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More than a month after the killing of leader Hassan Nasrallah by Israeli, during an air raid, Hezbollah announced the appointment of Naim Qassem as its new secretary general.
Hezbollah said Qassem was elected by the Shura Council and it pledged to keep “the flame of resistance burning” until victory is achieved against Israel.
Qassem was not initially tipped to succeed Nasrallah. Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was believed to be in line for the top post, as he was seen as a close friend of Iran’s Supreme Leader and of the Islamic Republic .
But Safieddine too was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs shortly after Nasrallah’s assassination.
The Israeli government wrote on its X Arabic account, “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”.
Since its ground invasion into southern Lebanon on Sep. 30, Israel has decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military command structure. But the Shiite group still has the ability to launch missiles and drones at Israeli cities.
Naim Qassem, 71, was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982. He has been serving as deputy head of Hezbollah since 1991, before being appointed Secretary General of Hezbollah.
Unlike his predecessor, Qassem is a religious scholar seen as a spiritual leader rather than a military tactician. He’s viewed as less charismatic than Nasrallah, who made the group Iran’s most powerful proxy in the region and a crucial actor in Lebanese politics.
Qassem, a member of the group’s governing Shura Council, had long operated in the shadow of Nasrallah, yet he came to a higher degree of popularity after he published, in 2005, a book on Hezbollah’s history.
He was born in Beirut in 1953 to a family from the village of Kfar Fila on the border with Israel.
Qassem’s political career began with the Amal Movement. He left Amal in 1979 on the heels of the Islamic revolution in Iran which was a precursor to the formation of Hezbollah three years later.
He was appointed deputy secretary general under Hezbollah’s then secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack in 1992. He remained in the role when Nasrallah became leader.
Qassem wears the white turban of a Shiite Muslim religious cleric and has a white beard. He was the most senior Hezbollah official to make public appearances after Nasrallah largely went into hiding following the group’s 2006 war with Israel.
Qassem has regularly appeared in public and frequently held interviews with foreign media outlets.
Just days before Nasrallah’s assassination, he gave a defiant speech at the funeral of a slain Hezbollah commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Since Nasrallah’s death in a huge Israeli air strike in the area on September 27, Qassem has made three televised addresses, speaking in more formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese his predecessor used.
In his first speech after Nasrallah´s killing, he appeared stressed, sweating profusely, in a dark room.
In several speeches, after Nasrallah’s death, Qassem claimed Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact. He reportedly backed efforts by parliament speaker Nabih Berri to broker a ceasefire with Israel.
Married with six children, Qassem studied and taught chemistry in Lebanon before turning to politics.
Qassem has published a number of books on religious, cultural and political issues, according to biographical details on his website.
He speaks English. He oversees Hezbollah’s participation in government and parliament.
Carmen Gavrila is a senior correspondent for the Romanian Public Radio – Radio Romania, focusing on foreign affairs, the Middle East, NATO and EU’s foreign affairs
GSPI does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of GSPI, its staff, or its trustees.
