A Trader Close to Bashar al-Assad Killed in Attack Attributed to Israel

Reuters and Associated Press report, citing informed sources, that a prominent trader supportive of Bashar al-Assad's regime has been killed in an Israeli airstrike. According to these reports published on Monday, July 16, 'Baraa Qatargi' was killed in an Israeli drone attack near the Lebanon-Syria border. Media close to the Assad government have announced that this well-known Syrian trader, who was sanctioned by the U.S., was killed in this airstrike. Mr. Qatargi, along with his brother, Hussam, is part of a small circle of traders close to the Assad family who gained prominence during the Syrian civil war that began 13 years ago. The killing of another Hezbollah commander coincides with the ongoing war in Gaza. Israeli officials have not commented on this matter. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the two brothers and their companies are under U.S. sanctions for 'facilitating oil shipments and financing the Syrian regime.' Since the attack by the extremist group Hamas on the border area of Israel on October 7 of last year, Israel has conducted attacks almost daily in Syria and Lebanon. In this context, Mustafa Hassan Salman, one of Hezbollah's field commanders, was killed on the night of July 8 in a drone attack attributed to Israel in southern Lebanon. A day earlier, Meysam Mustafa Attar, one of the forces directing rocket attacks on northern Israel, was killed in this country's attack. In one of the attacks attributed to Israel in April of this year, the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, the capital of Syria, was destroyed, and several senior commanders of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards were killed. In retaliation, the Islamic Republic conducted an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israeli territory, but most of them were intercepted by Israel's defense system and its allies before impact.