DETROIT (AP) — The FBI is keeping a Michigan-linked man
on its list of most-wanted terrorisms suspects until it can confirm
reports that he died while commanding pro-Syrian government forces in
that country’s civil war, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Lebanese
security officials said late last month that 47-year-old Fawzi Ayoub
died while backing President Bashar Assad’s forces against rebels
seeking his ouster. A Twitter account by a pro-Hezbollah media arm known
as Mouqawama also said Ayoub had died.
Ayoub was a commander for
Lebanon-based Hezbollah, a Shiite military and political group that the
U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization. He also used the name Abu
Abbas.
"The FBI is aware of the recent reporting regarding Mr.
Ayoub, and we are taking logical steps to determine the veracity of said
reporting," FBI Detroit spokesman David Porter told The Associated
Press in an email. "Until we are able to do so, we can neither confirm
nor deny the authenticity of what has been recently reported regarding
Mr. Ayoub."
Ayoub, who was born in Lebanon, held dual Lebanese-Canadian citizenship. His last known U.S. address was
in suburban Detroit.
The
FBI had put Ayoub on its "Most Wanted Terrorists" list in 2011 after an
August 2009 indictment in federal court in Detroit for passport fraud.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Ayoub "willfully and knowingly" used and
attempted to use "a false, forged or counterfeit U.S. passport in order
to gain admittance into the state of Israel for the purpose of
conducting a bombing on behalf of Hezbollah."
Ayoub had been
arrested in Israel in June 2002 on charges that he entered the country
in an attempt to organize Palestinian attacks. He was released two years
later in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah.
The
Iran-backed Hezbollah openly joined the Syrian conflict last year. The
group’s fighters have been instrumental to Assad’s success in the
3-year-old conflict.