Palestinian militant group: a commander assassinated in Syria
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad says one of its commanders was killed in Syria in what it described as an assassination by Israeli agents
DAMASCUS — A commander of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was killed in Syria on Sunday in what he described as an assassination by Israeli agents.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, said in a statement that Ali Ramzi al-Aswad, 31, was killed Sunday morning in rural Damascus in a “cowardly assassination with bullets bearing fingerprints of the Zionist enemy”. referring to Israel.
There was no immediate statement from Israel on Sunday’s alleged killing.
Islamic Jihad said in a statement that Aswad’s family was moved from the city of Haifa in 1948 and settled in refugee camps in Syria, where he joined the organization as a young man.
In 2019, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the home of Akram al-Ajouri, a member of the Islamic Jihad leadership living in exile. Ajouri was not injured, but his son was reportedly killed in the attack.
Last month, airstrikes on residential areas in Damascus that Syrian authorities said killed at least five people were attributed to Israel. An Islamic Jihad official warned Israel in a statement that there would be “a decisive response without delay to any assassination attempt (against) resistance leaders”.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
ABC
