How many high ranking leaders have been killed? I’ve seen news stories saying ‘commander so and so was killed’ but is there a running list?
It was my understanding the actual leader of Hamas was killed in the last few months and replaced. But not only that, I thought the actual military head of Hamas was killed. As were 3 of the 5 military division heads have been killed so far.
As far as Hezbollah, I have seen stories about various commanders being killed in Lebanon, but I have no idea what their structure is.
So how does the organizational structure of groups like PIJ, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc work and how many have been killed so far?
Hamas confirmed in November 2023 that Israeli airstrikes had killed Ahmed Ghandour, the commander of the Al-Qassam Brigade in northern Gaza; Ayman Siam, head of the rocket-firing unit; and Fursan Khalifa, a senior commander in the West Bank, as well as Ghandour’s deputy Wael Rajab.[122]
Marwan Issa, deputy leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades and second-in-command to Mohammed Deif, was reported to have been killed by Israeli forces on 10 March 2024.[123]
The wiki article also claims the leader and deputy leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades have been killed.
“Warplanes attacked yesterday and killed, based on intelligence information, Rafa’a Salameh, commander of the Khan Younis Brigade in Hamas,” the military said in a statement on X.
The Israeli military on Tuesday said it killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, in a rare strike in Beirut, raising the stakes in the escalating tensions with the Lebanese militant group. Israeli officials said the militant commander was behind the deaths of 12 children and teens in a weekend rocket attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights as well as the deaths of numerous Israeli civilians in previous rocket strikes on northern Israel.
It was pretty much a running joke during the war on terror that the role of second in command of Al Qaida was a temporary position as they kept getting offed by the US. The logic being the head of Al Qaida was a figurehead who can hide out in a cave (or it turns out a villa in Pakistan) whereas the second in command actually has to do stuff which causes him to interact with people and be identified, hence has a very short life expectancy.
Tehran, Iran – Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has been assassinated by Israel in Syria.
Israeli air strike in Syria kills top Iranian military adviser
He was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran, an important part of Iran’s regional network of allies and proxies known as the “Axis of Resistance”.