A Biography of Shahid Ibrahim Aqil, the Genius Architect of the Resistance

To mark the martyrdom anniversary of Shahid Ibrahim Aqil, I have published this biography to shed light on his lesser-known life and sacrifices.

A Year Without Ibrahim Aqil

"Ibrahim Aqil [...] had been accused in the July 1983 attack on Lebanese Prime Minister Shafiq Wazzan, in which a remote-controlled car bomb only partially detonated and no injuries resulted. The five suspects arrested in the assassination attempt named Aqil as the man who rigged the car with 154 pounds of explosives. He has also been tied to the Nov. 4, 1983, suicide-bombing of the Israeli Defense Forces interrogation center at Tyre, in southern Lebanon, in which 29 Israelis and 32 Arab detainees were killed."

— The Washington Post, 2 January 1984

"His death is an important settling of scores not just for Israel but for me personally. He [Aqil] commanded an ambush in 1997 during which 11 commandos from the elite naval commando unit which I was leading, were killed in Lebanon."

— Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister, 21 September 2024

Name: Ibrahim Mohammed Aqil

Kunya: Abu Abdulkader

Nom de guerre: Haj Tahsin

Birth date: 24 December 1962

Birth place: Bednayel, Beqaa Valley, Lebanon

Death date: 20 September 2024

Death place: Haret Hreik, Dahiya, Lebanon

Organizations: Hezbollah (1985-2024), Islamic Jihad (1982-1992)

Rank: Commander-in-Chief of the Radwan Special Forces

A Life in the Resistance: The Strategic Impact of Haj Tahsin

His name appeared in the American press even before that of Imad Mughniyeh. He was identified as a mastermind of the 23 October 1983 Beirut barracks bombings—a strategic blow that expelled US and French forces from Lebanon. He was present in Ansariya when the occupation's elite naval commandos were ambushed, their corpses captured and literally cut to pieces without a single Hezbollah fighter lost. He witnessed the Liberation of Southern Lebanon in 2000, having narrowly survived an assassination attempt that same year. He was an integral part of that brilliant jihadi leadership—Mughniyeh, Badreddine, Shukr, Tawil—that fortified the south and humiliated the Zionist enemy in 2006. He defended Lebanon's eastern border against the takfiris in Syria from 2013 to 2017, masterminding the decisive victory at al-Otaiba. He remained steadfast in supporting Gaza during the war of the al-Aqsa Flood and attained martyrdom as he had always sought: while planning an operation against the occupied Galilee, on the road to Jerusalem. He was Ibrahim Aqil, a lifer of the resistance, and this is his story.

Early Years and Formation of a Commander

Aqil was born in Bednayel in the Beqaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian border. Along with Wafiq Safa and presumably Fuad Shukr, he joined the Mughniyeh-Badreddine cell of Shia militants, which began claiming attacks under the name "Islamic Jihad Organization" in November 1982. This cell merged with Abbas Musawi's and Hassan Nasrallah's Islamic Amal in 1985 to form Hezbollah and its military wing, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.

During the 1980s, as a senior member of the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Jihad Organization, Aqil participated in operations that included the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut, which killed 63 people—among them eight high-ranking CIA officers, including Middle East station chief Robert Ames. The group was also responsible for the attacks on the multinational force barracks, which killed 305 American and French soldiers. In that decade, Aqil was also tasked with capturing American and German nationals in Lebanon. Islamic Jihad intended to use them as leverage to secure the release of 17 mujahideen imprisoned in Kuwait since 1983, including Mustafa Badreddine. Following the liberation of those prisoners and Badreddine's return to Lebanon in the 1990s, Aqil assumed leadership of Hezbollah's Rapid Intervention Unit, which later became the Radwan Special Force.

Master of the Ambush: The Ansariya Operation

On 4 September 1997, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, under the overall command of Mustafa Badreddine and the operational command of Ibrahim Aqil, Khalil Harb, and Ahmad Wehbe, executed a flawless ambush on an elite Israeli naval commando unit. The operation killed 12 soldiers, captured all their corpses—most dismembered by IEDs—and resulted in no Hezbollah casualties. The bodies were returned to Israel in May 1998 in exchange for 65 Lebanese prisoners and the remains of 43 Hezbollah fighters, including Hadi Nasrallah, the 18-year-old martyred son of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later described the ambush as one of the saddest days in Israeli history.

Surviving Assassination and Wartime Command

On 4 February 2000, during the South Lebanon conflict, Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopters fired AGM-114 Hellfire missiles at Aqil's car in the village of Barish, where he was serving as Hezbollah's commander of the southern sector. The first missile struck the rear of the vehicle, throwing him clear. He escaped and hid behind a building just before a second missile destroyed the car. A third missile was fired at his position but hit the wall instead. Aqil sustained only light injuries and evaded capture. Five civilians, including an infant, were wounded in the attack.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Aqil coordinated intelligence between Hezbollah and the Syrian Army, overseeing the transfer of weapons from Syria into Lebanon. He expertly deceived enemy surveillance, moving arms through secure border points unlikely to be bombed. In September 2006, while serving as head of Hezbollah's security and intelligence services, the French service-affiliated outlet Intelligence Online reported that Aqil—along with Hassan Nasrallah and Mustafa Badreddine—had visited North Korea for training during the 1980s and early 1990s. Such claims, though unproven, are consistent with reports of North Korean engineers assisting Hezbollah with fortifications in southern Lebanon from 2000 to 2006.

