Report: Hezbollah's Top Syria Commander Killed

Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah killing each other? It's a win-win.

(INN) Arab media reported Sunday that a senior Hezbollah terror leader was killed in recent days in a battle with Syrian opposition forces. The battle occurred in the Damascus area. The reports did not identify the terrorist, but in recent days Hezbollah-affiliated news outlets showed images of the funeral of senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossam Nasser. The funeral took place in the area of Nabatiya in south Lebanon. Nasser is considered the supreme commander of Hezbollah forces in Syria.

If the report is correct, the death of Nasser is just one of the latest in a series of setbacks for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Last weekend, rebels in Syria claimed that they had killed at least 42 Hezbollah terrorists, who were fighting with soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on behalf of Iran. The deaths were reported by Arab television station Al-Arabiya, which quoted a rebel leader as saying that the operation was a “high quality one.”

Ahmed Jerba, leader of the National Syrian Coalition, the leading political coalition opposed to the government of Bashar al-Assad, said that at this point Iran and Hezbollah, and not Assad's army, were leading the fighting against Syrian rebels. “Assad no longer runs Syria,” Jerba told the Arabic language Al-Hayat newspaper. “The true rulers of Syria are the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah fighters,” he said.

Hat tip: EOTW