A senior commander with Hezbollah was shot and killed outside his Beirut home, said the militant group from Lebanon on Wednesday. The group immediately placed the blame on Israel for the shooting and warned it would suffer consequences.

Hassan al-Laqees was killed late Tuesday in the Lebanese capital while returning from work, said Hezbollah in a prepared statement.

The statement said the Israeli enemy is held responsible for what we call a heinous crime. Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Israel denied any involvement by Israel, reported various news agencies.

Palmor said Israel was not involved in the incident and the automatic accusations are just innate reflexes by Hezbollah. The group said Palmor do not need any evidence or facts, they just place blame for anything on Israel.

The Hezbollah commander suffered five shots to the neck and head, said a local newspaper. Hezbollah said that Laqees spent his entire life serving against Israel and lost one son during the 2006 war the group had with Israel. On several occasions prior to Tuesday, there have been unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Laqees.

Though Hezbollah turns its suspicions to its enemy Israel, there has been an increase in tension in Lebanon between Sunni extremist groups and Shiite Hezbollah. The Sunni’s oppose Hezbollah’s role in the Syria Civil War, where they are fighting side by side with the governmental forces in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Over the last year, targets tied to Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, have been hit. These attacks have included bombings in suburbs south of Beirut where Hezbollah has its stronghold.

Anrar al-Sunna Baalbek Brigade, a group that is little known, claimed on twitter responsibility, but no verification of the claim could be made. The tweet spoke harshly of the arrests by Hezbollah of Sunnis in Lebanon’s Baalbek area.

Laqees was gunned down just after a television broadcast in Lebanon of an interview with Hasan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah. In the interview, Nasrallah accused the country of Saudi Arabia of supporting Lebanon based groups tied to al-Qaeda including one that had claimed responsibility for carrying out the double suicide bombing on November 19 of the Iranian Embassy.

On Tuesday, voters in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico defeated the proposal that would have made it illegal to have most abortions that were late-term, in the largest city in the state. It was the first test of this type of measure on a city ballot anywhere in the U.S.

The measure would have stopped doctors from carrying out abortions within city limits on women who were more than 20 weeks pregnant, unless the life of the mother was in danger. The voters rejected the measure 55% to 45%.

Advocates for abortion rights hailed the vote as a win against the anti-abortion advocates from out of state that were seen as driving the initiative.

Those supporting the measure predicted that other proposals similar to this one could start gaining ground in other cities and states around the country.

The proposed cutoff of 20-weeks for abortions in the measure for Albuquerque allowed for few exemptions that are permitted in the majority of abortion bans that involve late-term abortions that have been approved in other U.S. states recently.

The measure contained no exceptions for those who were victims of incest or rape, and would have eliminated the ban only if it were to save the life of the mother or if the pregnancy risked a substantial or irreversible impairment physically.

Voters in the city turned out in record numbers to vote in the special election. A high turnout had been predicted because of the highly controversial type of measure, said both sides.

Full-term pregnancies typically are 40 weeks and abortions that take place after 20 weeks are very rare.

Nevertheless, opponents of abortion have pushed the limits on the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision of recent, by seeking to cut back on the option of abortion at an earlier stage of a pregnancy.

The measure in Albuquerque was similar to the restrictions that were in laws enacted in more than a dozen states based upon the highly debated research that suggested a fetus can feel pain at the 20-week point of gestation.

Two of the more than dozen states, Arkansas and North Dakota, went even further when they banned abortions as early as 12 and 6 weeks respectively.

The U.S. recently labeled Boko Haram, the militant Nigerian group, as a terrorist organization. The French say the group trained in the North African country of Mali with a branch from al-Qaeda.

The French cited documents found in the Ifoghas Mountains a remote area in northern Mali early this year. The French said that the presence of Boko Haram there demonstrates the connections between jihad groups inside Africa.

Boko Haram was formed back in 2009 and seeks to impose in northern Nigeria, Islamic law and has been blamed for thousands of killings including the 2011 bombing of a building that housed the United Nations.

A French priest on Thursday was kidnapped in Cameroon, close to the Nigeria border in a region where the Boko Haram has been known to have operations, said the Foreign Ministry in France.

While the Boko Haram is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda affiliated organizations in the northern deserts, the actual place for training members of the group in northern Mali was not known until now.

The al-Qaeda branch in North Africa teamed together with a group of extremists known as the Tuaregs to take control of Northern Mali, until an African force backed by the French drove them out earlier in the year.

There continues to be concerns that have remained for quite some time that extremists throughout the desert regions that are poorly controlled were coordinating all their terrorist activities.

A conference on Thursday, which included the French foreign minister and colleagues from different African countries, is trying to find ways to improve the security in the region through cooperation and address the borders that are very porous, especially Libya’s.

Since Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in 2011, security in Libya has broken down with drug smugglers and weapons crossing the borders with impunity in the south.

Following France’s intervention earlier this year in Mali, it is believed by many that al-Qaeda elements took refuge across southern Libya by working in smuggling networks.

With them networking with other militant elements, it makes for serious implications on the border security, said ministers at the conference