Hezbollah elects Nasrallah's successor, Naim Qassem to head Lebanon's group

Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, on Tuesday, elected its deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem to succeed slain head Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

According to a report by Reuters, Hezbollah released a statement in which it informed that its Shura Council had elected Qassem in accordance with its established mechanism for choosing a secretary general.

Who is Hezbollah head Sheikh Naim Qassem, successor of Nasrallah?

Qassem was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982 and has been the armed group’s deputy secretary general since 1991, the year before Nasrallah took the helm.

He was appointed as Hezbollah’s deputy chief by Hezbollah’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qaseem, 71, has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen. Also, he was the most senior official of the armed group to continue making public appearances after Nasrallah largely went into hiding following the 2006 war with Israel.

Qaseem has even appeared in several interviews with foreign media and since Nasrallah’s killing, he has given three televised addresses, including one on October 8 this year in which he claimed that the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon. All his conversations with media were in more formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese favoured by Nasrallah.

Initially, Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was tipped to succeed Nasrallah, but he too was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs shortly after Nasrallah’s assassination.

Qaseem was born in Beirut in 1953 to a family from the village of Kfar Fila on the border with Israel.

With inputs from agencies.