Hezbollah appoints Naim Qassem as new leader

Hezbollah has appointed Naim Qassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as its new leader.

Qassem’s promotion from deputy leader to head of the Lebanon-based armed group was announced on Tuesday.

An Israeli airstrike killed Nasarallah and other Hezbollah commanders in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital city, last month.

Before Nasrallah’s death, at least nine people were reported killed and about 2,750 wounded after pagers reportedly targeting Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon. Israel was blamed for the attack.

Since then, several senior Hezbollah figures have been targeted amid Israel’s intensified focus on the group.

Hezbollah said Qassem was chosen for his “adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah”.

The group said it would ask God to “guide him in this noble mission in leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance”.

Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin, was initially seen as a likely successor, but he too was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut shortly after the leader’s death.

Qassem, 71, has long been a prominent figure in Hezbollah, often described as the organisation’s “number two”.

As a founding religious scholar of the group in the 1980s, he has deep roots in Shia political activism.