During the recent war, Israel demonstrated impressive intimate access and intelligence penetration into Hezbollah’s ranks, carrying out precise eliminations of commanders and knowledge centers, despite their cautious and secretive lifestyles and conduct.
According to ongoing monitoring during the war, 174 senior military commanders from the entire chain of command were killed: the Jihad Council, unit commanders, sector commanders, senior knowledge centers, and more. If we make a comparison to regular armies, then for comparison purposes, we are talking about the elimination of the Chief of Staff, members of the General Staff, commanders of commands, division commanders, brigade commanders, battalion commanders, senior staff officers, and more.
In light of the numerous assassinations in Hezbollah’s military leadership, there are currently two prominent figures who have survived and are at the top of its military: Muhammad Haydar and Haytham Ali Tabatabai. (We published an article regarding Talal Hamiyah, a member of the Jihad Council and commander of Unit 910, on September 29, 2024).
Haydar is currently Hezbollah’s de facto Chief of Staff. He replaced Fuad Shakar (killed on July 30, 2024). Haydar is not the classic military figure. He has a background in “civilian” activities within the organization. To our understanding, he has gaps in military experience with an emphasis on operational activity in the field.
Tabatabai, who is the commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, replaced Ali Karki (killed on September 27, 2024). Tabatabai is considered to have extensive military/operational experience in the field and has actually “grown” in the military path throughout his “career” in Hezbollah.
Tabatabai is responsible for the three central geographic units of Hezbollah (Nasar, Aziz, and Badr), which operate from the Sidon area to the border with Israel. This is Hezbollah’s central area of operation, which will be at the center of Hezbollah’s rehabilitation and strengthening efforts, on the one hand, and at the center of enforcing the ceasefire agreement, on the other hand, with an emphasis on the area south of the Litani River, where the Nasar unit operates in the eastern sector and the Aziz unit in the western sector.
Both survived the war, although both, according to various reports, faced elimination attempts during it. However, Tabatabai’s survival raises several questions which we will note later.
We estimate that Haydar’s gaps in military experience are a trigger for creating personal and professional tension between him and Haytham Ali Tabatabai. Tabatabai is considered to have many years of military experience, similar to that of Shukr, Akil, and Karki (who were unchallengeable military authorities in Hezbollah). In light of this, the working relationship between Haydar and Tabatabai is problematic.
It is possible that Tabatabai is even undermining Haydar’s position and sees himself as more suitable to be Hezbollah’s Chief of Staff.
Muhammad Haidar – Hezbollah’s acting chief of staff:
Muhammad Haydar, also known as “Abu Ali Haydar,” was born on November 25, 1959, in the village of Qabrikha, Nabatieh district. Haydar has been a member of the Jihad Council for many years and was a close advisor to Nasrallah. He played a central role in shaping the organization’s security strategy and is even referred to as the “strategic security brain” due to his significant contribution to the development of security and strategic plans.
Among other things, he was responsible for coordinating Hezbollah’s military activities in Yemen and Iraq and the connection with the Houthis and Shiite militias. Additional reports linked him to the Captagon industry, which is a central component of Hezbollah’s economy.
Before being appointed to the Jihad Council, he was a member of parliament on behalf of Hezbollah as a representative of the Marjayoun-Hasbaya district and held this position until 2009. He was known for his frequent appearances in the media, especially when he was analyzing the report of the Israeli commission of inquiry regarding the results of the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
During his years in Hezbollah, before being elected to parliament, he performed many “civilian” roles. Among other things, he was deputy head of the Executive Council and even director of the Al-Manar television station. Haydar also worked as an administrative director at Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s national airline.
As mentioned above, Haydar is considered less experienced militarily compared to the senior members of the Hezbollah Jihad Council who were eliminated by Israel (Shukr, Akil, and Karki).
On November 23, 2024, in the early morning, an eight-story building in the Al-Nuiri (Al-Basta Al-Fouqa) area of Beirut was attacked from the air. According to various reports, the purpose of the attack was an attempt to eliminate Haydar.
Haytham Ali Tabatabai, commander of Hezbollah’s southern front:
Haytham Ali Tabatabai, better known as “Abu Ali Tabatabai” (Haytham Ali Tabataba’i [Abu ‘Ali Al- Tabataba’i]), was born in 1968. Tabatabai belongs to the founding generation of Hezbollah, with extensive military knowledge and experience in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. He commanded the Radwan unit, is on the US wanted list, and even survived several elimination attempts. Tabatabai is the son of a South Lebanese mother and an Iranian father. Tabatabai was born in Beirut and raised in South Lebanon.
Tabatabai joined Hezbollah in his youth. After the elimination of Imad Mughniyeh (February 2008) and the merger of the rapid intervention unit into the unified Radwan unit (which was named after Mughniyeh), Tabatabai was transferred from the command of the intervention unit to a more junior position as commander of a department in the Radwan unit, but he still had the aura of a senior figure in the unit.
During the Syrian civil war, when Hezbollah was invited to join the Assad regime forces in the fight against ISIS, the Al-Nusra Front, and other rebel forces, Tabatabai may have received new and special authority in Syria. As part of this authority, he may have been given responsibility for assisting in building Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in the Golan Heights near the border with Israel (what would later be called the “Golan portfolio” and it became known that Ali Musa Daqduq received command of it).
