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IDF says it killed key Hezbollah official responsible for 2007 attack on US troops
Senior Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, mastermind of a January 2007 attack that killed five US troops in Iraq, was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon over the weekend, the IDF announced Sunday.
Daqduq was reported in November 2024 to have been killed in an Israeli strike in Syria, but he apparently survived.
According to the military, Daqduq was killed by an Israeli strike south of the Litani River in Lebanon on Friday.
Daqduq had held a series of senior positions in Hezbollah, “served as a source of knowledge with extensive operational experience,” and, in recent years, “played a central role in advancing terrorist attacks and combat operations against the State of Israel and IDF soldiers,” the IDF said.
The military said Daqduq’s roles included head of security for slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah; commander in the elite Radwan Force; a commander in the operations unit of Hezbollah’s Nasr Unit; head of infantry in Hezbollah; and the commander of the “Golan File,” Hezbollah’s entrenchment efforts in southern Syria.
“Over the past several years, Daqduq led much of Hezbollah’s operational planning against IDF soldiers along the Lebanon border,” the IDF said.
????ELIMINATED: Ali Musa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah commander who held a series of 5 senior positions within Hezbollah.
Daqduq played a central role in advancing terrorist attacks and combat operations against Israel and IDF soldiers. In 2007, he orchestrated the kidnapping and… pic.twitter.com/XWg6O2k5XR
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 14, 2026
US forces jailed Daqduq in 2007 for the abduction and murder of US troops in Karbala, and later extradited him to Iraq, which assured the US he would be prosecuted.
According to NBC, which reported in 2024 that Daqduq was killed, Daqduq was the last prisoner the US handed over to Iraq before withdrawing from the country in December 2011, after eight years of war. Iraq proceeded to acquit Daqduq and released him in late 2012, to Washington’s outrage.
Daqduq’s son Hassan Ali Daqduq was killed on December 8, 2023, in an Israeli drone strike in southern Syria, during the conflict that Hezbollah initiated on October 8, 2023, a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.
At the time, Syria was ruled by long-time president Bashar Al-Assad, whom Iranian and Hezbollah forces propped up until he was deposed in December 2024. Syria has since become less hospitable to Hezbollah.
Assad’s fall came less than two weeks after Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire agreement. Hezbollah on March 2 launched its first rockets at Israel since that agreement, dragging Lebanon into the wider US-Israeli war against Iran. Israel’s continued strikes in Lebanon have complicated US-Iranian peace talks and strained relations with Washington.
