Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah isn't smiling any more. Western intelligence sources said Nasrallah has escaped to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and spends most of his time underground. He might have also entered Syria for consultations with his Iranian masters.
Nasrallah was almost killed in an Israeli air strike last week, but escaped at the last minute. Nasrallah, whose son was killed in a battle with Israel, left behind at least one dead colleague in the Hizbullah leadership in the smoldering ruins of the movement's headquarters in southern Beirut.
For more than a day, Nasrallah was out of touch as he raced east from Beirut to the air defense umbrella established by Iran and Syria in the Bekaa Valley. The Bekaa, used by Iran and Syria as the nerve center in the war against Israel, contains a network of deep tunnels and bunkers that could resist a small atomic bomb.
Nasrallah's flight from Beirut was a dramatic change of pace for a man who's been used to the good life on Iran's vast expense account. Over the past 14 years, Nasrallah was groomed as Iran's leading agent in Lebanon, willing to do the bidding of the mullah leadership. His early battles were in purging the Hizbullah leadership of those Shi'ites who sought to retain an independent policy. The most prominent of the dissidents was Subhi Al Tufaili, who refused to accept Iranian dictates and found himself fleeing for his life and in hiding in the Bekaa Valley.
The sources said Iranian interests would be harmed if Nasrallah were assassinated by Israel. But the Iranian mullahs have long been preparing for this prospect and have groomed a series of possible successors.
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