Hassan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah is the current Secretary General of the Lebanese political party and Islamist group Hezbollah.

Background

Nasrallah was born in the East Beirut neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud in 1960, the eldest of nine children. In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War forced his family to return to their ancestral home in the South Lebanese village Bassouriyeh where Nasrallah joined the Amal movement, a political and paramilitary organization representing Shi'a in Lebanon.

From south Lebanon, young Nasrallah then moved to Najaf, Iraq to study at Shi'a seminary. In 1978, Nasrallah and other radical Shi'a clerics and students were forced to leave Iraq and return to Lebanon. There, Nasrallah studied and taught at Amal leader Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi's school. In 1982, after the Israeli invasion, Nasrallah followed Musawi out of Amal and into an umbrella organization of radical Iranian and Lebanese called Hezbollah.

Leadership of Hezbollah

Following Israel's military killing of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Musawi, his wife, and 3 year old daughter by helicopter fired Hellfire missiles in February of 1992, Nasrallah was asked to take over Hezbollah at the request of Ayatollah Khamenei.

Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah became a serious opponent of the IDF in Southern Lebanon, and despite being greatly outnumbered, managed to drive the IDF out of Lebanon in May 2000.

More recently Nasrallah completed a complex exchange of prisoners with Israel resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters being freed and bodies of militants returned to Lebanon.

Possessing the best military intelligence in the Middle East, Nasrallah always contemplates Israels every future military move and easily negates it's mission.

Two years ago, American Deputy Defense Secretary gave Nasrallah and Hezbollah the Mother of all Compliments. Armitage called Hezbollah the "A-Team of Terrorists".