Senior Hamas terrorist Kamal Ghanaja, second-in-command to Mahmoud al- Mabhouh, was killed in Damascus this week. Arab media outlets said Ghanaja was shot in his apartment, which was then burned.

Syrian rebels have pointed at Syrian President Bashar Assad as the culprit. Rebel commander Mohammed Hifawi told Al-Hayyat that Ghanaja was killed using methods typical of Assad’s regime.

At the time that the Hamas man was killed, the neighborhood he was visiting was under lockdown, Hifawi said. Only Assad’s forces were allowed to move freely in the area, making them the most likely to have carried out the assassination.

Ghanaja was tortured before being killed, he said.

A Hamas official, however, told the AFP news agency that “according to our information, Mossad was behind the assassination.” Senior Hamas terrorist Osama Hamdan, operating out of Lebanon, supported his claim, saying, “The only beneficiary of such an action is the Zionist occupier.”

Hifawi rejected claims that Israel was behind Ghanaja’s death. The killers obviously spent a significant period of time in the apartment with the Hamas commander, he said, making the Mossad’s involvement unlikely.

Hamas leaders have found refuge in Syria for several years. However, the group has recently fallen out with Assad’s regime due to its support for the nation-wide uprising. (IsraelNationalNews © 2012 06/29/12)