BEIRUT An Israeli Air Force strike in Syria Sunday killed five top Hezbollah commanders engaged in battle against Takfiri militants in the country. The dead included Abu Muhammad Issa, Chief of Hezbollah operations in Syria along with Jihad Mughniyah, son of late Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah.
Hezbollah fighters in towns and villages along the border with Israel went on high alert, said an official from the group. In the Hezbollah strongholds of Lebanon and Beirut, the streets emptied quickly as residents feared an escalation. Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV warned that Israel was “playing with fire that puts the security of the whole Middle East on edge.”
Reports from the area said that an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at the Hezbollah convoy in strategic southwestern city of Quneitra, situated some 60 kilometers south of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday. Two remote-controlled reconnaissance drones buzzed overhead as the airborne assault took place.
The attack follows Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallahs statement that frequent Israeli strikes in Syria are a major aggression against the whole axis of resistance,’ not just Damascus, and that the group has the right to retaliate.
Iran, Syria along with Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups are described in the region as Axis of Resistance.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006, has been fighting alongside Syrian army for last four-years against the US backed rebels.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of one of their generals in a statement on their website.
“General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and a number of fighters and Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) forces were attacked by the Zionist regime’s helicopters,” it said.
“This brave general and some members of Hezbollah were martyred.”
The killings raised the possibility of a retaliatory attack, with a senior Iranian official suggesting that Israel would be hit at “the right time and right place”. An Israeli defense official said escalation was possible.
Jihad Mughniyeh was buried in Beirut alongside his father Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008.
It was not immediately clear what role Jihad Moughniyah, in his 20s, was playing in the fighting in Syria.
In 2008 Israel assassinated his father, Imad Moughniyah, who commanded Hezbollah in 34 day war against Tel Aviv.
“God willing, the resistance will retaliate but the leadership of the resistance will be the one to decide the nature and timing,” said Hassana Sadaqa, as she prepared to pay her respects.
Mourners chanted “Our party is Hezbollah, our leader is Nasrallah” as the coffin was carried through the streets and shots were fired into the air.
Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist at the Lebanon newspaper an-Nahar, said he believed the strike was a direct response to Nasrallah’s speech and could lead to a backlash.
Killing the son of Moughniyah is dangerous. I do not think that the group can be quiet now, now that the father and the son are killed. I expect that it will do something, he said.
Jihad Moughniyah appeared in public for the first time a week after his father’s death to pledge loyalty to Nasrallah.
“We are with you and we will go wherever you go. We will never leave the battlefield and we will never drop our guns, we answer for you Nasrallah,” Jihad, then aged 16, said wearing the group’s military uniform in front of thousands of mourners.
RETALIATION THREAT
Al-Manar television said earlier that a number of fighters were killed when they were checking an area in Quneitra when their convoy came under Israeli missile attack.
Quneitra has seen heavy fighting between forces loyal to Assad and rebels including fighters linked to al Qaeda. Syrian state television said six people were killed in the attack and a child was wounded, without giving further details.
Israel has struck Syria several times since the start of the war, mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials said were destined for Hezbollah, Israel’s long-time foe in neighboring Lebanon.
Syria said last month that Israeli jets had bombed areas near Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, near the border with Lebanon.
Nasrallah said on Thursday “the frequent attacks on different sites in Syria is a major breach. We consider (those) hostilities (to be) against all the resistance axis.”
“(Retaliation) is an open issue,” he added.
Hezbollah confirmed the death of six fighters in the new Israeli airstrike on the southwestern strategic Syrian city of Quneitra.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Hezbollah said 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of slain Hezbollah top commander Imad Mughniyeh, and five other fighters lost their lives in the fresh Israeli aerial assault against Syria.
Hezbollah identified the other victims as Mohammad Issa,42, Abbas Ibrahim Hijazi, 35, Mohammad Ali Hasan Abu al-Hasan, 29, Ghazi Ali Dawi, 26, and Ali Hasan Ibrahim, 21.
The martyrs were reportedly on a field reconnaissance mission in Quneitra when an Israeli military helicopter targeted their vehicle.
Press TV reported the new Israeli assault is yet another attempt by Tel Aviv to change the balance of war in favor of the Takfiri militants fighting against Syria.
The new Israeli aerial raid comes as Syrian soldiers, backed by Hezbollah resistance fighters, have made numerous gains against the militants operating in Quneitra.
Damascus says Tel Aviv and its Western allies are aiding the extremist terror groups operating inside Syria since March 2011.
A Lebanese security source told The Daily Star that the strike destroyed one Hezbollah vehicle entirely and damaged another.
The Tel Aviv regime has carried out several airstrikes in Syria since the start of the nearly four-year-old foreign-backed militancy there.
Damascus says Tel Aviv and its Western allies are aiding al-Qaeda-linked militant groups operating inside Syria.
The Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria.
The country has been grappling with a foreign-backed deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence has so far claimed the lives of nearly 200,000 people, according to the UN.
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