Faisal Hassan Kataya (L) and Ahmed Yamen Al-Tatari (R). Via Twitter.
On December 30, Hezbollah mourned two of its fighters who were reportedly killed a day earlier near the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib.
In a brief statement, the Lebanese group said that Faisal Hassan Kataya and Ahmed Yamen Al-Tatari lost their lives while carrying out their “jihad duty.”
Lebanese and Syrians news sources said that the two fighters were killed when militants based in Greater Idlib targeted their truck near the Syrian military’s 46th Regiments base in the western Aleppo countryside with an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM).
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib, claimed responsibility for the attack. Footage released by the terrorist group’s media network, Amjad, revealed that an American-made TOW ATGM was used to target Hezbollah fighters.
This was the first time Hezbollah has suffered human losses on Greater Idlib front since Russia and Turkey brokered a ceasefire there more than two years ago.
The attack on Hezbollah fighters was a blatant violation of the ceasefire. HTS and its allies escalated their attacks in the last few weeks in what appears to be response to ongoing Russian efforts to restore ties between Ankara, who maintains a large force in Greater Idlib, and Damascus. The Syrian military and its allies are yet to respond to these violations.
Hezbollah has been supporting the Syrian military since the outbreak of the war in Syria more than 11 years ago. The group’s fighters are present on all key fronts in the country, from Greater Idlib to the central region where ISIS remnants are still active.
