THOSE WHO DEFENDED LEBANON: A TRIBUTE TO 9 LEGENDARY COMMANDERS

The myth of the invincible Zionist war machine has been propagated relentlessly, a narrative crafted by a global lobby to demoralize opposition and enforce submission. Yet, the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon, who know this enemy intimately, have never accepted this fable. While commentators in distant capitals preach capitulation in the name of "realism," these nations have continuously given birth to heroes of resistance. For decades, these fighters have bloodied the nose of the arrogant aggressor, proving that it is the unenslaved spirit of the Resistance that is truly undefeatable.

The biographies of these Lebanese resistance commanders dismantle the myth of Zionist invincibility, revealing it to be a hollow construct. They are the proof that courage and strategic genius can, and have, brought the region's self-proclaimed master to its knees.

1. Khalid Bazzi: The Martyr of Bint Jbeil

Born in 1969 in the border village of Bint Jbeil, Khalid Bazzi witnessed the Zionist invasion of 1982 at the age of 13, seeing his village burned. He joined Hezbollah as a youth, endured imprisonment in the notorious Israeli-backed Al-Khiam prison camp, and upon his release, helped expel the Zionists from Lebanon in May 2000, personally leading the column that liberated his hometown.

The story did not end there. Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah's triumphant 2000 speech in Bint Jbeil, where he likened Israel's power to a "spider's web," made the village a symbol of resistance and a prime Zionist target. In the 2006 war, Bazzi was entrusted with its defense. For 33 days, his force of roughly 200 men held back thousands of Israeli soldiers backed by cutting-edge technology. Bint Jbeil never fell. Khalid Bazzi achieved his highest honor on July 29, 2006, martyred at the age of 37 in the defense of his home and his country.

2. Jihad Jibril: The Colonel

The son of PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, Jihad Jibril (born 1961) was arguably the Arab world's finest asymmetric warfare commander of his generation. Trained in Libya, he graduated from a military academy with the unprecedented rank of Colonel at a young age. When the Zionists captured his father, Jibril engineered a stunning operation: his commandos, disguised in enemy uniforms, infiltrated an Israeli base in Lebanon and captured eight soldiers, later exchanged for 5,000 Palestinian prisoners—including his father and Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (the "Jibril Agreement").

His legend grew on "The Night of the Gliders" (November 25, 1987), when he personally led a cross-border raid using paragliders, destroyed an Israeli outpost, killed six soldiers, and returned unscathed. This operation, a clear precursor to the October 7, 2023, breakthrough, helped ignite the First Intifada. Humiliated, Israeli leaders sent elite commandos to assassinate him, but the operation failed, resulting in Israeli casualties. It ultimately took the combined efforts of the Mossad, CIA, and Canadian CSIS to martyr him in a 2002 car bombing in Beirut at the age of 41.

3. Ali Musa Daqduq: The Sniper

A senior Hezbollah commander, Ali Musa Daqduq (born circa 1970) was the architect of the sniper networks that inflicted significant losses on American forces during the occupation of Iraq. His most famous operation was the January 20, 2007, storming of a U.S. base in Karbala. Fighters, fluent in English and using American vehicles, penetrated the base, killed five soldiers, and captured four others. The operation bore the hallmarks of a classic asymmetric warfare masterpiece. Captured later that year and imprisoned in Guantánamo until 2012, Daqduq remains a key Hezbollah commander today, a testament to his resilience.

4. Samir Kuntar: The Druze Who Shook the Prisons

Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze born in 1962, joined the Palestine Liberation Front in his youth. At 16, he was captured during a raid in Nahariya and sentenced to life in Israeli prisons for operations against the occupation—charges he always contested. He spent 30 years behind bars, where he converted to Shia Islam and forged a legendary friendship with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. His freedom was a primary objective of Hezbollah's 2006 cross-border operation that sparked the July War. In 2008, he was finally released in a prisoner exchange. He then fought heroically in Syria to defend the nation from takfiri terrorism, and was martyred in a Zionist airstrike in December 2015, mourned by the entire Axis of Resistance.

