By Al-Fassel | 2024-08-02

The top Hizbullah commander killed July 30 in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburb had a $5 million bounty on his head for crimes that included his "central role" in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Fuad Shukr (aka "Hajj Mohsen Shukr") has been the shadowy figure orchestrating Hizbullah's months-long attacks on northern Israel.

The Israeli military accuses Shukr of being responsible for a rocket strike on the Golan Heights that killed 12 children over the weekend.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to "hit the enemy hard" after the strike, which the Israeli army described as "the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians" since the October 7 Hamas attack that began the Israel-Hamas war.

Israel accused Hizbullah of firing a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket in the attack, which killed members of the Arabic-speaking Druze community in Majdal Shams, with its foreign ministry saying Hizbullah had "crossed all red lines."

The Iranian regime has long supported Hizbullah with weapons smuggled by air, land and sea. Missiles and rockets such as Falaq and Burkan are typically developed in Syria in laboratories affiliated with the Syrian regime's 4th Division before being smuggled across the border into Lebanon.

'Senior adviser' to Nasrallah

In 2017, the US State Department's Rewards for Justice program offered $5 million for information on Shukr, describing him as "a senior adviser" to Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah who served on the terrorist group's highest military body, the Jihad Council.

Shukr was the close associate and eventual successor of top Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh, killed in Damascus in 2008, according to Rewards for Justice and a source close to Hizbullah.

He commanded "military operations in southern Lebanon," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Shukr had "a central role" in the deadly October 23, 1983, bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 US military personnel and wounded 128 others, according to Rewards for Justice.

More recently, Shukr aided Hizbullah fighters and Syrian regime forces in the Syrian conflict -- an undertaking frowned upon by the Lebanese government, as it contravened the country's policy of dissociation from foreign conflicts.