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Ibrahim Aqil, Signing Off
Relentless. Unremitting. Unsparing.
The IDF and Mossad on Friday dealt still another grievous blow to Hassan Nasrallah, who lost Ibrahim Aqil to a precision strike targeting an underground meeting facility in Beirut.
Aqil, like Fuad Shukr, was wanted by the US in connection with the October 1983 barracks bombing which killed more than 200 US servicemembers in one the deadliest days for the US Marine Corps since World War II. Shukr, you're reminded, was blown apart by the IDF two months ago, le
I learn more ME foreign affairs from you than the NYT and Economist combined.
Great analysis Mr H !!!
Truly in awe of the depth of your research, H.
H- You have alluded to how you gained some of your immense knowledge of the ME- but someday, I hope to read the “full disclosure” version.
I do have a two-part follow up question to this very interesting post: roughly how many more remaining leaders of various groups are there that are part of Iran’s “Axis of resistance” (i.e. potentially on Israel’s list to dismantle) and as Israel takes out more players along the line, and therefore gets directly closer to Iran, what is at the end of the line of Iran’s “Axis of resistance”?
I fear the answer to the second part of my question.
When I was a doctoral student at The OSU I heard about a wonderful professor of Archaeology, adored by his students and colleagues alike. I did some checking and I found out that not only was he a tenured full professor without a doctorate, he never even finished high school. He started going on digs in his mid-teens and gradually accumulated enough knowledge to be published in many learned journals, eventually ending up in his position at the school. I found myself needing to know what the fuss was about so one afternoon I crashed one of his classes. It was being held in one of our our large rooms that held 300. I sneaked in the back to stand. He was sitting cross-legged on an old oak table on the stage. No notes, no aids, no nothing but the sound of his voice discussing the assigned reading. There wasn’t a single empty seat in the room and you could hear a pin drop. It took me five minutes to discover why he held the distinguished position he had. This as a guy in an old pair of jeans and a khaki shirt with a huge brain that knew many, many things. I felt like I needed to be sitting on the floor a part of a small circle that needed to learn what he knew. I feel the same way here.
Me too.
H – have you read Nine Lives? The story of Ahmed Dean, a jihadi turned MI6 informant… Appears to be very good…
NB – if any commentator has and want to share…