Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s elusive military leader stalked by Israel
Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut is second in importance only to Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrullah and has had a $5m price on his head from the US for seven years.
Fuad Shukr, the top Hezbollah commander that Israel says it killed in a military strike on the organisation’s stronghold in Beirut this morning (AEST), has been in the sights of Israeli and US forces for decades.
Shukr, who goes by the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen Shukr, was responsible for the attack on the Golan Heights in which 12 children died, and has orchestrated the group’s months-long attacks on northern Israel.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that Shukr “commands military operations in southern Lebanon”, where the group has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.
The source said Shukr was the successor of Hezbollah’s top commander Imad Mughniyeh, killed in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus that the Iran-backed group blamed on Israel.
In 2017, the US Treasury offered $5 million for information on Shukr, in his early sixties, describing him as “a senior adviser” to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Treasury said he had “a central role” in the deadly 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Shukr serves on Hezbollah’s “highest military body, the Jihad Council”, and has aided Hezbollah fighters and Syrian troops against rebels in Syria, the Treasury said.
According to the US State Department, during the Syrian civil war he “aided [Hezbollah] fighters and pro-Syrian regime troops” as they battled anti-Assad forces. The State Department designated Shukr a terrorist in 2019.
The Israeli army has described him as Hezbollah’s “most senior military commander” and “right hand man” to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
“As the Head of Hezbollah’s Strategic Unit, Fuad was responsible for the majority of Hezbollah’s most advanced weaponry, including precise-guided missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, long-range rockets and UAVs,” the Israeli army said
He was also responsible for the organisation’s “force build-up, planning, and execution of terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the IDF said.
Shukr joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and in the 1990s advanced numerous attacks against the IDF and allied South Lebanon Army. In 2000 he was involved in the abduction of three Israeli soldiers in an attack in the Mount Dov area.
The Secretary General of the Islamic-Arab Council in Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini, told the Al-Arabiya network Shukr was “one of the founders of Hezbollah, and more important than Imad Morniyeh,” the Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus five months ago.
“He is Hezbollah’s Qassem Soleimani,” Mr Al-Husseini said, referencing the Iranian general assassinated in 2022. “Since Morniyeh was eliminated, there has not been anyone to fill this place except him. He has the experience and the expertise, and he has great responsibility for many of Hezbollah’s actions in the 80s and 90s.”
With AFP
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