On 4 December 2013, senior military commander of Hezbollah Hassan al-Laqqis was assassinated in Southern Beirut after gunmen shot at him with small caliber pistols equipped with silencers. A Lebanese Sunni rebel group calling themselves "Brigades of the Free Sunnis of Baalbak" claimed responsibility for the killing, labeling al-Laqqis as “the architect of the massacre of Qusayr”.[147]