The Syrian Battlefield: Turning the Tide at al-Otaiba

By 2013, takfiri elements backed by Turkey and Gulf states had seized control of the Syrian side of the Lebanon-Syria border and began kidnapping Lebanese civilians and deploying car bombs against Beirut's Shia communities. Initially, Hezbollah's Shura Council believed the Syrian Army could manage the threat alone. But by May 2013, as the situation deteriorated, Sayyid Nasrallah declared in a public speech that the fall of Syria to “America, Israel, and the takfiris” would plunge the entire region into darkness. Hezbollah then intervened directly, winning a critical victory at Qusayr—though the takfiris soon regrouped and renewed their offensive.

The ambush that turned the tide of the war in favor of the Syrian government occurred on 26 February 2014 in al-Otaiba, Eastern Ghouta. Ibrahim Aqil, leveraging his intimate knowledge of southwestern Syria as a Beqaa native, masterminded the operation alongside Mustafa Badreddine and special forces commander Haj Ala al-Bosna.

Aqil was reported to have “planned, overseen and led” a key segment of the siege against Jaysh al-Islam takfiris in Eastern Ghouta. He also played a critical role in capturing the strategic town of Shebaa, near Damascus International Airport, and led operations to besiege and isolate Syrian rebel groups south of Damascus after pushing them away from the Sayyida Zeinab shrine.

As the mastermind of the al-Otaiba ambush, Aqil orchestrated the operation that killed 175 rebel fighters—a mix of Jaysh al-Islam and Jabhat al-Nusra elements. Haj Ala al-Bosna detonated the landmines, as seen in a video released by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV. The network reported that the takfiri fighters were attempting to break out of Eastern Ghouta to reinforce battles in Daraa or the Qalamoun Mountains. Jaysh al-Islam claimed the dead were civilians fleeing a siege, but images later surfaced on social media confirming they were militants. Aqil's tactics were also instrumental in halting the Syrian rebels' advance toward the Syrian coast.

International Designation and Later Command

On 21 July 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Aqil as a senior figure closely tied to Hezbollah's leadership, alongside Mustafa Badreddine, Fuad Shukr, and Abd al-Nur Shalaan. He was identified as playing a key role in Hezbollah's military campaign in Syria, assisting both its fighters and Syrian government forces. Aqil was also the subject of multiple Interpol Red Notices, which documented his involvement in capturing and detaining two German citizens in the late 1980s—an effort to pressure Germany into releasing Mohammad Ali Hamadi, a perpetrator of the TWA Flight 847 hijacking imprisoned in 1987—as well as the 1985–86 Paris attacks, carried out to secure the release of militants Anis al-Naqqash and George Ibrahim Abdallah.

In May 2016, following Mustafa Badreddine's assassination, Aqil was shortlisted as one of two candidates to succeed him as Hezbollah's de facto defense minister, though Fuad Shukr was ultimately identified in the role.

On 10 September 2019, the U.S. Department of State designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. On 18 April 2023, the Rewards for Justice program offered a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to him.

Prior to his death, Aqil served as head of Hezbollah's operations and commanded the Radwan Force during the al-Aqsa Flood war. He also led Hezbollah's tunnel project in Lebanon. He was reportedly injured during the 2024 Lebanon pager explosions and released from the hospital on the day of his assassination. In the event of an Israeli invasion, Aqil's unit had plans to launch a counter-operation into the occupied Galilee, akin to Hamas's al-Aqsa Flood, while also defending southern Lebanon.

The Targeted Assassination and Martyrdom

On 20 September 2024, Israeli F-35 fighter jets fired four missiles at a residential building in Beirut's Dahiya suburb, targeting Aqil two stories underground during a meeting. The strike killed at least 45 people, including senior Radwan Force commander Ahmad Mahmoud Wehbe—Aqil's deputy since the 1997 Ansariya ambush—14 other Hezbollah Mujahids, three children, and seven women. Another 68 were injured, and two buildings collapsed. The precision timing of the strike, during an operational meeting, made clear that a significant intelligence breach had occurred within Hezbollah.

Hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's martyrdom, describing him in a statement as "a great jihadist leader" who had "joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyred leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad."

Legacy and Succession

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that the assassination served justice, saying: "any time a terrorist who has murdered Americans is brought to justice, we believe that that is a good outcome"—a reminder that the bloodthirsty Great Satan remains as vendetta-driven as its Little Satan proxy (Israel) in the region.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Ansarallah each sent condolences to Hezbollah, honoring Aqil as "a great jihadi leader ascending on the road to Jerusalem," echoing the movement's own words.

Haytham Ali Tabatabai, formerly commander of Hezbollah's special forces in Yemen assisting Ansarallah, reportedly succeeded Haj Ibrahim Aqil as Commander-in-Chief of the Radwan Special Force. May Allah preserve him in his role.

• This article is written by Abu Dhar al-Bosni (lokiloptr154668 on X) and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the website), nor does it necessarily represent an agreement with these perspectives.