COMMANDER OF HEZBOLLAH KILLED IN BEIRUT
Beirut, 30 Muharram 1435/4 December 2013 (MINA) – The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has announced that one of its commanders was killed outside his house in Beirut.
“Around midnight on Tuesday, one of the commanders of resistance, Hassan Al-Laqqis, was assassinated in front of his house in the Saint Therese district of Hadath, as he returned from work,” the group said in a statement published on Wednesday.
“The direct accusation falls on the enemy Israel,” the statement said, without giving any details on the operation, Al Jazeera reported as quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), followed by Israeli denials on the allegation.
Lebanese security officials told AP that assailants opened fire on Al-Laqqis with an assault rifle while he was in his car, parked at the residential building where he lived, some two miles (three kilometers) southwest of the capital.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died early Wednesday from his wounds, the officials said, according to the news agency. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Al-Laqqis’s funeral will take place at 13GMT, one of Hezbollah member told A Jazeera.
Blaming Israel
The statement described Al-Laqqis, who was in his forties, of “spending all his life and youth in the noble resistance,” adding that he was targeted by Israel “again and again and in many places.”
“The Israeli enemy is naturally directly to blame,” the statement said. “This enemy must shoulder complete responsibility and repercussions for this ugly crime and its repeated targeting of leaders and cadres of the resistance.”
Al-Laqqis was also, according to the statement, a father of a son who died during the monthlong war between Hezbollah and its arch-foe enemy Israel in 2006, in which at least 1,100 people were killed in southern Lebanon and 165 in Israel.
However, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied Israeli involvement.
“Israel has nothing to do with this incident,” Palmor said. “These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah. They don’t need evidence, they don’t need facts, they just blame anything on Israel.” (T/P09/P03)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
