In the rubble of a 10-story building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanese rescue workers were still searching for bodies on the morning of Saturday, September 21. Shortly before 4 pm the previous day in the heart of this Hezbollah stronghold, as the streets around the Al-Naim mosque were filled with residents returning from work after picking up their children from school, several missiles targeted the building’s basement, killing Ibrahim Akil, the commander of the elite Radwan force, and Hezbollah fighters with whom he was meeting.
The structures of two buildings, reduced to dust, closed in like a coffin on the militiamen, as well as on the families living on the upper floors. In a provisional assessment, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health counted 31 dead, including three children and seven women, and 68 injured. Panic-stricken and already terrorized by a series of explosions targeting Hezbollah’s telecommunications systems on Tuesday and Wednesday (which left 37 dead and nearly 3,000 wounded), some residents packed their bags and left as Israeli drones circled the skies over Beirut.
Israel has chosen to offer Hezbollah no respite, and to sweep aside all red lines, in order to pressure the Shiite party to cease its attacks on its territory at all costs. This runs the risk of precipitating an open confrontation. In October 2023, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, Hezbollah opened a front in support of the Gaza Strip, caught under a deluge of Israeli fire. Even as the Party of God has yet to absorb the shock of Israel’s sabotage operation earlier this week, and its leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to inflict “terrible punishment” on Israel in response, the loss of the Radwan force command head is a major new setback.
‘A great jihadist leader’
On Friday night, Hezbollah confirmed the death of Aqil, describing him as “a great jihadist leader,” and that of another senior member of the Radwan force, Ahmed Mahmoud Wehbe, in the strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs. It also mentioned the death of some 15 other fighters, without specifying either their unit or the location of their “martyrdom.” “The Hezbollah commanders we eliminated today had been planning their October 7 [2023] on the northern border for years,” Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi had said earlier.
According to Israel, Akil had been in charge of Hezbollah operations since 2004, notably “in the fields of anti-tank operations, explosive devices and air defense.” An enigmatic figure, he played a leading role in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, then in the war in Syria alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Israel also said he took part in attacks and infiltration attempts against its territory, including a bomb attack at the Megiddo crossroads in 2023. He was the de facto leader of the 7,000 to 10,000-strong Radwan force, experienced in special operations and guerrilla warfare, after Wissam al-Tawil was assassinated by Israel in January.
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