Sidon Resident Killed in Syria Fighting

Hassan Ghandour, who hails from the southern city of Sidon, was killed in the conflict in Syria.

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) said that his family confirmed its son's death in Syria.

Unconfirmed media reports said that he was fighting alongside the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front.

Ghandour had disappeared from Lebanon in the wake of the 2013 clashes in Sidon's Abra area.

He was suspected of having ties with fugitive Salafist cleric Ahmed al-Asir, whose supporters were engaged in fighting with the army in the Abra unrest.

His death announcement, which described him as a “martyr”, was circulated on social media websites.

It did not specify where he was killed.

Speculation had surrounded Ghandour's whereabouts after the Abra clashes, with suspicion that he was involved in bombings in Lebanon in 2014.

On January 17, 2014, a sample of the DNA of his mother Aziza Eid was taken to verify whether the remains of a suicide-bomber of a Hermel blast were his.

A car bombing targeted on January 18, 2014 the eastern town of Hermel, a Hizbullah stronghold, killing one person and wounding more than 26.

A group calling itself al-Nusra Front in Lebanon, believed to be a franchise of the Syrian al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

M.T.

Y.R.