Hezbollah commander killed outside home in Lebanon
Beirut: A senior commander for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was gunned down on Wednesday outside his home in southern Beirut, security officials said. The Iranian-backed group blamed its arch-enemy Israel for the killing, something
Israel's spy service has been suspected of assassinating Hezbollah commanders for more than two decades.
In 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed the motorcade of Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Musawi, killing him, his wife, 5-year-old son and four bodyguards.
Eight years earlier, Hezbollah leader Sheik Ragheb Harb was gunned down in south Lebanon.
But one of the biggest blows for the group came in 2008 when Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah military commander, was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in Damascus.
Current Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has rarely appeared in public since the 2006 war.
In a rare move, he traveled to neighboring Syria last week to meet the Syrian and Iranian presidents.
Hezbollah also has been fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces in that country's civil war, sparking attacks across neighboring Lebanon.
Al-Laqis' killing came a half an hour after Nasrallah ended a three-hour interview with a local television station, in which he accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the Iranian Embassy bombings.