On March 9, it was reported that the commander of the Nasr Unit, Hassan Salameh, was eliminated by Israel during the night between March 8 and 9. The elimination of the Nasr commander raises questions regarding the operational competence of the geographic units Nasr and Aziz, which, during the war and until the ceasefire in November 2024, sustained very severe damage from the IDF. Under Hezbollah’s Southern Front, the Nasr Unit was responsible for the eastern sector south of the Litani, while the Aziz Unit was responsible for the western sector south of the Litani. The Badr Unit is responsible for the area north of the Litani toward Sidon and was the least affected during the war. In light of the severe damage to Nasr and Aziz, Hezbollah shifted the center of gravity of its activity on the Southern Front to the Badr Unit sector. As part of the rehabilitation processes during the ceasefire, Hezbollah has been attempting to restore infrastructure and activity in the Nasr and Aziz sectors south of the Litani, while relying significantly on the Badr Unit. In our assessment, Nasr and Aziz have still not managed to return to full operational competence, and the effectiveness of their current capability remains unclear. In our assessment, based on its activity during the ceasefire, the Badr Unit is today significantly involved in activity south of the Litani, and it is possible that the attacks launched from the Nasr and Aziz sectors is also conducted under the auspices of the Badr Unit, in addition to the attacks carried out from its organic sector north of the Litani. It should be noted that prior to the war, the Nasr Unit was considered the main operational unit of the Southern Front, and as part of it, the “al-Abbas Battalions” (an offensive infantry unit established in 2019) also operated, to the best of our understanding. Similar to the other geographic units, most of its operatives were “local residents,” and it operated as an autonomous framework with the capability to employ fire including rockets, mortars, anti-tank weapons, UAVs, light air defense, and additional capabilities such as engineering, intelligence, communications, logistics, and more. The previous commander of the Nasr Unit, Taleb Sami Abdallah (“Hajj Abu Taleb”), was eliminated in June 2024 in an airstrike against the Nasr Unit headquarters in the village of Jwaya.
