The United States was offering a $7 million reward for information on Aqil, whom it blamed for the 1983 bombing of its Beirut embassy
The United States was offering a $7 million reward for information on Aqil, whom it blamed for the 1983 bombing of its Beirut embassy AFP

Ibrahim Aqil, who Israel said it killed in an air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs Friday, headed Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit and had been on a US sanctions list for nearly a decade.

The United States described Aqil as a "key leader" in the group and offered a $7 million reward for information about the man who became the second top Hezbollah commander killed in nearly a year of clashes between the militant group and Israel over the Gaza war.

Like most of Hezbollah's military leadership, little was known about Aqil, whom group members knew only by his nom de guerre Hajj Abdul Qader.

A source close to Hezbollah described him as the second-in-command in the group's military after Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the group's southern Beirut stronghold on July 30.

Israel has repeatedly demanded through international mediators that Radwan Force fighters, who spearhead the group's operations on the ground, be pushed away from the border, Lebanese officials have told the media.

The Radwan is Hezbollah's most formidable offensive force and its fighters are trained in cross-border infiltration, a source close to the group told AFP.

This specialist unit includes experienced fighters, some of whom have fought outside Lebanon including in Syria, where Hezbollah has openly backed the forces of President Bashar al-Assad since 2013.

The US Treasury said Aqil "played a vital role" in the groups campaign in Syria.

Hezbollah has already lost the commanders of two of its three regional units in the south since October: Mohammed Naameh Nasser, killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in south Lebanon on July 3, and Taleb Abdallah, killed in a strike on a house in the south a month earlier.

The Radwan Force also lost top commander Wissam Tawil, who was killed in January.

Washington said Aqil was a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, the party's highest military body.

The US Treasury said he was a "principal member" of the Islamic Jihad Organisation -- a Hezbollah-linked group behind the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and the attack on the US Marines in Beirut that same year that killed 241 US soldiers.

The Treasury said Aqil was involved in the hostage-taking of two Germans in the late 1980s and bombings in Paris in 1986.

In 2015, the US Treasury sanctioned Aqil and Shukr as terrorists and in 2019, the US State Department branded him a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist".