Arab social networks were gripped on Monday by a rare, undated picture featuring the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qasem Soleimani, and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah – and the latter is seen in a white attire and without his familiar turban.
Journalists identified with Hezbollah began to spread the picture vigorously, and it soon reached the Iranian news agency Fars, which used it as its “picture of the day.” The Saudi-sponsored Al-Arabiya network, where Iran and Hezbollah are not great favorites, presented the picture with the caption: “Who visited whom?”
No one knows when or where the picture was taken, but there have been speculations that it is rather recent. And that should probably concern us more than the absent turban.
Soleimani and Nasrallah are considered architects of the “axis of resistance” in Syria, alongside the Assad regime. In recent months, the Lebanese arch-terrorist has praised Soleimani in a speech, and his Iranian counterpart mentioned Nasrallah in a speech in Tehran that marked the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah chief of staff Imad Mughniyah in Syria.
The IDF spokesman in Arabic, Major Avichay Adraee (افيخاي أدرعي-), offered images with both options – Nasrallah with and without the turban and asked his visitors from across the Middle East to comment which look was cooler.
He received more than 500 responses in 10 or so hours – and not all of them humorous…