Hizbollah says extremists killed military chief in Syria

BEIRUT — Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah on Saturday blamed extremists for killing its top military commander in Syria and vowed to keep fighting to defend President Bashar Assad's regime.

The Daesh terror group, meanwhile, overran a government-controlled hospital in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, killing 20 members of pro-regime forces and taking medical staff hostage, a monitor said.

Hizbollah has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Mustafa Badreddine had led its intervention in support of Assad's forces, which are also backed by Russia and Iran.

Badreddine, who was on a US terror sanctions blacklist and wanted by Israel, was killed in a blast on Thursday night near Damascus International Airport.

Hizbollah announced his death on Friday but without immediately apportioning blame, breaking with its usual pattern of accusing archfoe Israel of responsibility.

On Saturday, it said a probe had concluded that Islamist radicals known as "takfiris", who consider Shiites to be heretics, had killed Badreddine.

"An investigation has shown that the blast that targeted one of our positions near the Damascus International Airport that led to the martyrdom of the brother commander Mustafa Badreddine was caused by artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups present in that region," a Hizbollah statement said.

It did not name any specific group, and there has been no claim of responsibility.

Hizbollah has been battling opponents of Assad's regime including extremists from Daesh and Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate.

Medics held hostage 

A Syrian security source has told AFP that Badreddine was in a warehouse near the airport when it was rocked by a blast on Thursday night.

No aircraft was heard before the explosion, the source said.

The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said no artillery fire had been heard in the area either in the past three days.

In Deir Ezzor, Daesh attacked Al Assad Hospital on Saturday as it pressed an advance aimed at controlling all of the oil-rich city and its vital airbase, the observatory said.

The attack sparked clashes with regime forces providing security for the hospital in which six extremists were killed, the monitor said.

“IS [Daesh] attacked Al Assad Hospital at the city’s western entrance, killing at least 20 soldiers and allied fighters,” Abdel Rahman said.

The extremists “seized the hospital and captured the medical staff, holding them hostage”, he said, adding that fighting was still raging.

Daesh controls about 60 per cent of Deir Ezzor, including the centre and the north of the city.

It has imposed a siege on government-held districts in the south and the east where about 200,000 civilians have been trapped since March 2014.

Kerry peace push 

In the northern city of Aleppo, where a ceasefire expired on Wednesday at midnight, the observatory reported seven civilians killed in 48 hours of rebel shelling of government-held western sectors.

The observatory also reported heavy fighting on the edge of rebel-held Daraya near Damascus, besieged by government forces since 2012 and where a Red Cross operation to deliver humanitarian aid this week was thwarted.

Syria’s conflict has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was flying on Friday to Saudi Arabia to consult with his Arab ally ahead of international talks in Vienna on Tuesday aimed at salvaging teetering peace efforts.

In Hizbollah’s statement on Saturday, a day after thousands attended Badreddine’s funeral in Beirut, Hizbollah vowed no let-up in its war against those it describes as “criminal gangs” in Syria.

Badreddine was a key suspect in the 2005 assassination in Beirut of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and was one of Israel’s “most wanted”.

His predecessor, cousin and brother-in-law Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in Damascus in a 2008 bombing that Hizbollah blamed on Israel.

Hizbollah has also accused Israel of killing another of its prominent figures, Samir Kantar, in an air strike last December near Damascus.

Expert Waddah Charara says Hizbollah has sent between 5,000 and 6,000 combatants to Syria.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 of its fighters have been killed in combat there, other experts say.