In January 2015, Tabatabai survived an Israeli attack in the Quneitra district of southern Syria, near the village of Khader. Tabatabai was the main target for elimination in the attack and was not injured. In this attack, a senior Iranian IRGC officer and Jihad Mughniyeh, one of the first commanders of the Golan portfolio unit in its infancy, were killed; Jihad is the son of Imad Mughniyeh.
In 2016, Tabatabai was on a military “mission” with the Houthis in Yemen. It is possible that he was sent there on a professional basis and it is possible that he was sent there because he survived the elimination attempt that was carried out in January 2015. Hezbollah was interested in removing him from the arena to “cool down”. Tabatabai was involved in the professional training of Houthi militia operatives and worked in coordination with the Iranian Quds Force on this matter.
In August 2016, the international hacker group “Anonymous” distributed a publication about Tabatabai that included his facial composite, called on Hezbollah to stop its activity in Yemen, and even called to harm him.
In 2016, he was included in the OFAC sanctions list – Specially Designated Global Terrorist List and in 2018, a $5 million reward was offered by the Americans to anyone who provided information regarding him.
In January 2022, reports were published (which turned out to be incorrect) that Tabatabai was killed in an attack by the Arab coalition in Sanaa.
To our understanding, after being sent to Yemen, Tabatabai returned to Lebanon and was defined as “responsible for the invasion of the Galilee” (as of 2019-2020), i.e. the commander of the Radwan unit.
On May 21, 2023, Hezbollah held a large military demonstration in southern Lebanon. During the central ceremony at the demonstration, Hashem Safi al-Din (the former head of the Executive Council, Nasrallah’s replacement, who was also eliminated in October 2024) gave the “Imad Mughniyeh rifle” (a symbolic Kalashnikov rifle) to an unknown person.
From the comparison we made then, between the person’s face at the ceremony and Tabatabai’s face in the facial composite, which was published by the Americans in 2016 (and to which we added a beret for comparison purposes), it was difficult to ignore the very great resemblance between them. We estimated then that with high probability it was Tabatabai, who returned to command the Radwan unit, we published this assessment of ours on June 2, 2023.
We know that our publication then regarding Tabatabai’s alleged identification sparked a lot of discussion and buzz on the networks and among researchers and professionals dealing with Hezbollah. We did not know how to definitively confirm our assessment regarding Tabatabai’s identification.
After the outbreak of the war, during 2024, we began to identify the aforementioned person, who was identified by us as allegedly Tabatabai, several more times. He was identified by us at several funeral ceremonies of senior Hezbollah operatives. However, his behavior during the funeral caused us to greatly doubt that it was indeed Tabatabai: in all the funeral ceremonies in which we identified him, it seems that he functioned as the person in charge of organizing the ceremony and the ongoing conduct of the ceremony (a kind of master of ceremonies). We very much doubt that Tabatabai himself would perform such a role.
On September 17, 2024, Israel carried out the pager and walkie-talkie attack, from which Tabatabai was not injured. Three days later, on September 20, 2024, Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah’s operations division and the direct supervisor of the Radwan unit, was eliminated. He was eliminated along with the entire command staff of the Radwan unit, during a planning meeting to carry out a large operation to invade the Galilee.
If we had known in advance about the pager operation and the intention to attack the aforementioned meeting, we would have determined quite decisively that the probability that Tabatabai would be harmed in one of these actions is very high, even certain.
But Tabatabai, as known, was not harmed in them…
On November 4, 2024, an attack attributed to Israel was reported in the Sayyidah Zaynab area of southern Damascus. According to several reports, the alleged target of the attack was Tabatabai.
There is no doubt that Tabatabai was a “natural candidate” for elimination before and during the war, and there is no doubt that he should be a candidate for elimination in the future as well.
However, in Tabatabai’s context, several questions arise, all of which are related to the success of his personal survival after the actual elimination attempts and the various reports of such attempts to allegedly harm him. These questions were especially strengthened in light of the recent war:
- In the context of the relatively numerous reports over the years about attempts to eliminate him – does any foreign Western intelligence agency have an interest in Tabatabai not being eliminated and an interest in creating a false impression that an ongoing effort is allegedly being made to eliminate him over the years?
- Is any foreign Western entity conducting an intelligence campaign to protect Tabatabai, “took care” and “takes care” to protect him while all the other senior Hezbollah officials around him were eliminated? Does this strengthen Tabatabai’s position and influence as a very senior military functionary in Hezbollah and pave his way to Hezbollah’s military leadership?
- Why were there denials from sources identified as foreign Western intelligence sources, regarding the possible identification of Tabatabai in the Hezbollah demonstration on May 21, 2023, even though the figure that appeared in the demonstration is strikingly similar to the figure in Tabatabai’s facial composite published by the Americans in 2016? Is there any foreign Western entity intentionally trying to mislead any information regarding Tabatabai’s identification?
We do not know how to answer the above questions unequivocally, but there is no doubt that many questions arise regarding Hezbollah’s current military leadership, the main ones being the questions regarding internal tension and regarding the ability and success of its survival.
