Campaign prods Hezbollah to address assassination blamed on Israel
Eleven months after former Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine was assassinated, billboards and online accounts are asking the organization to address the claims that Hezbollah orchestrated the kill itself.
An anonymous online campaign aimed at Hezbollah leaders seems to goad them to address the allegations that they were responsible for the assassination of the former commander Mustafa Badreddine.
At the beginning of the month, a video of a woman claiming to be Badreddine’s lover surfaced on an anonymous YouTube channel and accusing Hezbollah of having taken out the former terrorist leader. That explosive claim ostensibly lends credibility to the Israeli position that it had no part in the assassination.
The recent online campaign, which has also posted a billboard, includes the accusation, “Your silence is an admission.”
On various Twitter and Facebook accounts, the sentence was shown with a picture of Badreddine in uniform. The apparent goal is to have Hezbollah respond to the claims that the assassination was carried out as a result of tension between the organization and Iran. In those accounts, a video clip and pictures of the billboard campaign were included.
On the Lebanese news website Beirut Observer, which is known for its critical coverage of Hezbollah, an article was published called, “Are the signs ‘Your silence is an admission’ intended to condemn Nasrallah for the assassination of Badreddine?”
The article quotes “exclusive sources” according to which the campaign is aimed at the silence of Hezbollah Secretary General Nasrallah, despite an investigation by the Saudi Al-Arabiya network that brought the assassination back into public discussion.
The same sources added that they cannot identify the source of the funding of the signs, but most likely they are people who are loyal to Badreddine in the ranks of Hezbollah who wanted to condemn the organization for failing to punish the murderers or prosecute them.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot has said that an internal Hezbollah conflict led to the assassination, which took place in the Damascus region on May 13, 2016. Eisenkot cited a report on the incident by the Al Arabiya network claiming that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani gave the order.
(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
