused of being concerned in these operations. A US Justice Division discover describes him as “ a principal member of Hizballah’s terrorist cell the Islamic Jihad Organization”, which claimed duty for the 2 1983 bombings in Beirut. The discover additionally says Aqil directed the taking of US and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there, additionally within the 80s.
Proof that Mugniyeh masterminded the 2 1983 bombings is skinny, nevertheless, and it’s extra probably that he and Aqil performed a extra minor position, leveraging their deep community of contacts and information of southern Lebanon and Beirut to supply essential logistical help.
“Aqil was one of the nucleus of five people around Mugniyeh who were there at the start of the whole Hezbollah military enterprise,” mentioned Abdul-Hussain.
Coming so quickly after the extraordinary pager explosions which killed 37 folks and injured hundreds of bizarre Hezbollah operatives, the strike on Aqil suggests a concentrated and pressing Israeli effort to eradicate the organisation’s larger command.
Hezbollah will discover it exhausting to interchange males akin to Shukr and Aqil, and their assassinations are prone to demoralise even dedicated senior members. Each males had been reportedly near the group’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
