Hizbullah Commander Assassinated in Booby-Trapped Car in S. BeirutA senior commander of Hizbullah's military arm, the Islamic Resistance, was assassinated in a booby-trap car blast in south Beirut's Mouawad residential neighborhood on Monday and an obscure group calling itself Jund El Sham reportedly claimed responsibility.
Ghaleb Awali, 40, left his home and climbed into his old Mercedes-Benz at 9 a.m., said Hizbullah's Al Manar TV station. "When he turned on the ignition, a powerful explosive charge went off."
Awali, a Shiite, was extracted from his charred car and rushed to a south Beirut hospital, but doctors who examined the dismembered corpse said death was instantaneous.
The responsibility claim by Jund El Sham, Arabic for Soldiers of Damascus, was made in a faxed statement to the Agence France Presse Beirut offices minutes after Awali's death. The group announced its debut at south Lebanon's Ein El Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp two weeks ago.
"We have executed one of the symbols of treachery, the Shiite Ghaleb Awali," Jund El- Sham's statement said, according to AFP.
Hizbullah withheld immediate comment on the responsibility claim. The words making the rounds in Beirut is that Hizbullah views Jund El Sham's claim as a hoax and holds Israel's Mossad secret service directly responsible for the target killing, a stance which could set the Lebanon-Israel border aflame anew.(Naharnet-AP-AFP)
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