MIDDLE EAST
Who was Lebanese commander Saied Abu Ali?
Military leader played a key field role in repelling Israeli attacks on Lebanon during the 1993 and 1996 wars
Hesbollah, Lebanon’s main party, released the biography of Haitham al-Tabatabai, also known as Saied Abu Ali, a senior Hesbollah commander who was martyred in an Israeli assault in Haret Hreik on the same day. The operation also claimed the lives of several of his comrades.
Born on November 5, 1968, in the al-Bashoura area of Beirut, Saied Abu Ali joined Hesbollah from its inception. Over the decades, he has become a key figure within the party.
Saied Abu Ali took part in numerous major operations, especially elite missions targeting the Israeli occupation forces and their collaborators before the liberation of South Lebanon in 2000. He played a key field role in repelling Israeli attacks on Lebanon during the 1993 and 1996 wars.
From 1996 to 2000, he led the Axis of Nabatieh, where he was among the commanders of the operation to capture enemy forces in Berkat al-Naqar, located in the occupied Shebaa Farms.
After the liberation in 2000 and until 2008, he took command of the Khiam Axis, where he played a decisive role during the clashes in the July 2006 assault, directing several of the Resistance’s most decisive operations on that front.
Following the martyrdom of Commander Hajj Imad Mughniyeh, Saied Abu Ali was appointed head of the Resistance’s intervention forces and played a key role in establishing and developing the elite Radwan Force.
He was also entrusted with high-level leadership duties on various fronts of the Resistance Axis.
In 2023, he led the operational command within Hesbolah during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The following year, during the Battle of the People of Strength in 2024, he supervised and directed the Resistance’s operations.
After the Battle of the People of Strength, he assumed full military leadership of Hesbolah.
