The application process for the job of Hezbollah deputy leader/corpse-in-waiting is now closed. The job description includes: Running guns across borders; bribing Syrian officials; must be camera shy; bushy salt-and-pepper beard recommended; Farsi-speaker preferred; Sunnis need not apply.Seriously, though. Amid reports that both Iran and Syria are gently tugging its reins, and facing the omnipresent threat of Israel's targeted assassinations, the radical Shi'ite redemptive social movement/political party/terrorist group (take your pick) is getting its leadership affairs in order.
Mohammed Rida Zahidi is now Hezbollah's "Number Two," replacing Imad Mughniyah [pictured above], who was killed in a massive car bomb in February in Damascus that was almost indisputably attributed to Israel's Mossad spy agency. Taking over for Mughniyah means Zahidi will be in charge of running weapons and munitions from Syria into Hezbollah's strongholds in Lebanon, and liaising with the Iranians who, it is said, supply those weapons. Oh, it might be worth mentioning that Zahidi [no photo is available] is Iranian.
In related news, Hezbollah supreme leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah [also pictured] has appointed his cousin, Hashim Safi al-Din [also not pictured], as chairman of the group's Executive Council, which effectively means that al-Din would succeed Nasrallah should the latter meet the wrong end of an Israeli missile.Nasrallah was formerly the chairman of the Executive Council. He moved up to become Hezbollah's supreme leader when his predecessor, Sheikh Abbas al-Mousawi, met the wrong end of an Israeli missile in February, 1992.
In al-Arabiya's coverage of Who Killed Mughniyah?, is it noted that after Israel took out al-Mousawi in 1992, Hezbollah responded by blowing up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29. The world has been bracing for Hezbollah's response to Mughniyah's death (so far there's been nothing that we know of).
The Tuque Souq wonders: Who's next?
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