Moshe Kaplinsky | Hassan Nasrallah | Bashar al-Assad | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | Fouad Siniora | Khaled Mashaal | Ehud Olmert

Who are the key players in today's Middle East crisis? Amid the shifting loyalties, regional power plays and generational hatreds that lay behind Israel's latest foray into Lebanon and Gaza, that question is not always easy to answer.

A handful of dominant personalities stand out and they prove to be a mix of wily veterans of conflict, such as Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, and relative newcomers, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky (Israel Defense Forces website)

MAJ.-GEN. MOSHE KAPLINSKY, the Israeli Army's new battlefield officer

Twenty-eight days into the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant organization Hezbollah, the Israeli Defense Forces did something surprising.

On Aug. 8, 2006, it appointed Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky to head up the northern front as senior battlefield officer. He was slotted in over the head of the current commander, Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam, making it the first time since the 1973 Middle East war that an Israeli general has lost a command role during the height of battle.

Some military commentators had described Adam as too slow and cautious. Political analysts say the move was in response to criticism that after a month of fighting, Hezbollah's rocket attacks on northern Israel continue. The organizational shuffling came just before Israel's security cabinet approved a major expansion of the military operation in Lebanon. So Kaplinsky, 49, has an even bigger task ahead of him than his predecessor. Only time will tell if he's up for the job – but he has a decorated military past.

The Israel-born Kaplinsky is a veteran of previous Lebanon campaigns. He's an experienced ground troops commander, the result of his years with the Israel Defense Forces' Golani Brigade, an elite infantry unit based in the north. It sports a decorated history of battle against Syria and irregular forces in Lebanon. Kaplinsky enlisted in the Golani Brigade in 1976 at 19 and quickly worked his way up the ranks.

In 1982, he was appointed commander of the Golani reconnaissance unit. That year, Israel invaded Lebanon in response to missile attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization and drove the organization out. Kaplinsky was wounded early in the fighting, but later returned to the war. In 1985, he was made commander of the Gideon Battalion in the Golani Brigade.

In the 1990s, Kaplinsky spent time as commander of two Golani divisions – the Hermon Regional Brigade and the Eastern Brigade on the Lebanese border. He became commander of the Golani Brigade in 1993.

Kaplinsky was a close associate Ariel Sharon, who was replaced as Israel's prime minister after a stroke sent him into a coma in January 2006. Sharon – a former general and the Israeli defense minister during the 1982 Lebanon invasion – appointed Kaplinsky as his military secretary after he was elected prime minister in 2001.

Kaplinsky left the post to take over the Central Command in August 2002, at the height of the intefadeh, the second Palestinian uprising against Israel in the disputed territories.

In March 2005, Kaplinsky was chosen to be the Israeli Defense Forces' deputy chief of general staff.

He has also taken the U.S. Army's advanced infantry officers course.

But Kaplinsky's knowledge isn't limited to military operations. He also holds a degree in economics and management from Bar-Ilan University and a masters of business administration from Tel Aviv University.

Sources: with files from CBC.ca, the Associated Press and the Jerusalem.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is at the centre of the current crisis. (Associated Press)

HASSAN NASRALLAH, secretary general of Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and militia

Largely unknown in the West, except in intelligence circles, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is one of the more revered figures in the Arab world, where he is viewed as a successful resistance fighter, one of the few to have inflicted any kind of price on Israel in recent years. The 46-year-old Nasrallah has been head of Hezbollah since 1992. He took over, at Iran's insistence, from fiery predecessor Sheik Abbas Musawi, who was assassinated by an Israeli strike force.

Despite that rough beginning, and the fact that Hezbollah is officially viewed as a terrorist group by several Western countries, including Canada, Nasrallah has lived a fairly open and public life in recent years, speaking at rallies and meeting even with visiting UN Secretary General Koffi Annan. One of the reasons for that is that Nasrallah and Hezbollah are perceived to have high level sponsors in Iran and Syria, where the group's 5,000 or so fighters are said to receive their training in heavily guarded camps in the Bekaa Valley.

Nasrallah came to the job with all the right military and religious credentials. He had distinguished himself as a tactician in the sectarian battles during Lebanon's long-running civil war and following Israel's first invasion of its northern neighbour in 1978. He then he went on to further his religious studies for several years in Iraq and Iran, at the important centres of the Shia world. When his eldest son was killed in a skirmish with Israeli forces in 1997, he was speaking at a rally. Without breaking stride or, reportedly, shedding a tear, he told his audience what had just happened and said he could now look into the eyes of other Lebanese parents who had lost sons in action.

Nasrallah's claim to fame is that he is perceived to be the one who forced Israel to finally quit its Lebanese occupation altogether in 2000. Within just a few months of his predecessor's assassination, Hezbollah carried out a car-bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. The attack would have clearly been planned well before Nasrallah was appointed Hezbollah leader (and very likely with the help of sympathetic regimes such as Iran, the Argentines said) but he would have had to approve it.

The import of that attack — taking on Israeli targets anywhere in the world — and another like it two years later, was that it forced Israel to abandon some of its more daring techniques in Lebanon (kidnappings and bombing civilian areas where Hezbollah militants were said to be hiding) and fight a more conventional war. And the death toll from that conventional war, and the impact that had on world opinion, helped force Israel to quit Lebanon in 2000, ending 22 years of occupation.

When that happened, Nasrallah was hailed within the Arab world as a hero. He followed up in 2004 by trading an Israeli businessman, who was an army reserve colonel grabbed by Hezbollah three years earlier while on a controversial business trip to Dubai, and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers for almost 450 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails. The move added to Nasrallah's reputation and emboldened Hamas leaders to say they wanted to do the same.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks at the opening of the 4th General Conference of Arab Parties in Damascus in March. (Associated Press/Bassem Tellawi)

BASHAR AL-ASSAD, president of Syria

If anyone might be hoped to exert influence on Nasrallah and Hezbollah, it would be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He and Nasrallah have had a strong working relationship in recent years: The elected arm of Hezbollah was one of the key voices trying to keep a Syrian presence in Lebanon. Damascus had tended to treat war-torn Lebanon as something of a client state but was forced by world pressure into ignoble retreat last summer — the so-called Cedar Revolution — following the car-bomb assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, a strong opponent of Syria's presence.

The Western-trained al-Assad is something of a mystery in Middle East politics, however. His father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled Syria for almost 30 years and was, for most of that period, an implacable foe of Israel and something of a mischief maker in the eyes of the West.

Bashar was not intending to follow in the family business and does not have the same strongman mystique. He studied ophthalmology in Damascus for many years and then followed that up with graduate studies as an eye doctor in London. He also married a British-born and raised Syrian woman and the two are often reported attending Western jazz concerts and opera.

But when his older brother Bassel was killed in an accident in 1994, Bashar was called home, joined the senior ranks of the military and became his father's emissary with world leaders such as French President Jacques Chirac before taking over the presidency in June 2000, following his father's death.

Bashar al-Assad's early years were seen as reform-minded in much of the world. He emptied the jails of many of his father's old political enemies and cracked down on corruption in the army and government, which gave him the excuse to get rid of many of the old guard. He also opened the country, and Damascus University in particular, to the internet, over the objections of his security advisers.

But he has resisted entreaties by Washington and London to be more helpful in the war on terror and in helping to defuse Middle East tensions. The Bush administration claims he is operating a safe haven for insurgents operating in Iraq, a claim al-Assad has denied. In recent days he has allowed pro-Hezbollah rallies to take place in Damascus while calling, through emissaries, for Israel to stop its attack on Lebanon and negotiate the release of prisoners, which was what Hezbollah was trying to provoke in the first place.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures to the crowd during a public gathering in the city of Khorramdareh, Iran, about 200 kilometres west of Tehran in April. (Associated Press)

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, president of Iran

Known for such wild remarks as the Holocaust was "a myth" and Israel should be "wiped off the map," Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, does not enjoy a great reputation in the West, where he is viewed largely as a loose cannon who wants to develop nuclear weapons.

He seemed to spring from almost nowhere a year ago when he defeated the much better known Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a respected cleric and political veteran, in a presidential runoff vote. Before that Ahmadinejad had been mayor of Tehran for all of two years, an appointed position that saw him undo many of the voting and secular reforms that so-called moderates had put in place before him.

His reputation as a conservative hardliner was so entrenched that the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, didn't allow Ahmadinejad to attend cabinet meetings, a courtesy normally extended the mayor of Tehran.

Ahmadinejad was a former Revolutionary Guard who may have had a role in taking hostage the 52 Americans who were held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the 1979 revolution. A handful of the former hostages claim to have recognized him, but he has denied he was there, as have other hostage takers.

What is known is that during the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s, Ahmadinejad had some role in training the young revolutionary soldiers, often boys between 12 and 17, who voluntarily strode through the mine fields separating the two armies, clearing the way, often with their lives. That group, and their families and offspring, are now part of the fervent believers who helped Ahmadinejad get elected a year ago and he is often seen in public wearing the colours of the movement.

In some of his first acts he banned Western music from state-run TV and radio. But he also is refusing to insist women adhere to the strict Islamic dress code and he even allowed women into soccer matches for the first time since the revolution. The son of a blacksmith, the 50-year-old Ahmadinejad is widely said to live a simple, ascetic life, which some say is the source of his appeal.

He is best known, of course, for his defiant insistence that Iran be allowed to continue to develop its uranium industry, including enriching uranium, in the face of possible sanctions from Europe and the U.S. This fight has been going on for over a year now and recently there has been speculation Ahmadinejad had been encouraging Hezbollah to take on Israel and spark the current crisis, as a way of taking the heat off Iran and possible UN sanctions.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora talks during a symposium of the World Economic Forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in May. (Nasser Nasser/Associated Press)

FOUAD SINIORA, prime minister of Lebanon

A long-time friend and the former right-hand man of the assassinated Rafik Hariri, Fouad Siniora had been a business associate and the finance minister in the cabinet of the slain billionaire, who had been one of Lebanon's most popular politicians.

