JERUSALEM—The midnight assassination of a secretive Hezbollah operative in Beirut last night became a regional whodunit when Hezbollah blamed Israel while Israel pointed a finger at a Lebanese Sunni organization.
The victim, Hassan al-Laqis, reportedly a senior figure in Hezbollah’s weapon supply chain, was shot in the head and neck as he parked his car beneath his house in the southern part of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. The assailants, reportedly three men, were seen escaping on foot into the darkness.
Hezbollah’s television channel, al-Manar, blamed Israel for the hit and warned of retaliatory measures. "The Israeli enemy tried to get to our martyr brother several times, in more than one location, but these attempts failed until this repugnant assassination."
Israeli spokesmen denied the accusation. They pointed to a Twitter message from a previously unknown Sunni group, the Ahrar al-Sunna Balbek brigade, claiming responsibility.
The victim, little known to the public, reportedly headed Hezbollah’s technology and communications unit. Other sources said he had been in charge at one point of Hezbollah’s rocket procurement. Ha’aretz quoted Western intelligence sources as saying he had a "brilliant mind" and had been in charge of technology and logistics for the militant Shiite organization. Lebanese sources said al-Laqis had been close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Beirut has seen numerous terror attacks in recent months attributed to Sunni organizations retaliating for Hezbollah’s heavy involvement in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashir Assad. These attacks have been executed by suicide bombers or with car bombs detonated remotely.
What distinguished the killing of al-Laqis was that it was a focused attack that involved no collateral damage to civilians. Furthermore, it was marked by sound intelligence—the assassins knew where and when to find their target and how to make a safe getaway—which many Lebanese see as the mark of a Mossad operation.
The last assassination of a senior Hezbollah figure occurred in Damascus in 2008 when the organization’s military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed by explosives planted in the headrest of his car seat. Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for that assassination.