BEIRUT: A senior Lebanese-Canadian commander in the Shia Muslim militant group Hezbollah has been killed in Syria where he was fighting alongside Syrian government troops against rebels, security sources and a monitoring group said yesterday.
Fawzi Ayoub, who is on the FBI’s “most wanted” list for attempting to bomb Israel, was killed on Monday by the predominantly Sunni Muslim rebel forces who have been waging war on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad for more than three years.
Hezbollah has joined the Syrian government in a increasingly sectarian conflict that is pulling in fighters from across the region and destabilising Syria’s neighbours.
Ayoub was arrested in the West Bank in 2000 and spent four years in an Israeli jail before being released as part of a prisoner swap, the sources said. He is a prominent member of Hezbollah and comes from the southern village of Ain Qaana.
He also holds Canadian citizenship and has lived in the United States. The sources said Ayoub was killed in Nawa, a town in the southern Syrian province of Deraa.
REUTERS
