Suspected Hezbollah operative shot dead in Tehran

Gunmen armed with silencers kill man identified by opposition websites as being a Hezbollah official.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Iran’s Fars News agency reported Saturday that unknown gunmen shot and killed a Lebanese man whom opposition websites identified as an operative of the Hezbollah terror group.

Habib Daoud, 58, and his daughter Maryam, 27, were apparently shot and killed by a gunman Friday night while they sat in their car in the area of Tehran.

The shooting took place in the neighborhood near the house of the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Resistance, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, who was killed in Baghdad in January in the American attack that assassinated top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Opposition web sites reported that Daoud was a member of Hezbollah, the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Qabas  reported.

According to the Iranian report, one or more gunmen on a motorcycle fired five bullets into the two. Four of the  bullets hit their targets, while the fifth bullet hit a passing car.

The neighborhood is known to be home to senior members of Shiite organizations as well as many Lebanese Shiites. It is unclear what Daoud’s role was in the Lebanese terrorist organization and what he was doing  in Tehran, although Iranian reports claimed he was a history professor.

The method of assassination, two assassins riding a motorcycle, is known to be used by the Mujahideen Halk organization, a left-wing organization that opposes the regime in Iran and has previously carried out a series of assassinations on Iranian officials and scientists, Israel Hayom reported.

According to foreign sources, the organization operates in cooperation with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and the American intelligence services.

Funded, armed and trained by Iran, leaders of the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon repeat the Iranian official line that their goal is the destruction of Israel. Iran recruited thousands of Hezbollah fighters to go to Syria and help prop up Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad.

Over the years Iran has helped arm Hezbollah with up to 180,000 rockets and missiles that the terror group has threatened to use against Israel. In the past, Hezbollah has made it a policy of firing rockets at Israel civilian targets.