Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, has chosen Naim Kassem as its new leader.

Bilal Hussein/AP

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Bilal Hussein/AP

BEIRUT — Hezbollah announced Tuesday that it has chosen cleric Naim Kassem to lead the organization. Lebanese militant group following the assassination of its long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah During an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Beirut in late September.

In its statement, the group said that Hezbollah’s decision-making Shura Council elected 71-year-old Kassem as the new secretary general and promised to continue Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

Since Nasrallah’s death as part of an Israeli offensive that eliminated many of Hezbollah’s top officials, the white-turbaned, gray-bearded cleric has frequently been the public face of the Lebanese militant group. Although he was one of the founding members, he is seen by his supporters as lacking the oratory skills of his predecessor.

Kassem, who bears the title of sheikh, claimed in a televised speech earlier this month that Hezbollah’s military capabilities are solid After Nasrallah assassinated and warned the Israelis that they would suffer more as the war continued.

Kassem was sanctioned by the United States, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization. His appointment came as no surprise, as he served as Nasrallah’s deputy for 32 years and has also long been the public face of Hezbollah, giving interviews to domestic and foreign media outlets.

“This is a message to Lebanon and abroad that Hezbollah is reorganizing itself,” said Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah.

Kassir added that Kassem’s appointment shows that Hezbollah is running its own affairs, not, as some have reported, that advisors from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard are now in charge of the group.

In an interview with The Associated Press in July, Kassem said he did not believe Israel had the capacity to launch an all-out war with Hezbollah or had made that decision yet. But Israel warned that even if it intends to carry out a limited operation in Lebanon that falls short of a full-scale war, it should not expect hostilities to remain limited.

A day after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking nearly 250 hostages, Hezbollah began attacking Israeli military outposts along the Lebanese border, saying it had opened a reinforcement. Front of Hamas allies.

The attack triggered a year-long Israel-Hamas war, and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

“No one knows the consequences of escalating the war in Lebanon at the regional or even international level,” Kassem said, speaking at the group’s political headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

He said he was proud of Hezbollah’s achievements on the “support front” for Hamas and that it “required sacrifices on our part.”

Less than three months later, Israel expanded the war in Lebanon, killing hundreds and displacing more than 1.2 million people. The occupation caused massive destruction in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah is headquartered. Israeli soldiers engage in violent clashes with Hezbollah every day in the border region as they try to advance deeper into Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is still firing dozens of rockets and missiles into northern Israel and has claimed an attack on an Israeli military base south of Tel Aviv in recent days. It also claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home earlier this month. No one was injured in that attack.

Born in 1953 in the town of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon, Kassem studied chemistry at the Lebanese University before working as a chemistry teacher for several years. He also pursued religious studies and participated in the founding of the Lebanese Muslim Students Association, an organization aimed at promoting religion.

In the 1970s, he joined the Movement of the Dispossessed, a political organization that pressed for greater representation of Lebanon’s historically overlooked and impoverished Shiite community.

The group evolved into the Amal movement, one of the main armed groups in the Lebanese civil war and now a powerful political party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Kassem later joined the nascent Hezbollah, which was formed with Iranian support after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the country’s southern region.

From 1991, Kassem served as the group’s deputy, initially under the chairmanship of Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas Mousavi, who was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in 1992.

Kassem’s selection as head of Hezbollah comes a week after it was confirmed that Hashim Safieddin, one of the senior figures expected to succeed Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on south Beirut earlier this month.

Safieddine was Nasrallah’s cousin and had close ties to Iran, where he spent many years of his life. Safieddine’s son Reza is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

In its statement about Qassem, Hezbollah said, “We ask God to help him in his great mission of leading Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance.” he said.

In another blow to Hezbollah, thousands of communications devices used by its members—both fighters and workers at the group’s civilian institutions—detonated almost simultaneously in mid-September, killing 39 people and injuring nearly 3,000. Israel was held responsible for the attack, which caused permanent disability to many people.

Kassir also said Kassem’s selection was “proof that Hezbollah is not afraid of developments.”