This undated photo provided by Hezbollah Military Media on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, shows Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)

BEIRUT (AP) — The Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs Friday was one of the Lebanese militant group’s top military officials, in charge of its elite forces, and had been on Washington’s wanted list for years.

Ibrahim Akil, 61, was the second top commander of Hezbollah to be killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut in as many months, dealing a severe blow to the group’s command structure.

The strike Friday came as the group was still reeling from a widely suspected Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah communications earlier this week when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously. The attack killed 12 people, mostly Hezbollah members, and injured thousands.

Akil was a member of Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council since 2008, and head of the elite Radwan Forces. The forces also fought in Syria gaining experience in urban warfare and counterinsurgency. Israel has been attempting to push the fighters back from the border.

Israel said the Friday strike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district killed Akil and 10 other Hezbollah operatives.

Little is known about Akil, who rose through the ranks of the group’s military command over decades. Born in Baalbek in the east of Lebanon, he joined Hezbollah in its early days in the 1980s.

Elijah Magnier, a Brussels-based military and counterterrorism analyst with knowledge of the group, said he was one of the group's old guard.

"He started at the beginning of Hezbollah's creation, and he moved to different responsibilities. To be a member of the Jihadi Council, this is the highest (post), and to be the leader of the Radwan Forces is also very privileged,” Magnier said.

Akil was under U.S. sanctions and in 2023, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction.”

The State Department described him as a “key leader” in Hezbollah. It said that Akil was part of the group that carried out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and that he had directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there during the 1980s.

The U.S. Treasury Department designated him a “terrorist” in 2015, followed by another designation by the State Department as a “global terrorist.”

Before his death, he had risen to become one of three top commanders of the Hezbollah forces, along with Fouad Shukr, who was the top military commander in the group and was also killed in an Israeli strike in the southern suburb of Beirut in July. Ali Karaki leads the southern front.

The Radwan Forces, estimated at between 7,000 to 10,000 strong, with fighters trained in special operations and urban warfare, have had little involvement in the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The fighting has been dominated so far by exchanges of missiles and strikes along border areas. Hezbollah rocket and missile launches have marked the group's efforts to support Hamas.

“The Israelis were right and wrong. They are right by saying they killed the one who was planning to conduct an operation similar to Oct. 7," said Magnier, the analyst.

In case of an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon or a Hezbollah cross-border operation, Akil would have been the one leading the Radwan Forces. But he didn't head the entire military operation against Israel, Magnier said.

Mohannad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank who researches Hezbollah, said Akil is an “old school” military commander who was close to the Iranians. He received three year years of officer training in Iran and took part in all the wars in Lebanon, as well as in Syria.

Hanin Ghaddar, a Hezbollah researcher with the Washington Institute, said when Mustafa Badreddine, the Hezbollah commander who was supervising the group’s role in the war in Syria, was killed in 2016, Akil replaced him in that role. At the time, a three-tier command structure of Hezbollah military forces was created, with Akil as one of its main pillars.

Ghaddar said there were reports that Akil was among those who were lightly injured in the mass explosion of pagers. There was no official confirmation of those reports. At least 37 people were killed and about 3,000 injured in two waves of simultaneous explosions of communications devices across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The pager attacks dealt a major blow to Hezbollah’s communication structure, which may explain why the group’s top forces were meeting Friday in the southern suburb of Beirut face to face, Ghaddar said.

“It is a big blow to Hezbollah,” she said.

Ghaddar said the attack on Akil disrupted the group's command structure on the heels of the attacks that undermined its communication system and reveals how much intelligence Israel has about the militant group. She said the group will likely take time to respond and recover.

“They will recover obviously. They recovered from 2006 and many things,” she said, referring to a bruising the monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel. “But it is going to take time.”

Magnier and Hage Ali said the Friday strike signals a new phase of the war with Israel.

“What is significant is the location and the beginning of a new (phase of the) war,” involving an aerial campaign and the targeted assassination of military leaders, Magnier said.

Israel seemed set on exerting pressure on Hezbollah's leadership, Magnier said, particularly in the southern suburb of Beirut, where the group has many of its offices and supporters, seeking to target commanders and drive civilians out of the area. Israel is saying: “If our people (in the north) can’t return, your people (in the suburb) will be displaced.”

News from © The Associated Press, 2024