Stewart Bell
A photo allegedly of Hezbollah commander Fawzi Ayoub, who has been killed.
TORONTO — Fawzi Ayoub was a hijacker, international terrorist operative and senior member of Hezbollah. He was also a naturalized Canadian citizen, but on Monday Lebanese media reported he was dead, killed in an ambush by Syrian rebels.
The 48-year-old former Toronto supermarket employee, who rose through the ranks of Hezbollah despite his tendency for getting arrested before completing his missions, was declared a “martyr” on a Facebook page filled with photos of him in battle fatigues.
The Lebanese-Canadian had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list since 2009, when he was indicted for using a false American passport to enter Israel “for the purpose of conducting a bombing” for Hezbollah, according to his wanted notice.
While several Canadian jihadists have died over the past year while fighting to topple President Bashar Al-Assad, Ayoub is the first known to have lost his life defending the dictator. He was reportedly killed in Aleppo on Sunday by the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.
His death, which Lebanese news outlets said had been announced by Hezbollah, is further proof the radical Shiite group is suffering mounting losses in Syria, where it has deployed hundreds of fighters to prop up a neighboor and key ally.