Fouad Shokr, the Hezbollah military leader whom Israel says it killed in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday night, is a shadowy figure who plays “a leading role” in the powerful group’s attacks on Israel.
This man wanted by the United States, whose Treasury has offered a reward for any information about him, is the “right-hand man” of the leader of Hezbollah according to the Israeli army.
Chokr “plays a leading role in Hezbollah’s operations against Israel from southern Lebanon,” from where the pro-Iranian group has been launching attacks almost daily for nearly ten months, according to a source close to Hezbollah who did not confirm his death.
The official, whose nom de guerre is Mohsen Chokr, is “the successor” of Imad Moughniyé, the military leader of Hezbollah killed in 2008 in a bomb attack in Damascus attributed by Hezbollah to Israel, according to the same source.
According to the US State Department, Fouad Chokr is “a senior military commander of the group’s forces in southern Lebanon” who has played “a key role in Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria” where the pro-Iranian group supports the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The Israeli military claims he is Hezbollah’s “top military commander” and “the right-hand man” of its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“As head of Hezbollah’s strategic unit, he was responsible for the majority of Hezbollah’s most advanced weapons,” according to the Israeli military.
Born in 1961 or 1962, he is originally from the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon according to Washington.
In 2017, the US Treasury offered $5 million for information about him.
He described him as an “important military affairs adviser” to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and said he was “close” to Mughniyeh.
In 2017, then-US Vice President Mike Pence described him as “one of the masterminds” of the 1983 attack that killed more than 200 US Marines in Beirut.
In 2019, Israel accused him of being one of the four masterminds behind Iran’s development of precision missiles that could cause “enormous human losses” on its territory.