JERUSALEM — The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the killing of Ali Mousa Daqduq, a top Hezbollah military leader and commander in the Radwan Unit who orchestrated the 2007 kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in Iraq and played a central role in building Iran’s network of proxy militias across the region.
The IDF announced that Daqduq was “eliminated” in a post on X on June 14, describing him as a “senior Hezbollah commander who held a series of 5 senior positions within Hezbollah.” An unnamed U.S. defense official had claimed in the fall of 2024 that the IDF killed Daqduq, but neither the IDF nor Hezbollah had confirmed his death until now.
“Daqduq played a central role in advancing terrorist attacks and combat operations against Israel and IDF soldiers,” the IDF stated. “In 2007, he orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of 5 American soldiers.”
The 2007 attack targeted the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center and was carried out by the Khazali Network, an Iranian-backed terror group led by Qais Khazali, head of Asaib Ahl al Haq — a Mahdi Army faction designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps facilitated the operation, building a mockup of the Karbala center for the attackers to rehearse. All five kidnapped American soldiers were executed.
Khazali confirmed Daqduq’s death in a eulogy posted on X, calling him “among the first to answer the call of duty during the American occupation of Iraq.” Like Daqduq, Khazali was once in U.S. custody but was transferred to Iraqi control and freed as American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011. He immediately retook command of his militia despite pledging to disarm.
The U.S. government added Daqduq to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists in November 2011 for his role in establishing the Iran-backed militias responsible for the murder of at least 600 American soldiers in Iraq. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, “In approximately 2005, Iran asked Hezbollah to form a group to train Iraqis to fight Coalition Forces in Iraq. In response, Hassan Nasrallah established a covert Hezbollah unit to train and advise Iraqi militants in Jaish al Mahdi (JAM) and JAM Special Groups, now known as Asaib Ahl al Haq.”
Daqduq worked closely with former IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al Muhandis — the former head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces and founder of Hezbollah Brigades — Khazali, and Abu Mustafa al Sheibani, founder of the Sheibani Network and current leader of Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada, also a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The United States killed Soleimani and Muhandis in an airstrike in Baghdad in 2020.
Daqduq was captured by the U.S. military in 2007 but transferred to Iraqi custody after 11 months. He was acquitted of terrorism charges and released in November 2012, after which the U.S. added him to the global terrorist list. He returned to Lebanon and took charge of training Hezbollah’s special forces. The Iranian-backed militias he helped create now wield significant political power in Iraq’s parliament, and their military branches dominate the Popular Mobilization Forces, an official arm of the Iraqi security establishment that reports only to the prime minister.