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Lebanese militant leader Samir Qantar believed killed in Damascus attack Lebanese militant leader Samir Qantar killed in Damascus attack
(about 11 hours later)
Lebanese militant leader Samir Qantar has been killed after a number of rockets hit a building in the Damascus district of Jaramana, according to Syrian government loyalists on social media. Samir Qantar, a Lebanese militant leader who spent nearly three decades in an Israeli prison after being convicted of carrying out one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history, has been killed in a rocket attack on a building in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Qantar’s brother Bassam Kantar paid tribute to him on his Facebook page without giving details about his death. Kantar said his brother was a martyr. Qantar, a high-profile figure in Hezbollah, was killed alongside eight others after multiple rocket attacks on a building in the suburb of Jaramana. The militant Shia group confirmed his death in a statement sent to the Guardian. It called him “our martyr” and blamed Israel for the killing.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported that two Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace and fired four long-range missiles at the residential building. It aired footage of what it said was the building, which appeared to be completely destroyed.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack. While Israeli military officials have refused to comment, other Israeli officials praised Qantar’s death in Syria. “I am very happy,” said the justice minister, Ayelet Shaked. “He was an arch-terrorist who bashed a four-year-old girl in the skull with a rock and expressed no regret.”
Qantar was sentenced to three life terms in Israel in 1979 after he and three other Lebanese men staged an attack in the northern coastal town of Nahariya that year, killing a policeman and then kidnapping a man and his four-year-old daughter and killing them outside their home.
Israel says Qantar, who was 16 at the time, beat the girl to death by bashing her head with a rifle butt. He denied this, saying the girl was killed in the crossfire. As the attack unfolded, the girl’s mother, Smadar Haran, hid inside a crawl space inside their home and accidentally suffocated their crying two-year-old daughter, fearing Qantar would find them.
Haran, the only survivor of the attack, said of Qantar’s death: “I felt a kind of relief. It’s not that I was looking for revenge or retaliation, but when I heard about a year ago that Samir Qantar had become very active in the Hezbollah forces just north of Israel, I worried about the fact that he might go and kill other families and kill children.”
Qantar was released as part of a deal for the release of the bodies of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regeve in July 2008, and received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Lebanon. Soon afterwards, Qantar joined Hezbollah, and he quietly rose through the group’s ranks, particularly following its involvement in the civil war in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Yaakov Amidror, a former director of the Israeli counter-terrorism bureau, said Qantar had been operating in the northern Golan Heights and was planning attacks on Israel before his death. Amidror said: “As most of the villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights were Druze, it was easy for Hezbollah to bring in an actor who is a Druze and who has good relations there,. He was very active, not alone, with other members of Hezbollah.”
Yuval Steinitz, an Israeli cabinet minister, said he was not sorry about Qantar’s death but could not comment on allegations that Israel was behind the killing. He said: “If something happened to him, I think that no civilised person can be sorry. But again I learned it from the reports in the international media and I can make no concrete reference to it.”
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu did not comment about the strike in his weekly cabinet meeting.
Qantar’s brother Bassam Qantar issued a statement on Facebook saying his sibling was a martyr. “With pride we mourn the martyrdom of the leader Samir Qantar and we are honoured to join families of martyrs,” he wrote.
Syria’s state media blamed “terrorist groups” for the attack. But government loyalists said the explosions were an Israeli airstrike.
Hezbollah has organised a funeral service for Qantar, due to be held in Beirut on Monday morning.
Hezbollah’s al-Mayadeen TV station said Farhan al-Shaalan, a senior commander with the anti-Israeli “resistance” movement in the Golan Heights, was also killed in the incident, together with an aide to Qantar.
Related: Qantar gets hero's welcome on return to LebanonRelated: Qantar gets hero's welcome on return to Lebanon
“With pride we mourn the martyrdom of the leader Samir Qantar and we are honored to join families of martyrs,” Bassam Kantar wrote. Israel possesses long-range air-to-surface missiles that conceivably could have been fired from Israeli-controlled airspace. The Golan Heights is about 25 miles from Damascus.
The militant Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah also confirmed his death, saying he was killed with eight others. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said two Israeli warplanes that violated Syrian airspace fired four long-range missiles at the residential building in Jaramana on Saturday night. It aired footage of what it said was the building, which appeared to be completely destroyed. Israeli warplanes have struck targets inside Syria several times during the country’s nearly five-year conflict, although it has rarely confirmed its involvement. Qantar’s killing would mark the first Israeli assassination of a senior figure inside Syria since Russia launched its military operations on 30 September in support of Assad.
Syria’s state media, which did not mention Qantar, blamed “terrorist groups” for the attack and said it caused several casualties. Israel’s defence minister has said Russia and Israel have worked out an open communication system “to prevent misunderstandings”. That raises the question of whether the Russians would have been informed by Israel about any operation to kill Qantar. The Russian defence ministry declined to comment on the airstrike.
But government loyalists said the explosions were caused by an Israeli strike that was believed to have killed Qantar, who is reviled in Israel for a 1979 attack that killed four people.
An Israeli cabinet minister welcomed news of Qantar’s death but stopped short of confirming allegations that Israel was responsible.
“It is good that people like Samir Qantar will not be part of our world,” Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Gallant told Israel Radio.
Asked if Israel carried out the strike near Damascus, he said: “I am not confirming or denying anything to do with this matter.” Other Israeli officials, including military spokesmen, declined to comment.
Israel released Qantar, a Druze, in 2008 as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah and he is believed to have joined the group since.
He was welcomed as a hero in Beirut and he married a Lebanese Shia woman from a Hezbollah family. He became known in Lebanon “The Dean of Lebanese Prisoners” for being the longest-held prisoner in Israel.
The National Defence Forces (NDF) in Jaramana, which are part of a nationwide grouping of loyalist Syrian militias under the umbrella of the army, mourned Qantar and one of its commanders on its Facebook page.
“His [Qantar] body has been sent to a Damascus hospital moments ago,” it said.
Qantar was imprisoned in 1979 in Israel and sentenced to three life terms after he and three other Lebanese infiltrated the country and staged an attack in the northern coastal town of Nahariya, killing a policeman and then kidnapping a man and his four-year-old daughter and killing them outside their home.
Israel says Qantar, who was 16 at the time, beat the girl to death with a rifle. He denies this, saying the girl was killed in the crossfire.
As the attack unfolded, the girl’s mother hid inside a crawl space inside their home and accidentally smothered their crying two-year-old daughter, fearing Qantar would find them.
Two of his co-conspirators were killed in a shootout with police. The third was also convicted and sent back to Lebanon in the 1980s as part of a prisoner swap.
After his release from Israel, Qantar kept a low profile. But it is believed he had become a commander in Hezbollah, which has sent hundreds of its members to fight alongside forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad.
However, it was not immediately clear what role Qantar, born in 1962, played in the fighting in Syria.
Israel has struck Syria several times since the start of the war five years ago, mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials said were destined for Hezbollah, Israel’s long-time foe in neighbouring Lebanon.
In January, an Israeli strike in Syria killed six members of Hezbollah, including a commander and the son of the group’s late military leader Imad Moughniyah in the province of Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Syrian government loyalists blamed Israel for the attack on Sunday.
“Two Israeli warplanes carried out the raid which targeted the building in Jaramana and struck the designated place with four long-range missiles,” the NDF in Jaramana Facebook page said.
It was not immediately possible to confirm the reports.
Jaramana is a bastion of government support and is the home of many of Syria’s Druze minority as well as Christians.