Hezbollah: ‘Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?’

“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

While the above lyric comes from the theme song for the “Cops” television show, putting the question posed therein to Hezbollah terrorist leaders triggers obvious answers.

For one group, there is nothing they are “gonna do” as they are no longer among the living; for those not yet a member of that group, they are running for cover. And, in a news flash for the latter who may be banking on it, the deceased terrorists are learning an expensive spiritual lesson, discovering that the reality of a hedonistic afterlife promised by Prophet Muhammad for killing non-Muslims was just a 1,400-year-old hoax.

Having triggered Israel’s wrath in this life, attacking the Jewish state while it engaged in a war with Hamas, Hezbollah’s leaders are now being relentlessly pursued. They are now paying the piper for having devoted themselves to embracing their organization’s oath to eradicate Israel.

It was after the 1982 Israeli invasion into Lebanon that Hezbollah was first established. Primarily funded by Iran, it quickly became its puppet. Due to his friendship with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with whom he shared an intense hatred for Israel, Lebanese citizen Hassan Nasrallah became the group’s secretary-general in 1992. He ruled as such for 32 years, implementing an anti-Israeli campaign that subjected the Jewish state during that period to endless missile attacks – the missiles supplied courtesy of Tehran.
As a result, Nasrallah became one of the first targets of Israel’s campaign to relieve Hezbollah of its senior leadership.

While Nasrallah knew his safety was at risk, Israel sought to provide him with a temporary, but false, sense of security. That was created when Nasrallah learned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had left the country to attend a U.N. meeting. Wrongly assuming the Israelis would not target him while the prime minister was out of the country, the trap was set. The secretary-general felt sufficiently comfortable to meet with several senior commanders and an Iranian general, Abbas Nilforoushan – deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and commander of Quds Force in Lebanon – who sought to deliver an important message to Nasrallah.

One could appreciate the preference for a face-to-face meeting. After all, only weeks earlier Israel, having armed thousands of Hezbollah pagers with explosives, simultaneously detonated them, killing or wounding over 4,000 terrorists. However, Nasrallah’s decision to hold a face-to-face meeting proved, both for him and his associates, to be just as deadly.

As an Israeli source reported, on Sept. 27, Nasrallah gathered many of his subordinate leaders, along with IRGC Deputy Commander Nilforoushan, in his secret bunker, built underneath a residential building in a Beirut suburb. It is doubtful Nilforoushaneven had time to deliver his urgent message to Nasrallah (that Israel was seeking to kill the Hezbollah leader and he should accordingly hide in Iran) as no sooner had the secretary-general entered the bunker when Israeli aircraft dropped a deadly cargo of at least 80 bombs – 15 of which were one-ton bunker busters. Nasrallah, his subordinates and Nilforoushan were all killed as their building, along with five others, collapsed upon them. All of this occurred just after Netanyahu finished his U.N. speech.

Hashem Safieddine – Nasrallah’s cousin and the man most likely to succeed him – had little time to try on his cousin’s shoes as he has not been seen or heard from since Israel began its bombing attacks on the terrorist group and may very well have been killed on Oct. 4. Additionally, on the “not gonna do” anything dead list are dozens of key senior Hezbollah unit commanders who headed the group’s communication networks and its precision-guided missile manufacturing facility. Since beginning its ground operations in Lebanon, the IDF has killed 440 terrorists while dismantling more than 2,000 Hezbollah infrastructure targets.

Meanwhile, Israel has been giving full attention to eliminating the terrorist group Hamas’ leadership as well. Those meeting a similar fate as Nasrallah include Rawhi Mushtaha, head of its government in Gaza; Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on the group’s political bureau; Sami Oudeh, commander of its General Security mechanism; Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, head of the group in the Palestinian Authority city of Tulkarem; and just this week Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 attack. Most were feeling safe and secure in an underground bunker, failing to appreciate how deep Israeli bunker busters can penetrate.

As the Jewish News Syndicate reports, “Israel has eliminated as many wanted terrorists in six weeks as the U.S. has in the last 20 years.” They have included some wanted by the U.S. for over four decades, such as Ibrahim Aqil – leader of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization – who masterminded the 1983 Beirut bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks that killed 241 of our warriors.

Concerning the Sept. 27 Israeli bombing that killed Nasrallah, it could not have been more timely, occurring just minutes after his arrival. The Iranians now think they know why.

A Middle East news source reports that the timing of Nasrallah’s killing as well as the killing of his potential successor, Safieddine,on Oct. 4 has triggered an IRGC investigation. Iran fears it may have been penetrated by an Israeli Mossad agent.

The investigation is focusing on one of its own – Esmail Qaani, leader of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force – under whose leadership Iranian authorities believe a security breach allegedly occurred. As a result, Qaani and his team have been arrested. In what had to have been a most intense interrogation after his arrest, Qaani suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital where he remains under guard. The Iranians suspect his bureau chief provided information to Israel. If so, it is quite a feather in the cap for Israeli intelligence.

While both Hamas and Hezbollah threatened Israel, it undoubtedly has been hesitant to act against Iran for fear of simultaneously having to take it on as well. Israel has now done so, drastically reducing their capabilities and possibly clearing the way to confront its biggest threat. Obviously, concerning a response to Tehran’s missile attack, the mullahs are nervously wondering of Israel, “whatcha gonna do?”