According to exclusive information provided to Al-Monitor, Houssam Khosh Nweis, director of the Iranian Council for Reconstruction in Lebanon, was killed in Syria after members of the Syrian opposition fired at his car while he was traveling on the road to Damascus International Airport. The source confirmed that a general officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who was accompanying him was also killed in the car. There is information that this officer is an Iranian general who was responsible for the Revolutionary Guard’s activities in Lebanon.

Until this very moment, there continues to be conflicting information about the place and circumstances of the accident that ended Nweis’ life. One version of the story says that he was abducted while carrying out a mission to determine the needs of Syrian Shiite villages in the Homs region. He sustained tremendous injuries and was killed by his kidnappers, along with his Iranian and Syrian companions, in an abhorrent manner.

There is not, however, strong material evidence to confirm this story, in spite of its popularity among Hezbollah elements. The second version states that he was killed on the Lebanon-Syria road, knowing that this road had not seen any security incidents since the beginning of events because it is highly protected by the 4th Syrian division. Additionally, most of the villages along this road are Alawite pro-regime towns, preventing the opposition from carrying out military operations there. The most realistic story so far is the one relayed to Al-Monitor, that the accident occurred on the road to the international airport in Damascus.

The same source confirmed that Nweis is an important figure in Iran’s leadership, particularly since he has assumed critical diplomatic roles in the past and has had a close and long relationship with Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran.