Abbas al-Musawi (1952-16 February 1992) was the Secretary-General of Hezbollah fronm May 1991 to 16 February 1992, succeeding Subhi al-Tufayli and preceding Hassan Nasrallah.
Biography[]
Mural of Musawi in Tyre
Abbas al-Musawi was born in 1952 in Al-Nabi Shayth in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon to a Shi'ite Muslim family. While in religious school in Najaf, Iraq, he was inspired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's teachings and returned to Lebanon in 1978. al-Musawi became a leader of Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim militant group active during the Lebanese Civil War that fought against Israel. From 1983 to 1985 he was the operational head of Hezbollah security forces, and from late 1985 to April 1988 he was the leader of Islamic Resistance, the armed wing of Hezbollah. In May 1991, he succeeded the nonflexible Subhi al-Tufayli and promised that Hezbollah would wipe out every trace of Israel in Palestine. He promised to intensify military, politican, and popular action to undermine the peace talks with the "cancer of the Middle East" Israel, although he rejected the idea of a theocratic state in Lebanon.
Death[]
On 16 February 1992, Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated in the Nabatieh Governorate of southern Lebanon by Israeli Apache helicopters, who fired missiles at his motorcade. Musawi, his wife, his son, and four others were killed, avenging the deaths of kidnapped Israeli Defense Force (IDF) servicemen in 1986 and United States/United Nations general William R. Higgins' kidnapping in 1988. His death caused the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), led by Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah, to bomb the Israeli embassy to Argentina in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people and wounding 242.