BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 4 (UPI) — The assassination of Hezbollah’s long-time leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has been the peak of an Israeli brutal clampdown against the group that took down most of its command leaders and shaken its structural and popular base, raising a rare wave of criticism against Tehran for its inaction, analysts said.
After months of restraint and mounting threats, Iran finally decided to attack Israel to avenge the killing of Nasrallah, as well as that of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was targeted on July 31 while on a visit to Tehran.
On Tuesday night, Iran launched high-speed missile barrages at military bases in Israel in what was seen as its largest-ever attack on its regional enemy. Israel said most of the strikes were thwarted by its aerial defenses, with assistance from the United States and other allies.
Although no one was hurt and exact damage was not revealed, Israel admitted a day later that some of its air bases in central and southern parts of the country were hit. Iran maintained that the strikes inflicted much more serious damage.
Now, Iran is waiting for Israel to retaliate, warning it of severe consequences and even stronger strikes if it goes ahead with its plans. The Middle East is getting closer than ever to an all-out war.
Israel dealt a harsh, sweeping blow to Hezbollah when it carried out over two consecutive days in mid-September an unprecedented, highly sophisticated attack involving pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members, killing a dozen of people and injuring nearly 3,000 others.
The attack, which mainly disrupted the group’s communication network, was followed by a series of strikes targeting top military commanders and Nasrallah, as well as bases and infrastructure.
Bombardment of villages in southern and eastern Lebanon intensified, and dozens of hits targeted Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the city itself.
Riad Tabbarah, Lebanon’s former ambassador to the United States, said Hezbollah has admittedly been hurt in the last couple of weeks by Israel’s assassination of a wide array of its leaders that culminated in Nasrallah’s assassination.
“If Israel were fighting another regular army, this would have been fatal,” Tabbarah told UPI. “But resistance movements have self-healing mechanisms built in. Leaders are quickly replaced, generally by more radical ones. Best example is indeed Hezbollah.”
He explained that in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his fighters “which they did ,,, but at the same moment, Hezbollah was created.”
Hezbollah’s second leader since its creation, Abbas al-Moussawi who was assassinated by Israel in 1992 a year after he took his post, was quickly replaced by Nasrallah.
However, a week after Nasrallah’s death, the group has failed to elect a new secretary-general. His likely successor, Hashem Safieddine, who also is his cousin and known to be more radical, was reportedly the target of a huge Israeli strike Thursday night on a Hezbollah’s bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where he was meeting with other top commanders.
Safieddine’s fate remains unknown, though Israel appeared determined not to spare any Hezbollah official or commander to force it to surrender.
Kassem Kassir, a political analyst who specializes in Islamic movements and is close to Hezbollah, said the “circumstances and situation are not suitable” for the election of a replacement to Nasrallah.
“They cannot meet to elect a new Hezbollah chief,” Kassir told UPI, noting that the seven-member Shoura Council, the group’s central decision-making authority, should first elect someone to replace Nasrallah in the council before picking a new Hezbollah leader.
He said that “a collective leadership” is now running the group until it can elect a new secretary-general.
Hezbollah was not able to bury 64-year-old Nasrallah because of the relentless Israeli strikes on the city’s southern suburbs and the fear of a massacre that Israel could commit, according to a well-informed source close to Hezbollah.
“Delaying Nasrallah’s funerals is for security reasons and related to guaranteeing proper conditions for that,” the source told UPI.
The fatal blows that Israel dealt to Hezbollah could not have been possible without deep security and intelligence breaches within the group and within Iran, according to media reports.
“All these reports about treasons are not correct and there is no proof until now of any security or military breach within Hezbollah or from Iran’s part,” Kassir said, explaining that both sides have “a strategic and ideological relationship …. This is not about interests.”
He maintained that until now, Hezbollah remains “strong and cohesive, while engaging in a harsh battle against Israeli forces in south Lebanon.”
Hezbollah fighters so far have foiled attempts by Israeli forces to advance inside south Lebanon, where they engaged in fierce battles that killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and wounded scores of them. They also kept on hitting targets in northern Israel.
“Is this a harbinger of what is to come? No one knows. But Israel is weary,” Tabbarah said, noting that the stated Israeli plan for Lebanon “remains vague, from localized commando attacks to full invasion.”
Iran’s retaliation to Israel’s killing of Nasrallah and Haniyeh was “almost inevitable,” as the pressure from its supporters in the region, particularly its allied militias, was reaching “a crescendo, but was not enough,” Tabbarah said.
“The major reason is probably the humiliation it suffered at the hands of Israel lately, particularly the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in a Teheran official guest house,” he said. “The message to Israel was enough is enough and we can hurt you as much as you can hurt us, but Iran does not want escalation or open war.”
The United States and its allies do not want an open war, either.
“But will Israel succumb to pressures? I think that it will resist them as much as possible,” Tabbarah said, arguing that one of Israel’s main aims has been to push the United States to attack Iran,”in the same way as the pro-Israel lobby and neocons allies did in early 1990s with regard to the invasion of Iraq.”
According to the Lebanese veteran diplomat, who wins this tug-of-war is going to determine “whether we are on the verge of a regional war or on the verge of returning to the status quo of controlled instability in the Middle East.”
“The coming days will tell,” he said.
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