In April 1983, a truck loaded with 2,000lb of explosives sped through the gate to the US embassy in Beirut and struck the building.

The blast turned the embassy into rubble and killed 63 people, including 52 American and Lebanese employees.

One of the men behind it was Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah commander with a $7m US bounty on his head, who was allegedly killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday.

According to security sources, Aqil, also known as Tahsin, was the main target of the air strike on the city’s southern suburbs, considered a Hezbollah stronghold.

“The Israeli air strike killed Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, its armed force’s second-in-command after Fuad Shukr,” a source close to Hezbollah told AFP.

Hezbollah has not officially confirmed his death, but it said after the strike that it had hit an Israeli intelligence base it claimed was responsible for unspecified “assassinations”.

Aqil, who was believed to be in his 60s, became second-in-command to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, following the killing of Fuad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut in July.

The shadowy commander, whose only known photograph is decades old, is also the head of the Iran-backed militia’s special forces unit “Radwan”, which reportedly suffered heavy casualties during the two-day pager and walkie-talkie explosions.

Aqil also sits on the Jihad Council, Hezbollah’s highest military body. His alleged assassination indicates Israel is likely attempting to wipe out the senior Hezbollah leadership in fairly quick succession.

According to the US state department, he was a “principal member” of the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJU), a Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the bombings of the US Embassy in Beirut on April 18 1983. Among the 63 killed were eight CIA officers, turning it into the single greatest loss of lives in the agency’s history.

Five months later on Oct 23 1983, the IJU carried out a second suicide bombing on the US Marine Corps barracks, killing 241 American personnel. Seconds later, a second bomber then killed 58 French paratroopers and six Lebanese civilians.

Aqil is believed to have helped mastermind both attacks. He is also accused of taking US and German hostages in Lebanon throughout the 1980s.

The strike on Friday afternoon was the third assassination in the Lebanese capital blamed on Israel since October 2023 when Hezbollah began cross-border clashes with Israel in support of Hamas over the Gaza war.

Israel announced this week it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon. Soon after, thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices belonging to Hezbollah simultaneously detonated in twin attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 and wounding over 3,000.

Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution for the blasts, while Yoav Gallant, the defence minister of Israel, declared Hezbollah will pay an “increasing price”.