Death that shook Middle East: A life in the shadows, legacy of Fuad Shukr

High-ranking Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr lived a life of such secrecy that few knew his identity. An airstrike ultimately killed him, pushing tensions in the Middle East closer to conflict.

For 40 years, Shukr had managed to avoid capture by the US. He was linked to a bombing in Beirut, capital city of Lebanon, that killed 241 American Servicemen, which, the authorities say, he helped organise. In late-July, an Israeli airstrike located him on the seventh floor of a nearby apartment building.

Shukr was a founder-member and senior operative of Hezbollah, a group labelled ‘terrorist organisation’ by the US. A close ally of leader Hassan Nasrallah, he helped build the missile arsenal that makes Hezbollah the most heavily armed militia not tied to any state. For the past 10 months, he had led Hezbollah’s increasing clashes across the border with Israel.

Shukr was a key figure in Hezbollah’s history, but lived a very low-profile life. He only showed up in small meetings with the group’s trusted veterans. Earlier this year, he briefly appeared in public to attend the funeral of his nephew who had died fighting Israel. He was there for just a few minutes, according to someone who knows him.

EVEN SHUKR’S FACE WASN’T KNOWN

According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Shukr was so secretive that, when the Lebanese media reported his death, they accidentally used photos of someone else. A Hezbollah official said the commander, who was not well-known, spent his last day on July 30 in his office on the second floor of a residential building in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of southern Beirut. He lived on the seventh floor of the same building, probably to avoid going outside too much.

That night, according to a Hezbollah representative, Shukr got a phone call instructing him to go up five floors to his apartment. At approximately 7 pm, Israeli bombs hit the apartment and the three floors below, resulting in the deaths of Shukr, his wife, two other women and two children. The Lebanese health ministry reported that over 70 individuals were wounded.

The decision to move Shukr to the seventh floor, where he could more easily be seen and targeted among the nearby buildings, probably came from a person who had hacked into Hezbollah’s internal communication system, according to the official. Hezbollah and Iran are looking into the intelligence failure, but think that Israel outsmarted the group’s surveillance efforts with superior technology and cyber attacks, according to the official.

KILLING A BIG LOSS FOR HEZBOLLAH

The killing was a big loss for Hezbollah, as they lost one of their top strategists and revealed how much their operations have been infiltrated. The killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, believed to be an Israeli attack, along with the death of the top Hezbollah strategist, has escalated tensions in the Middle East and raised concerns about the possibility of a regional war. The US is working to prevent further escalation.

Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel-Aviv who specialises in Hezbollah, told WSJ that these pick-and-choose killings had a combined impact that crippled the organisation’s operational capability. She described Shukr as a knowledgeable individual who was able to effectively work with and communicate with Nasrallah. They had a good understanding and were able to connect well with each other.

Shukr spent most of his adult life at the centre of Hezbollah’s activities and decision-making processes. He played a crucial role in connecting the group with its primary supporter, Iran. In 1982, when he was in his early-20s, he assisted in coordinating Shi’ite rebel fighters in Beirut to resist Israel’s invasion of Lebanon during the civil war.

Following the siege of Beirut by Israel, the resistance group moved to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. There, they connected with approximately 1,500 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who had entered through Syria. Shukr was requested to accompany a delegation of Iranian officials from the Syrian border to the Beirut embassy, says Qassem Kassir, a political expert acquainted with Shukr since the 1980s.

The diplomats were kidnapped during the journey, reportedly by the Lebanese Forces, an armed Christian group, and were never found. Shukr, who worked for state security, was released. Referred to as Hajj Mohsin, Shukr served as the main contact between the Iranians and the training camp they set up in Bekaa Valley to train Hezbollah fighters, says Kassir, who was employed at the Iranian embassy in Beirut during that period.

On the morning of October 23, 1983, a massive truck bomb exploded outside a US Marine barracks in Beirut. The bomb, filled with approximately 12,000 pounds of TNT, caused extensive damage and casualties. Hezbollah, by then, had not yet formally announced its presence, and a group known as the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The US government later stated that Shukr was deeply involved in organising and carrying out the bombing.

THEN, HEZBOLLAH SURFACED IN 1985

Hezbollah officially declared its establishment in 1985, with Shukr appointed as its initial military leader. He led a guerrilla operation in the southern region until Israeli troops completely left the country in 2000. Shukr gained recognition for his strategic planning skills and extensive knowledge of the area.