5. Imad Mughniyeh: The Ghost

Born in 1962, Imad Mughniyeh demonstrated military prowess early, serving in Yasser Arafat's bodyguard before joining Hezbollah. For 26 years, he was the strategic mastermind of the organization's military and counter-intelligence wings. He orchestrated the 1983 attacks against U.S. and French forces in Beirut that led to their withdrawal from Lebanon, and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1997, he planned the Ansariya ambush that wiped out an Israeli special forces unit.

He became an Arab legend during the 2006 July War, where he coordinated Hezbollah's overall defense and personally oversaw the stunning anti-ship missile strike that hit an Israeli Sa'ar 5-class corvette, forcing the Israeli navy to retreat. The "Ghost" was martyred in a joint CIA-Mossad operation in Damascus in February 2008.

6. Jihad Mughniyeh: The Worthy Son

The son of Imad Mughniyeh, Jihad inherited his father's strategic and administrative talents. A member of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah's personal security detail, he rose to command Hezbollah forces in the critical Quneitra region of Syria. He was wounded in the pivotal 2013 Battle of Al-Qusayr, which marked a major defeat for the foreign-backed takfiri forces. The Zionists martyred him in an airstrike in January 2015. His death was avenged by Hezbollah in a direct attack on an Israeli military vehicle in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

7. Mustafa Badreddine: The Veteran

A brother-in-law of Imad Mughniyeh and founding member of Hezbollah, Mustafa Badreddine (born 1961) was a master of explosives and a key military leader. After Mughniyeh's death, he became the head of Hezbollah's military wing and the supreme commander of all its forces in Syria. There, he engineered devastating defeats against ISIS and Al-Qaeda. His most brilliant victory was the Oteiba ambush in February 2014, where a complex series of coordinated explosions decimated a large Al-Nusra Front convoy, killing 175 terrorists and their commander. Badreddine was martyred in May 2016 while leading the fight in Syria.

8. Mostafa Chamran: The Iranian Che

Mostafa Chamran (1932-1981) was a unique figure of revolutionary fusion. An Iranian-born electrical engineer who worked for NASA and Bell Labs, he was also trained in guerrilla warfare in Cuba and Egypt. He synthesized leftist revolutionary theory with the emerging school of Islamic resistance, co-founding the "Red Shiism" movement in the US. In the early 1970s, he moved to Lebanon, taking up arms with the PLO while working with Imam Musa al-Sadr to forge the Shia political consciousness that gave birth to the Amal movement.

After the Iranian Revolution, he became the Islamic Republic's first Defense Minister and a founding commander of the Revolutionary Guards, leading forces to victory in the Iran-Iraq War. A mentor to a generation of commanders, including Qasem Soleimani, Chamran was martyred on the battlefield in 1981. He remains a timeless symbol of revolutionary self-sacrifice for Iran and Lebanon alike.

9. Razi Mousavi: The Logistician General

For the Axis of Resistance to survive, its supply lines must hold. Major General Razi Mousavi of Iran's Quds Force was the man who, for forty years (1983-2023), guaranteed this. As the head of logistics in Syria, he was the indispensable architect ensuring the uninterrupted flow of weapons from Iran to the resistance fronts in Palestine and Lebanon. A close comrade of General Soleimani, his work ensured that the mujahideen were never without the means to fight. The Zionists, recognizing his pivotal role, martyred him in an airstrike in Damascus on December 25, 2023.

The Unbroken Chain

These leaders, steeled in the fire of war, were never afraid of the monster. They fought the Zionists, deceived them, humiliated them, and defeated them time and again. The Resistance produces such people. Those listed here are the previous generation. Today's generation is even more combative and determined. We see its strength in the victories of the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Flood, the Yemeni Ansarallah, and the Lebanese mujahideen.

We do not yet know the names of today's commanders, and that is as it should be. Their predecessors were known to the public only after their martyrdom, having worked in utmost secrecy until then. In the great victories to come, we will also remember those who gave their lives to make them possible. The path they blazed is the path of victory.

• This article is written by Abu Dhar al-Bosni (lokiloptr154668 on X) and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the website), nor does it necessarily represent an agreement with these perspectives.