IDF strike killed head of currency company involved in moving funds from Iran to Hezbollah, military says

An Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon yesterday killed the head of a currency exchange company, who the IDF says was involved in transferring funds from Iran to Hezbollah.

Haytham Abdullah Bakri had headed the Al-Sadiq currency exchange.

The military says the company “serves as a funds storage and transfer mechanism for the Hezbollah terror organization, for funds originating from the Iranian Quds Force,” adding that Bakri operated with Hezbollah to transfer the funds.

“These funds are used by Hezbollah for military purposes, including purchasing weapons, means for manufacturing [weapons], and providing salaries to operatives, and are diverted for terrorist purposes and to finance the continuation of Hezbollah’s terrorist activities,” the IDF says.

Last week, during the war in Iran, the IDF killed Behnam Shahriyari, the head of the IRGC Quds Force’s Unit 190, responsible for the clandestine transfer of weapons to Iran’s proxy groups, especially Hezbollah.

“Shahriyari exclusively oversaw the mechanisms that enabled the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the Quds Force and its proxies. These mechanisms included money transfer routes from the Quds Force to Hezbollah, using offsets between currency exchanges in Turkey, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates with Lebanese currency exchanges,” the IDF says.

“These two eliminations constitute a severe blow to the Iranian financing routes to Hezbollah,” the military adds.