On June 14, 1985, a group of hijackers took control of the TWA Flight 847 shortly after it departed from Athens. They flew the plane between Beirut and Algiers over a period of three days, demanding that 700 prisoners held by Israel be freed. Kassir stated that Shukr assisted in planning the operation and then went into hiding as his reputation grew across Beirut. Then, Shukr disappeared completely, a friend said.

Shukr was highly respected by the members of Hezbollah and would occasionally emerge from hiding. In 1993, during demonstrations in Beirut opposing the Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Shukr personally intervened to persuade a group of Hezbollah members to step back from a confrontation with the security forces, preventing violence, according to the acquaintance.

In 1996, after the Israeli forces killed over 100 civilians on a United Nations compound in Lebanon, Shukr made a trip to Mecca. While walking around the Kaaba, Shukr led a group of pilgrims in chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, according to a friend who was with him on the trip.

The private life Shukr led had an impact on him, as he made up for lost time with friends and acquaintances by showing them extra attention and care when he had the chance, says Kassir. He was very devoted to a small group of friends, many of whom had grown up with him, like Nasrallah, who became the leader of Hezbollah in 1992 after his predecessor was killed by Israel.

These high-ranking military fellows, according to Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow and Hezbollah expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as quoted in WSJ, make no appearances in public, post no photographs to the public, and have no interactions with others in the Shia community.

SHUKR PLAYS KEY ROLE ONCE MORE

During the 2006 war in Lebanon, Shukr played a key role once more. He led the fighters who entered northern Israel, resulting in the deaths of eight soldiers and the abduction of two more. This action led to a month-long invasion that caused significant destruction in Lebanon.

Following the war, Shukr was in charge of a military expansion that increased Hezbollah’s weapons from around 15,000 rockets and missiles to approximately 150,000. These included various kinds of missiles, drones and rockets—such as anti-ship and cruise missiles. Shukr became the main contact for Iran’s shipments, facilitated through Syria, of parts that transformed basic rockets into precision-guided weapons, as reported by the Israeli military.

In 2008, Shukr’s close friend and top Hezbollah commander, Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated by a car bomb in a collaborative operation between the CIA and Mossad in Damascus, Syria. Mughniyeh had departed from an event to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic Republic in Iran when he got into his car alone and a bomb hidden in a spare tyre went off.

In 2016, another associate of Hezbollah, Mustafa Badreddine, died in an explosion in the Syrian capital, as well. Hezbollah accused Sunni militants of the attack, but Israel claimed he was actually killed by his own comrades as a result of internal conflicts on Nasrallah’s instructions.

However, in the past few years, Shukr seemed to become more at ease, according to Kassir. His friends were killed in Damascus, not Beirut, where a specific assassination appeared less probable. Kassir mentioned that the rules of interaction with Israel had been set and there were boundaries that could not be crossed.

Even after October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel and caused the deaths of 1,200 Israelis, primarily civilians, the rules remained unchanged. The day after, Hezbollah started firing at Israel, leading to a series of exchanges where Israel targeted and eliminated approximately 400 Hezbollah members, including important leaders, but not in Beirut.

Worried about the intelligence failures that allowed his fighters to be targeted, Nasrallah instructed his fighters and their families in February to refrain from using smartphones. In order to avoid Israeli surveillance, Hezbollah started using coded language not only on public channels, but also within their internal communication network.

Shukr became a target for Israel after a rocket struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in late-July, resulting in the deaths of 12 young people. Hezbollah denied responsibility, but Israel accused the group, claiming that the rocket belonged to Hezbollah and had been launched from Lebanon.

At the beginning of the day Shukr was attacked, Hezbollah instructed senior commanders to scatter as they were believed to be in danger, according to a Hezbollah official. After the attack, Shukr’s fate appeared uncertain. Some within Hezbollah believed he may have followed the evacuation instructions and escaped, according to the official. It took some time to locate his body, which had been thrown into a nearby building.

Shukr’s death, once more, brought him under the spotlight. At his funeral, his face was shown on big screens and videos of his military deeds were played loudly, singing paeans to his virtues. He was laid to rest in a Beirut public cemetery.

(The author of this article is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com)
 
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)