In September 1997, an Israeli Mossad team tried to assassinate Hamas political chief Khaled Mashal by drizzling poison in his ear. The attempt failed, and two of the agents were captured while others took refuge in the Israeli embassy in Amman. Nasrallah's second-in-command Imad Mughniyah was assassinated in February 2008 in a Damascus bomb blast. Hezbollah accused Israel of responsibility for the explosion, although Israel denied responsibility for the act. Nasrallah's predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon in 1992.