Samir al-Quntar Killed in Israeli Raid in Syria
Hizbullah figure Samir al-Quntar was killed in an Israeli air raid near the Syrian capital, media reports said on Sunday.
Israeli warplanes targeted a building where Quntar and a number of his companions were residing in Hay al-Homsi in Jarmana southeast of Damascus, killing an unidentified number, media reports said.
Witnesses said that three missiles were launched at the residential building and led to its total collapse, killing six individuals and wounding another twelve.
Media reports close to Hizbullah said that Israeli warplanes carried out raids on the said location, killing at least nine individuals and an unidentified number were wounded.
Al-Jazeera, al-Jadeed, and Russia Today said that an Israeli air raid at dawn on Jarmana in Reef Damascus led to the killing of Hizbullah figure Samir al-Quntar and other members.
At dawn, Journalist Bassam al-Quntar, mourned his brother Samir in a tweet on Twitter saying: "We are proud to have joined the long list of families of martyrs."
Moreover, Hizbullah issued a statement early on Sunday confirming the news, saying he was killed on Saturday "when the Zionist enemy planes bombed the building where he lived in Jarmana."
Al-Manar TV aired footage of what it said was the residential building targeted in Jarmana Saturday night. The building appeared to be completely destroyed.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported the "martyrdom of... Samir Quntar last night in a terrorist raid on a residential building" on the southern outskirts of Jarmana.
It released a picture showing Syrian pro-government forces standing guard next to a partially collapsed building where Quntar was said to have been killed.
Al-Mayadeen TV said that Farhan al-Shaalan, a senior commander with the anti-Israeli "resistance" movement in the Golan Heights, was also killed in the air raid together with an aide to Quntar.
Quntar was imprisoned in 1979 in Israel after he was convicted of murder in an attack that left an Israeli policeman, a father and his two children dead. He was long wanted in Israel for the attack considered one of the grisliest in Israeli history.
Israel released Quntar as part of a prisoner exchange in 2008, three decades after the killings, and has since become a high-profile figure in Hizbullah.
In September the United States placed Quntar on its terror blacklist, saying he had "played an operational role, with the assistance of Iran and Syria, in building up Hizbullah's infrastructure in the Golan Heights."
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse, Associated Press
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