Senior Hezbollah commander Hassan al-Laqis was assassinated outside his home in southern Beirut late Tuesday — a sharp blow to the Iranian-backed Shiite group. Hezbollah has no shortage of rivals eager to strike at its strongholds and leadership:
— ISRAEL: Hezbollah quickly blamed Israel for al-Laqis’ assassination, saying it had tried to kill him several times already. Israeli officials denied the accusations. Still, the Jewish state could view the fallout from Hezbollah’s armed intervention in Syria — and the long list of enemies it has created — as cover to move against a senior figure.
Enmity runs deep between Israel and Hezbollah. The Lebanese group waged an insurgency against the nearly 20-year Israeli military occupation of southern Lebanon before Israel withdrew in 2000. The Israelis have killed — or have been suspected of killing — high-ranking Hezbollah figures for decades. In 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed the motorcade of Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Musawi, killing him, his wife, his son and four bodyguards. Eight years earlier, Hezbollah leader Sheik Ragheb Harb was killedn in south Lebanon. But one of the biggest blows came in 2008 when Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah commander, was killed by a bombing in Damascus.
o SAUDI ARABIA: Al-Laqis’ killing came shortly after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, speaking to a TV station, accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the Nov. 19 suicide bombings at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. He indirectly blamed an alliance between Iran rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia for trying to strike at Hezbollah, which is Tehran’s proxy in Lebanon. The allegations spotlighted the Syrian civil war’s sectarian overtones and regional impact. Riyadh backs the predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels in Syria, while regional Shiite power Iran and Hezbollah support Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose regime is stacked with members of his heterodox sect of Shiite Islam. Saudi Arabia fears what it sees as Iran trying to spread its influence across the Arab world. Under this thinking, a Saudi strike against Hezbollah would be a blow to Iran and its regional ambitions.