Ali Damoush – The New Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council

Sheikh Ali Damoush served as the deputy to Hashem Safi al-Din, the previous head of the Executive Council, until his elimination on October 4, 2024. Various reports indicate the appointment of Damoush as the new head of the Executive Council. Damoush was born in 1962 and grew up in a traditional home with a father who was very knowledgeable in Islam and a mother from the Alawite community.

Following the civil war in Lebanon in 1977, he relocated to Najaf for his studies. He spent approximately two months at the Al-Adariyya religious school before Saddam Hussein’s regime arrested and deported him to Lebanon. The regime took Damoush, along with several Lebanese students, to study religion at the Najaf Security Center. From there, they took him to Baghdad Prison, where he spent eleven days before deporting him to Lebanon.

He graduated from the Islamic Sharia Institute in Beirut, and a few months after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini in 1979, he emigrated to the city of Qom to continue his studies at the seminary, where he stayed at the school of Imam Tzadik and studied with a group of Lebanese scholars.

He lived at the college in Qom for about fourteen years, from 1979 to the end of 1993, during which time he was busy acquiring knowledge, teaching Shiite Islam, writing, and conducting da’wah (call to Islam) tours in Iran, Lebanon, and Africa.

At the beginning of 1994, he returned to Lebanon permanently and joined the Islamic Sharia Institute, where he was part of its administrative and scientific body until 1997. When he returned to Lebanon in 1994, he also joined Hezbollah.

In Hezbollah, Damoush held several positions, such as a judge in Hezbollah’s sharia courts from 1994 to 1998. He then joined the Executive Council in 1998 and oversaw the Culture Unit until 2001. He was then in charge of the External Relations Unit. It is possible that he was still formally in charge of the External Relations Unit while he was already deputy head of the Executive Council.

The External Relations Unit of the Executive Council serves as Hezbollah’s “Foreign Ministry” and works vis-à-vis government entities, political parties, and the like. Additionally, its other central role is to assist Hezbollah members, particularly those from Unit 910, (which is responsible for terrorist attacks abroad and is led by Talal Hamiya) while they are abroad. Assistance to terrorism includes the recruitment and operation of collaborators, logistical support for 910 personnel of all kinds, and even the security of activities. In addition, it organizes demonstrations in support of Hezbollah and Iran abroad. Khalil Rezeq is apparently the head of the external liaison unit today.

Picture of Tal Beeri

Tal Beeri

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