A senior Hezbollah commander who was on the FBI’s most wanted list has been killed in Syria, a Twitter account affiliated with the resistance movement says.
The Mouqawama Twitter account posted Monday night a photo of Fawzi Ayoub, also known as Abu Abbas, praying in military fatigues with the caption: “The land of the Levant has been watered with the noblest blood.”
“We are proud that our commanders are among American intelligence’s top most wanted,” the Hezbollah-linked account said.
“If this proves anything, it is that we are on the path of righteousness in the face of the greatest force for evil in the world.”
Ayoub is wanted by the FBI for allegedly forging an American passport and using it to try to enter Israel in order to carry out an operation on behalf of Hezbollah.
Security sources told Reuters that Ayoub was killed by anti-Syria terrorists in Nawa, a town in the southern Syrian province of Deraa.
Ayoub, who is from the southern village of Ain Qana, was arrested in the West Bank in 2000 and spent four years in an Israeli jail before being released as part of a prisoner swap, the sources told Reuters. He also holds Canadian citizenship and has lived in the United States.
Hezbollah is fighting alongside forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Assad against military trying to overthrow his rule. The party says the uprising is dominated by “Takfiris” and argues that it is protecting Lebanon from the threat of terrorist groups entering the country through Syria.
The party has been instrumental in government victories on the border with Lebanon in the towns of Yabroud and Qusayr.
Ayoub’s martyrdom comes amid news of three other deaths among party cadres, including two in Syria.
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