After Syria was forced to withdraw its army and security officials from Lebanon last summer, Siniora was asked to form the new government by President Emile Lahoud and also, perhaps more importantly, by Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, 36, who returned home from Saudi Arabia to take over his father's political movement.

Saad Hariri is a business admin graduate from Washington's Georgetown University and one of the richest men in the world. He inherited just over $4 billion US when his father was killed and ran on a platform that included negotiations to disarm Hezbollah.

Siniora is a Sunni Muslim and a former central banker who is that rare Arab leader that enjoys good relations with both Washington and France. But because he is a Sunni and so in the minority in Lebanon, behind the Shia and probably even the many Christian sects, he does not have a large populous base to draw on.

And because Lebanon has largely been a client state of Syria in recent years, relying on Damascus for its security, the country does not have much an army of its own to deploy. So Siniora has been forced to call upon the UN and Arab League nations to help with the current conflict.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal talks to the Associated Press in this Sept. 20, 2004, photo in Cairo, Egypt. (Hasan Jamali/Associated Press)

KHALED MASHAAL, leader of Hamas

Khaled Mashaal was named leader of Hamas shortly after its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a nearly blind paraplegic, was assassinated in March 2004 by Israeli forces. Yassin's immediate successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was killed in a similar attack less than a month later.

Because of those assassinations, Hamas has since been obscure about the group's structure. It's unclear for example whether Mashaal, who lives in the Syrian capital, Damascus, has control over the entire Gaza hierarchy, or even Ismail Haniyeh, 43, who was also close to Yassin and who led Hamas to a stunning victory in January's parliamentary elections.

Haniyeh is the prime minister of the Palestinian parliament but Mashaal, too, has been a high-profile figure since the Hamas election victory. He has represented Hamas at meetings with foreign governments and other parties across the globe.

Mashaal became involved with Hamas in the late 1980s, but became a more prominent leader after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. He moved to Jordan and headed a Hamas bureau there where he took on the responsibility for international fundraising, an often-controversial venture, and expanded the group's foreign relations with countries such as Iran and Syria.

In 1997, Mashaal survived an assassination attempt, authorized by then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli agents disguised as Canadian tourists injected poison into his ear. But Mashaal was rushed to hospital before it took effect. Jordan's King Hussein was outraged by the attack and, with the help of then U.S. president Bill Clinton, demanded Israel provide the antidote, which it did.

However, Mashaal's life is once again on the line. Last month, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon hinted that Mashaal was a target for assassination for reportedly ordering the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, whose plight sparked this current crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem in June. (Associated Press)

EHUD OLMERT, prime minister of Israel

A career politician who was first elected to the Knesset at 28, Olmert is in many ways a surprise prime minister. Two years ago, he switched his position, along with mentor Ariel Sharon, and became willing to give up occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace. Together the two men formed a new party, Kadim, and when Sharon was felled by a debilitating stroke in January, Olmert took over and won election in March, largely on the single issue of withdrawing from the disputed territories.

Unlike Sharon, however, Olmert is not one of your usual generals-turned-politicians, of which Israel has had more than its share. In fact he was injured early during his mandatory military service and spent most of his time in the Armed Forces working as a journalist for its magazine.

(A similar fate befell Amir Peretz, Israel's defence minister, and a dovish Labour Party leader who joined Olmert's coalition and this has raised concerns in Israel as to whether its new government has the wherewithal for interventions like this one. Peretz was reportedly trying to be finance minister, not defence, when the cabinet was being formed.)

• See Middle East in Crisis, Ehud Olmert's gamble

The 60-year-old Olmert is, however, a child of the land. He was born there in 1945 to one of the original settler families even before the state formally came into being. But his political career has been mostly on the domestic side and in the finance and trade ministries. His connections with Sharon, a legendary figure in Israeli politics, also extended to an alleged bribery scandal involving a resort-building businessman named David Appel and Sharon's son, Gilad. The case was closed two years ago for a variety of reasons.

A lawyer, Olmert also served as mayor of Jerusalem for 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, where he concentrated on development projects and commuter issues like a light-rail train system for the city. He also used to smoke cigars, which has lent him the image in the Israeli press of a comfortable lawyer who is often at odds with his left-leaning family. His wife is an artist and writer who said she only voted for him for the first time in 2006.

Olmert was elected on the platform of withdrawing Jewish settlers from Gaza and large parts of the West Bank, which he says he would still like to do. In early June he had agreed to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a resumption of peace talks. That was about two weeks before Hamas militants tunnelled under the Gaza border, attacked an Israel post and took a young soldier hostage.

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