by WorldTribune Staff, June 27, 2016
After initially pointing the finger at Israel, Iran now says the United States was behind the assassination of notorious Hizbullah terrorist Mustafa Badreddine.
Iranian leaders claim that Badreddine, who died in an explosion in Damascus on May 10, was taken out in a precision U.S. airstrike.
“Radar that Iran had installed in Lebanon and Syria picked up signals showing a missile that was fired by either a U.S. drone or a manned aircraft,” an Iranian official told The Daily Beast.
The leadership in Teheran is said to believe the U.S. had “more of a motive than anyone else” to kill Badreddine.
As a 22-year-old terrorist in 1983, Badreddine played a central role in planning the bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. “He devised a means for increasing the force of the bomb by adding compressed gas, thus rendering an explosion that caused the building to collapse inward,” killing 241 men, the Daily Beast report said.
In 2005, Badreddine orchestrated the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the ex-prime minister of Lebanon and one of the country’s best known politicians and business leaders.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reportedly so angered by Badreddine’s assassination that he ordered Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, to launch retaliatory strikes against U.S.-backed rebels in Syria.
The Beast cites an Israeli official as saying that even if Israel did kill Badreddine, “the last thing that Hizbullah’s leaders want now is another fight with Israel,” since “their forces are too stretched” in Syria.
Report: Hizbullah now blames U.S. for assassinating architect of 1983 Marines barracks bombing added by World Tribune on
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