Will the real Hassan Nasrallah, please stand up

There are 32 Hassan Nasrallahs in the telephone book. But that is the tip of the iceberg because the book lists only land lines, which hardly anyone in this cellphone-crazed country uses anymore.

The other day a journalist doing street interviews asked for a man’s name and was told “Hassan Nasrallah.” The man somewhat sheepishly explained that it was in fact his name and that there were lots of people named Hassan Nasrallah.

So perhaps it is not surprising that even Israel's elite commando unit became confused. It staged a daring raid on the Hezbollah stronghold in Baalbek in the early morning darkness of Aug. 2, killing at least 10 people and carrying off five suspected guerrillas captured in a house.

But the house belonged to Hassan Nasrallah the plasterer rather than Hassan Nasrallah the Hezbollah leader.

At any rate, Israel released all five captives overnight and on Tuesday evening they were being debriefed at the Lebanese Army headquarters in Yarze, in the hills overlooking Beirut.
“We captured five people we thought were involved with Hezbollah,” explained an Israeli official who asked not to be identified. “Under questioning it turned out we were wrong. So we turned them over to the UN.” (NYT)