TEL AVIV – An anonymous online campaign is demanding Hezbollah leaders provide answers to charges that the Shiite terror group was behind the assassination of its own commander, Mustafa Badreddine.
A video of a woman claiming to be Badreddine’s lover accusing Hezbollah of killing the commander was released earlier this month on an anonymous YouTube channel, Ynet news reported. The campaign has spread to social media feeds where the sentence, “Your silence is an admission” has been trending in Arabic. The slogan has also featured on billboards in Lebanon.
According to Ynet, the goal of the online campaign is to force Hezbollah to admit the assassination was carried out as a result of growing tensions between the Lebanon-based group and Iran.
Lebanese news outlet Beirut Observer, which is critical Hezbollah, recently published an article entitled, “Are the signs ‘Your silence is an admission’ intended to condemn [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah for the assassination of Badreddine?”
The article cites “exclusive sources” as claiming that the billboards and the internet campaign are being funded by Hezbollah members themselves who have taken issue with the Shiite group’s failure to find and prosecute a perpetrator.
Badreddine, who succeeded his brother-in-law Imad Mughniyeh as head of Hezbollah’s military wing, was killed last May in an explosion near Damascus International Airport. In a rare move, a statement released by Hezbollah after the killing did not implicate Israel.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said that an internal Hezbollah conflict led to the assassination, citing a report by Al Arabiya which claimed that Nasrallah and Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani issued a joint order for his death.
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