A Hezbollah commander and several other fighters from the Lebanese Shiite militant group have been killed in Syria, a senior Lebanese security official and Syrian activists said Tuesday.
Hezbollah, which is backed by both Syria and Iran, is a strong ally of President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime and has long been accused by the Syrian opposition of assisting Damascus in its crackdown on the 18-month-old uprising — a claim the group has repeatedly denied.
The security official said Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Nassif’s body was returned to Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing on Sunday. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, he said several other Hezbollah fighters’ bodies have been brought back to Lebanon in the past few days.