Badr al-Din; The Hezbollah Commander Who 'Moved Like a Ghost'

Elias Badr, Sami Issa, Safi Badr, Zulfiqar... all of these are aliases of one of the military commanders of Hezbollah Lebanon, whose real name is Mustafa Amin Badr al-Din; a person described as a 'ghost' in court documents. There is little known about Badr al-Din's life. He was ultimately killed in a mysterious explosion that targeted one of Hezbollah's bases near Damascus International Airport in the Syrian capital; an explosion that Hezbollah initially blamed on Israel and later attributed to armed opponents of the Syrian government, whom they refer to as 'takfiris.' Badr al-Din was one of the most prominent figures in Hezbollah Lebanon. He was the brother-in-law of Imad Mughniyeh, the military commander of Hezbollah, and succeeded him after Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus in 2008. Mustafa Badr al-Din was born on April 6, 1961, in the Ghobayri area located in southern Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. He walked with a limp, likely due to injuries sustained during the war with Israel at the beginning of the occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982. A photo report: The funeral of Badr al-Din, the killed commander of Hezbollah. Mustafa Badr al-Din, one of the highest-ranking commanders of Hezbollah Lebanon, was killed in an explosion in Syria. Analyses and assessments have referred to him as the operational commander of Hezbollah in Syria. Badr al-Din was also a key suspect in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon. His funeral was held on Friday in Beirut. Arrested in Kuwait. Mustafa Badr al-Din was arrested in Kuwait in 1983 and sentenced to death. He was accused of involvement in planning a series of bombings in Kuwait, including attacks on the embassies of the United States and France. It is believed that these attacks were carried out in retaliation for Kuwait and the West's support of Iraq during the war with Iran. Badr al-Din's death sentence was not carried out. Perhaps the reason was the series of attacks following his arrest and the hijacking of a Kuwaiti passenger plane; an operation in which the hijackers demanded the release of prisoners from the Kuwait attacks, including Badr al-Din. Some reports indicate that Imad Mughniyeh was involved in this hijacking. Eventually, in August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the doors of the prisons were opened, and Badr al-Din was able to escape. There was no further news of a legal case against Badr al-Din until his name reappeared in 2011 in the legal files of the United Nations investigative team regarding the explosions of 2005 in Lebanon. In one of the explosions, Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated. Investigations indicated Badr al-Din's involvement in this assassination as the coordinator of the tracking and killing networks of Hariri. The international court files regarding the assassination of Rafik Hariri refer to details of Badr al-Din's life. According to The Guardian, he is accused in these files of conspiracy for a terrorist act, executing this act through an explosion, in addition to murder. According to court documents, Badr al-Din studied political science at the American University of Beirut from 2002 to 2004. He owned a high-end Mercedes-Benz car. He also had a jewelry store in Beirut and an apartment in the Christian coastal area of Jounieh in northern Beirut, a region known for its nightlife. Court researchers also state that the contact list on Badr al-Din's mobile phone includes some university friends, businessmen, official officials in Hezbollah, personal guards, and relatives. After the assassination of Mughniyeh in 2008, Badr al-Din was the military commander of Hezbollah. Mughniyeh is considered the designer of Hezbollah's defensive lines in the 33-day war of 2006 with Israel. His name also appears among the suspects in the bombing of a Jewish temple in Argentina in the 1990s. Until his death, only old photos of Badr al-Din were available. The court could not determine the date of these photos. However, after his death, Hezbollah's information apparatus published a photo of him in military attire wearing prescription glasses in the media. Badr al-Din left very little identification behind. United Nations investigators say they have not found any certificates or passports from him, nor are there any registered properties in his name. His exit from Lebanon is also not recorded. He has no bank account. In the opening session of Badr al-Din's trial, which was held in absentia, researchers stated that he moves like a ghost and cannot be easily tracked. Hezbollah denies all accusations against Badr al-Din and other members of the group and does not recognize the international court. In recent years, Badr al-Din gained fame for his role in commanding Hezbollah brigades in Syria, where the group's forces are fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad's regime. In 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department placed Badr al-Din on its sanctions list due to his role in the Syrian war.