On October 29, 2024, Hezbollah officially announced the election of Sheikh Naim Qassem as Hezbollah’s secretary general, about a month after the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah and three weeks after the elimination of Nasrallah’s intended replacement, Hashem Safi al-Din.
Who is Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s new leader?
Naim Qassem was born in 1953 in Beirut. His family originated from Kafr Fila in the Tufah district of southern Lebanon. He is married and has six children.
Qasim has a degree in chemistry and worked as a teacher for many years. In addition to the natural sciences, he continued his religious studies at the Seminar for the Study of Shi’ite Islamic Religion and the training of clerics in Iran, and received a degree in Islamic jurisprudence and its foundations. He attended a seminar that has a number of institutions in cities across Iran, the oldest and largest of which are in the cities of Najaf and Qum, from which some of the leading ayatollahs and Shi’ite clerics emerged.
Naim Qassem began his political activity in the Amal movement, founded in 1974. He left Amal in 1979 and participated in the meetings that led to the establishment of Hezbollah in 1982. He is considered one of the central figures from Hezbollah’s founding generation.
Qassem was elected three times to Hezbollah’s Shura Council. During the 1980s he was responsible for Hezbollah educational activities and scouts in Beirut, deputy head of the executive council and head of the executive council.
In 1991 he was appointed deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, replacing Abbas al-Moussawi, who was elected secretary general and eliminated in 1992. Qassem continued in his position continuously, as Nasrallah’s deputy from 1992 until his election as Hezbollah’s current secretary general, after Nasrallah’s elimination.
In his capacity as Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, he was in charge of the Supreme Court and supervisor of parliamentarians and the Hezbollah Parliamentary Labor Council in the Lebanese parliament. He also served as Hezbollah’s general coordinator for parliamentary elections.
Qassem wrote several books. The most important of these is his 2014 book on Hezbollah’s political and military experience (Hezbollah – The Curriculum – The Experiment – The Future – Naim Qassem – 2014). He also wrote books on topics such as family, marriage and the Shiite religion in 2010 and 2013.
We do not know how long Naim Qassem will hold his position. Naim Qasim is a definitely a default choice. Neither the Iranians nor within Hezbollah imagined a scenario in which Qassem would be appointed leader of Hezbollah. Qassem is the opposite of the extroverted figure of the popular, charismatic and authoritative Nasrallah.
We estimate that, in light of the circumstances of the results of the war, and the character and image of Naim Kasem the Iranians will be far more involved in all spheres about what is occurring in Hezbollah than during Nasrallah’s lifetime.
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I’m praying common sense prevails and finally a peace can be found between Iran and Israel