It is impossible to reduce the importance of a "nighttime" operation, which led to the assassination of terrorist leader Abbas Musawi, but the success of the operation led to the rise of Nasrallah

• Abbas Mussawi's car after the liquidation // Photo: AFP

Hezbollah will mark 28 years today for the assassination of terrorist secretary general Abbas Mussawi, who was appointed to the post in 1991. Unlike Hasan Nasrallah's successors, Mussawi did not last his sitting in a bunker and survived in less than nine months.

On February 16, 1992, Operation Night Hour was launched. In the past, it was alleged that the original intention was to kidnap the terrorist general's secretary and use it as a bargaining chip for the release of Israeli combat navigator Ron Arad, or obtaining information about it. But at the same time, Mussawi made a speech at a Hizbollah memorial conference. The assurance that an abduction could not be carried out, and it was decided to seize the opportunity to eliminate it, on the other hand, in Israel stated that the operation was planned in advance as a targeted attack.

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IDF helicopters attacked the secretary's car convoy a few hours after he finished his speech. His wife, son and four others were killed in the attack. In revenge for the liquidation, terror attacks were launched at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Jewish community building in the city about two years later. In the first attack, 28 people were killed, including four Foreign Ministry employees and four Jewish women. In the second attack, 85 people were killed. An Argentine intelligence report found that Hezbollah's military chief, Imad Mourniya, was one of the key figures behind the planning of the attack on the community building, including other Iranian activists and figures.

Mousawi was born in Beirut's southern Dahia and studied in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq. There he spent much time with his future terrorist partners, set up in the summer of 1982 - three years after returning to Lebanon. Among other things, he was involved in propaganda and spreading the word of Islam ("Da'wa") among the Shi'ite population in the country. "Cancer gland in the waist of the great homeland," he called Israel. The principle he repeated was: "The position is a weapon, a handshake is a recognition." In 1985, Musawi was appointed to the organization's Shura Council in southern Lebanon, at which time a first statement was issued by Hezbollah. A few years later, he was elected secretary-general of the terrorist organization.

Nasrallah in a speech in honor of "El Quds Day" // Photo: Reuters

The successor to his predecessor // Hassan Nasrallah

As the years passed, Hezbollah became a "state within state." A terrorist organization holding an actual army, an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars, welfare and welfare systems and the Al-Manar television network. All of them receive Iranian support and backing. The IDF's exit from Lebanon and the second Lebanon war in which Nasrallah is booming have become milestones in the propaganda of the organization. The same figure stands out from its predecessor.

Remember, Hezbollah did not rise as a Shiite party only, but mainly as a pro-Iranian proxy. In light of Operation Galilee, which became the first Lebanon war, the Islamic Republic aspired to seize the opportunity to consolidate its hold on the Shi'ite population. The Amal Party, which was established following Lebanon's long-standing discrimination in Lebanon, did not supply the goods, and became the second largest Shiite force. Against this backdrop, loyalist militants to Ayatollah Ruhalla Khomeini and retired from Amal became the base from which Hezbollah was founded. These were trained by 1,500 Revolutionary Guards, who arrived in Lebanon in the summer of 1982. A year later, an attack was carried out at the United States Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 two people. In another attack that year at the city's multi-national power base, 305 Americans and French were killed, in addition to six Lebanese.