Fuad Shukr (; 15 April 1961 – 30 July 2024; sometimes spelled Fouad Shukar and also known by his aliases Al-Hajj Mohsen or Mohsen Shukr) was a Lebanese militant leader who was a senior member of

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

. A member of Hezbollah's founding generation, Shukr was a senior military leader in the organization from the early 1980s. For over four decades, he was one of the group's leading military figures and was a military advisor to its leader

Hassan Nasrallah Hassan Nasrallah (, ; 31 August 196027 September 2024) was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the third secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in 2024. Bor ...

. Shukr was, according to Israeli intelligence, a key figure in the transfer of Iranian guidance systems for Hezbollah's long-range missiles. He was believed to have played a role in the

1983 Beirut barracks bombings On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The ...

, that killed 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and two attackers. The

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

designated Shukr as a

Specially Designated Global Terrorist A Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) is a person or entity that has been designated as such by the United States Department of State or the U.S. Department of the Treasury. An SDGT designation is made under authority of U.S. Executive ...

in 2013. On 30 July 2024, Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut for his alleged responsibility for the Majdal Shams attack three days earlier, which killed 12 children.

Early life

Shukr was born on 15 April 1961, at the village of

Al-Nabi Shayth Al-Nabi Shayth (, lit. Prophet Seth) is a village in eastern Lebanon, located in the Beqaa Valley and Baalbek District. The village's name comes from the considered burial-site of Seth the son of Adam. A mosque was built on the burial site and i ...

, in eastern Lebanon, which was also the birthplace of Hezbollah co-founder

Abbas al-Musawi Abbas al-Musawi ( ; ; 26 October 1952 – 16 February 1992) was a Lebanese Shia cleric who served as the second secretary-general of Hezbollah from 1991 until Assassination of Abbas al-Musawi, his assassination by Israel in 1992. Early l ...

. After Hezbollah's establishment, the village became one of its central bases of power. Shukr's house in Al-Nabi Shayth is believed to be the last known location of Ron Arad, an Israeli fighter pilot who went missing in Lebanon in 1986. Shukr received his military education at

Imam Hossein University The Imam Hossein Comprehensive University (also referred to as IHU or Imam Hossein University, , ''Dāneshgāh-e Emām Hosein'') is a public university located in Tehran, Iran. The university was opened in 1986, and is located in Babayi Expres ...

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

Militant career

From the time of Hezbollah's founding by the

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khomeini as a military branch in May 1979 i ...

(IRGC) in 1982, Shukr was one of its leading military figures. He was part of the group's founding generation and its most senior military commander, serving as an advisor on military operations to Hezbollah's leader

. The militant organization's top military commander in

southern Lebanon Southern Lebanon () is the area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. The two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s. The Rashaya and Western Beqaa districts, the southernmost distr ...

, he was on the

Jihad Council The Jihad Council of Hezbollah is a council responsible for directing the groups' military and security activities. It also exercises considerable influence over the organization's various civilian branches and maintains ties with external partner ...

, where his role was to serve as an advisor to Hezbollah's leadership on all matters related to military operations, including training with the IRGC's elite

Quds Force The Quds Force () is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It specializes in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Fo ...

. A close associate of

Imad Mughniyeh Imad Fayez Mughniyeh (; 7 December 1962 – 12 February 2008), also known by his nom de guerre al-Hajj Radwan (), was a Lebanese militant leader who was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's ...

Mustafa Badreddine use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Damascus International Airport, Syria , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_plac ...

, and Mustafa Shahada, Shukr fought against Israeli troops after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Shukr participated in the planning and execution of the

, which resulted in the deaths of 307 people, including 241 U.S. military personnel and 58 French soldiers. Israel accused Shukr of direct involvement in the

2000 Hezbollah cross-border raid The 2000 Hezbollah cross-border raid occurred at the boundary between Lebanon and the Golan Heights (see Blue Line) on October 7. Hezbollah militants captured three Israeli soldiers while they were patrolling the security fence, and subse ...

, in which Hezbollah abducted and killed three Israeli soldiers. He was responsible for procuring the group's more advanced weapons arsenal, including precision-guided missiles,

cruise missiles A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

, antiship missiles, long-range rockets, and UAVs. According to U.S. intelligence, Shukr was sent to

in 1994 to handle a shipment of

Stinger missiles The FIM-92 Stinger is an American man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) that operates as an infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM). It can be adapted to fire from a wide variety of ground vehicles, and from helicopters and drones as th ...

from Iran. His prominence grew after Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus in 2008. By the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, Shukr was Hezbollah's military commander in southern Lebanon, its most important sector. According to some reports, in 2016, Shukr replaced Badreddine as Hezbollah's military commander, after Badreddine was killed during Hezbollah's intervention in the Syrian Civil War. The

designated Shukr as a

in 2013 and added him to its

Rewards for Justice Program Rewards for Justice Program (RFJ) is United States Department of State's national security interagency program that offers reward for information leading to the location or an arrest of leaders of terrorist groups, financiers of terrorism, inclu ...

(RFJ) on 10 October 2017, offering $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Shukr was added to the RFJ program alongside Hezbollah's head of foreign operations Talal Hamiyah as part of the first rewards for Hezbollah figures in a decade.

Death

On 30 July 2024, Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut for his alleged responsibility for the Majdal Shams attack on 27 July that killed 12

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

children. Before the airstrike, he had received a call asking him to go from his office to his home. Shukr had his office on the second floor, and lived on the seventh floor of the same building. It is believed that the call was made after someone connected to Israel, breached Hezbollah's internal communications network, and saw it would be easier to target him at a higher floor. Hezbollah said that ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' report was "fabricated" and "full of lies". The attack also killed Iranian military adviser Milad Bedi, four civilians and injured 80 others. Shukr's funeral was held on 2 August.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shukr, Fuad 1961 births 2024 deaths People from Baalbek District Assassinated Hezbollah members Deaths by Israeli airstrikes Hezbollah members Lebanese Islamists Lebanese Shia Muslims Shia Islamists Targeted killing by Israel Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List Military personnel killed in the Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present)