Suspect in Syria bombing dead in Hezbollah raid in Lebanon
A man suspected of involvement in an attack last month on a Shiite shrine in Syria died following a Hezbollah pursuit late Friday in the Beirut southern suburb of Hay al-Sellom, the party said.
Wissam Dalla, a Syrian in his early twenties, "threw himself from the seventh floor" of a building where he had been staying with relatives "after learning his location had been discovered," Hezbollah said in a statement.
Dalla was "responsible for the explosion in the Sayyida Zeinab area" south of the Syrian capital last month, Hezbollah added.
Lebanese security forces played no role in the incident, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Lebanon's authorities did not immediately issue any statements.
On July 27, six people were killed and at least 20 others wounded when a bomb exploded south of Damascus near the Sayyida Zeinab mausoleum, Syria's most visited Shiite pilgrimage site, authorities said.
The Sunni Muslim extremist Islamic State group later claimed the blast, which came ahead of the annual commemoration of Ashura, a key event on the Shiite calendar.
Friday's incident took place in Hay al-Sellom, an impoverished neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs -- a Hezbollah stronghold.
The group had pursued Dalla amid fears he could carry out another attack, the statement added, saying he was taken to hospital but died.
"Relevant bodies" in Hezbollah were informed that he had entered Lebanon secretly, the statement said.
Hezbollah has been fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war that erupted in 2011.
Beirut's southern suburbs saw a wave of bombings between 2013 and 2015 carried out by Sunni extremists in retaliation for the Shiite group's intervention in the Syria conflict.
Source: Agence France Presse
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