Photo: An image grab taken from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV shows the group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem delivering a speech from an undisclosed location on October 15, 2024. Hezbollah on October 29 said Qassem was elected to succeed its leader Hasan Nasrallah, who was killed late last month by an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs. © AFP
The Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah has named deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem as its new secretary general, succeeding longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli strike on Beirut last month.
Who is Sheikh Naim Qassem?
Hezbollah‘s deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem, elected head of the Lebanese armed group on Tuesday, has been a senior figure in the Iran-backed movement for more than 30 years.
Speaking in front of curtains from an undisclosed location on Oct. 8, Qassem said the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cries first, and Hezbollah would not cry first. The group’s capabilities were intact despite “painful blows” from Israel.
But he added the group supported the efforts of parliament speaker Nabih Berri – a Hezbollah ally – to secure a ceasefire, for the first time omitting any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a pre-condition for halting the group’s fire on Israel.
His 30-minute televised address came just days after senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine was thought to have been the target of an Israeli strike and 11 days after the killing of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Safieddine’s killing was confirmed by Hezbollah on Oct. 23.
Qassem was appointed deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.
Qassem’s televised address on Oct. 8 was his second since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah intensified in September.
He was the first member of Hezbollah’s top leadership to make televised remarks after Nasrallah’s killing in an Israeli air attack on Beirut‘s southern suburbs on Sept. 27.
Speaking on Sept. 30, Qassem said Hezbollah would choose a successor to its slain secretary general “at the earliest opportunity” and would continue to fight Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.
“What we are doing is the bare minimum… We know that the battle may be long,” he said in a 19-minute speech.
Born in 1953 in Beirut to a family from Lebanon’s south, Qassem’s political activism began with the Lebanese Shi’ite Amal Movement.
He left the group in 1979 in the wake of Iran‘s Islamic Revolution, which shaped the political thinking of many young Lebanese Shi’ite activists.
Qassem took part in meetings that led to the formation of Hezbollah, established with the backing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He has been the general coordinator of Hezbollah’s parliamentary election campaigns since the group first contested them in 1992.
In 2005, he wrote a history of Hezbollah seen as a rare “insider’s look” into the organization. Qassem wears a white turban unlike Nasrallah and Safieddine, whose black turbans denoted their status as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
Where is Sheikh Naim Qassem now?
According to reliable sources, he fled Beirut on October 5 on the plane used by Tehran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for a state visit to Lebanon and Syria. His transfer to Iran was reportedly ordered by top leaders of the Islamic Republic for fear of assassination by Israel
Qassem has delivered three speeches since the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. While the first was recorded in Beirut, the second and third were delivered in Tehran, the source added.
Won’t last long
Qassem is considered by many in Lebanon to lack the charisma and gravitas of Nasrallah.
In its official Arabic account on X, the Israeli government said: “His tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine.”
“There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force,” it wrote.
France 24/ Reuters
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