Even before Sunday’s new attacks, Israel’s military had boasted that it had killed most senior leaders of Hezbollah. With the news that Nabil Qaouk, another major figure within the Shia Muslim militant Islamist organisation, has died in an airstrike in Beirut, the job of eliminating the top echelons of Hezbollah’s military command structure appears almost complete. The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the veteran secretary general of Hezbollah on Friday, was only the most spectacular and high-profile killing in an unprecedented effort over many months.
Qaouk, like many of the 19 senior Hezbollah officials who have been killed, joined as a teenager in the very earliest years of the organisation’s 41-year history and went on to fill a series of military command positions. Recently, Qaouk had begun to operate in more political roles and was a frequent traveller to Iran, where he had a good relationship with some of the top officials in the regime.
