The deputy leader of Hezbollah was promoted after the non-stop assassinations of Israel on it; this created a leadership vacuum within the Lebanon-based group.
Hezbollah has named Naim Qassem as its new leader.
After the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem, the successor promoted from deputy leader was announced on Tuesday as secretary general of the Lebanon-based armed group.
Nasrallah was killed in Beirut in late September by an Israeli strike, and since then, numerous other senior Hezbollah officials have also been targeted as Israel intensified its focus on the group.
In a statement, Hezbollah announced that Qassem was elected to his new position due to his “commitment to the principles and goals of Hezbollah.” The group expressed its hope that God would guide him in this important mission of leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance.
Leadership Vacuum
The assassination of Nasrallah, a pivotal figure for the Lebanese Shia movement and its supporters in the region, has created a significant leadership vacuum within a group that was already facing a loss of leadership from months of Israeli strikes.
Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine, was seen as a strong contender to take his place but was killed in an Israeli attack on Beirut shortly after Nasrallah’s death.
Seventy-one-year-old Qassem, often referred to as Hezbollah’s “number two,” is one of the founding religious scholars of the group, established in the early 1980s, and has a long history of Shia political activism.
He was the highest-ranking Hezbollah official to continue making public appearances after Nasrallah largely withdrew from the public eye following the group’s 2006 conflict with Israel.
Since Nasrallah’s death, Qassem has delivered three televised addresses, using more formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese favored by his predecessor.
