After his death… Who is Salim Ayyash, Hezbollah member convicted of killing Rafic Hariri?

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The Israeli website “Walla” reported that Hezbollah leader Salim Ayyash was killed on Sunday evening “in an Israeli strike in the Sayyida Zaynab area, south of Damascus,” while other media sources indicated that the attack took place in the Syrian town of Al-Qusayr.

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On December 11, 2020, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Salim Ayyash as the sole guilty party in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, after acquitting the other accused: Hussein Aniissi, Assad Sabra, and Hassan Merhi.

Local residents in the Sayyida Zaynab area reported that the Israeli bombing targeted two buildings, destroying several apartments, and that residents were buried under the rubble. Those who survived the attack transported their injured relatives to hospitals and medical centers before the arrival of rescue teams, firefighters, the army, and the police.

One resident stated: “An apartment on the third floor was completely destroyed from the inside, and all those inside were killed.”

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Who is Salim Ayyash?

The Special Tribunal convicted Ayyash in absentia in December 2020 to five life sentences for his role in the suicide bombing that targeted former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005 in Beirut.

The attack, carried out with a truck bomb, killed Hariri just months after his tenure as Prime Minister. Twenty-one others were killed, including former Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade Bassel Fleihan, and 226 people were wounded.

Reports on social media earlier today confirmed the death of Ayyash in an airstrike targeting the Al-Qusayr region near the Syrian-Lebanese border.

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It is worth noting that the U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to Ayyash’s arrest due to his role in the attack.

The court found that Ayyash led the assassination team that carried out the attack on Hariri, and that he was actively involved in the assassination on the day of the attack.

Salim Ayyash, along with four other members of Hezbollah, was tried in absentia for their involvement in the assassination of Hariri.

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Court documents show that he was born in the village of Harouf, southern Lebanon, in 1963, and holds Lebanese citizenship.

The frequency of these Israeli strikes has increased since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Recently, Israel has targeted points near the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, in strikes that it described as aimed at preventing Hezbollah from transferring “combat equipment” from Syria to Lebanon.

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The Israeli army has recently repeated that its airstrikes aim to “reduce attempts to transfer weapons from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon,” accusing the Iran-backed group of “establishing a logistical infrastructure to transfer weapons from Syria to Lebanon” through the border crossings, two of which were put out of service due to Israeli airstrikes last month.