(Mail On Sunday-UK) Mark Almond - Not since King Harold, his brothers and much of the Saxon nobility were wiped out in the Battle of Hastings almost 1,000 years ago has one side annihilated the leadership of its enemy so suddenly and thoroughly. On Friday, in a series of surgically precise strikes, Israel killed Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, along with around 20 senior militia commanders. By any sane rationale, the war between Israel and Hizbullah should be over. But fanatics are neither sane nor rational. This is a fighting force whose lower ranks are obsessed with martyrdom. They have been comprehensively defeated but that does not mean they will surrender. There is still a mass of weapons at the disposal of local commanders eager to burnish their own combat reputations and leadership ambitions. The writer is director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford.
2024-10-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive