Hezbollah picks cleric Naim Kassem to guide the Lebanese militant group

BEIRUT — Hezbollah introduced on Tuesday that it has chosen cleric Naim Kassem to guide the Lebanese militant group after the killing of its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in late September.

The group mentioned in a press release that Hezbollah’s decision-making Shura Council elected Kassem, 71, as its new secretary-general and vowed to proceed Nasrallah’s insurance policies “until victory is achieved.”

Since Nasrallah’s loss of life as a part of an Israeli offensive that took out lots of Hezbollah’s senior officers, the white-turbaned cleric with a grey beard has typically been the general public face of the Lebanese militant group. He’s one among its founding members however is extensively seen by supporters as missing his predecessor’s oratory abilities.

In a televised speech earlier this month, Kassem, who carries the clerical title of sheikh, claimed Hezbollah’s navy capabilities have been intact after Nasrallah’s assassination and warned Israelis they’ll solely endure additional as combating continues.

Kassem has been sanctioned by the US, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist group. His appointment got here as no shock since he had served as Nasrallah’s deputy for 32 years and had additionally lengthy been Hezbollah’s public face, giving interviews to native and overseas media shops.

“This is a message to Lebanon and abroad that Hezbollah has reorganized itself,” mentioned Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese analyst near Hezbollah.

Kassem’s appointment reveals Hezbollah is operating its personal affairs and never — as some have reported — that advisers from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard at the moment are in command of the group, Qassir added.

In an interview with The Related Press in July, Kassem mentioned he did not imagine that Israel had the capability — or had but made the choice — to launch a full-blown conflict with Hezbollah. However he warned that even when Israel supposed to undertake a restricted operation in Lebanon that stopped wanting a full-scale conflict, it shouldn’t count on the combating to stay restricted.

A day after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 folks, principally civilians, and abducting round 250 as hostages, Hezbollah started attacking Israeli navy posts alongside the border with Lebanon, saying it was opening a backup entrance for its Hamas allies.

The assault triggered the yearlong Israel-Hamas conflict and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, in line with native well being authorities.

“No one knows the consequences of igniting the war in Lebanon, regionally and even internationally,” Kassem mentioned on the time, talking from the group’s political headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

He mentioned he was pleased with Hezbollah’s achievements in its “support front” for Hamas, saying it “required sacrifices on our part.”

Lower than three months later, Israel expanded the conflict in Lebanon, leaving a whole lot useless and greater than 1.2 million folks displaced. The invasion has triggered large destruction in southern and jap Lebanon, in addition to Beirut’s southern suburbs which can be house to Hezbollah’s headquarters. Israeli troops interact in day by day fierce clashes with Hezbollah within the border area as they attempt to push deeper into south Lebanon.

Hezbollah remains to be firing dozens of rockets and missiles into northern Israel and in latest days claimed an assault on an Israeli navy base south of Tel Aviv. It additionally claimed duty for a drone assault that hit the house of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month. Nobody was damage in that assault.

Born in 1953 within the city of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon, Kassem studied chemistry on the Lebanese College earlier than working for a number of years as a chemistry instructor. He concurrently pursued spiritual research and took part in founding the Lebanese Union for Muslim College students, a corporation meant to advertise faith.

Within the Seventies, he joined the Motion of the Dispossessed, a political group that pushed for better illustration for Lebanon’s traditionally ignored and impoverished Shiite group.

The group morphed into the Amal motion, one of many principal armed teams in Lebanon’s civil conflict and now a strong political get together led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Kassem then joined the nascent Hezbollah, fashioned with assist from Iran after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the nation’s southern area.

From 1991, Kassem served because the group’s deputy, initially beneath Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas Mousawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter assault in 1992.

Kassem’s decide to the helm of Hezbollah got here per week after it confirmed that Hashem Safieddine — a high determine who had been extensively anticipated to succeed Nasrallah — was killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut earlier this month.

Safieddine was Nasrallah’s cousin and had shut hyperlinks to Iran the place he spent years of his life. Safieddine’s son, Rida, is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Power, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

“We ask God to help him in the great mission in leading Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance,” Hezbollah mentioned in its assertion about Kassem.

In one other blow to Hezbollah, hundreds of communication units utilized by its members — each fighters and employees with the group’s civilian establishments — exploded near-simultaneously in mid-September, killing 39 folks and wounding almost 3,000. Israel was blamed for the assault that left scores of others with everlasting disabilities.

Kassem’s decide is “proof that Hezbollah is not scared regarding the developments,” Qassir additionally mentioned.