Iraq insurgency news
AP, Beirut, 31 July 2014 — A commander with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was recently killed while on a “jihadi mission” in Iraq, officials in Lebanon said Thursday.
The officials, who are close to the Shiite Hezbollah, said that Ibrahim Mohammed al-Haj was killed sometime in the past week.
On Thursday, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV aired footage of al-Haj’s funeral that was held in the Lebanese eastern town of Mashghara on Wednesday.
The funeral was attended by top Hezbollah officials, including the head of the group’s parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad and Minister of Industry Hussein Haj Hassan.
In July 2006, al-Haj was among a group of Hezbollah fighters who crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers and brought them into Lebanon, Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The capture triggered a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah that left 160 Israelis and 1,200 Lebanese dead.
Al-Manar said al-Haj’s achievements on the battlefield had “pained the enemy,” referring to Israel.
He was the second Hezbollah commander to be killed in recent months. In May, Fawzi Ayoub, a Hezbollah military commander wanted by the FBI was killed in Syria while fighting alongside Assad’s forces.