Hasan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah ( ; born 31 August 1960) is a Lebanese Muslim cleric and political leader who has served as the 3rd secretary-general of Hezbollah since his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces in February 1992. Early life and education Hasan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children into a Shia family in Bourj Hammoud, Matn District (an eastern suburb of Beirut), on 31 August 1960. His father, Abdul Karim Nasrallah, was born in Bazourieh, a village in Jabal Amel (South Republic of Lebanon) located near Tyre and worked as a fruit and vegetables seller. Although his family was not particularly religious, Hassan was interested in theological studies. He attended the al-Najah school and later a public school in the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Sin el Fil Beirut. In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War forced the family, including Nasrallah who was 15 at the time, to move to their ancestral home in Bazourieh, where Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school of Sour (Tyre). There he attended secondary school, and briefly joined the Amal Movement, a Lebanese Shi'a political group. Nasrallah studied at the Shi'a seminary in the Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek. The school followed the teachings of Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who founded the Dawa movement in Najaf, Iraq during the early 1960s.