Who is Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's new Secretary General?

Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, elected head of the Lebanese armed group on Tuesday, has been a senior figure in the Iran-backed movement for more than 30 years.

Speaking from an undisclosed location on October 8, Qassem said the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about 'who cries first, and Hezbollah would not cry first.'
 
He added the group supported the efforts of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to secure a ceasefire, for the first time omitting any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a pre-condition for halting the group's fire on Israel.

His 30-minute televised address came just days after senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine was thought to have been the target of an Israeli strike and 11 days after the killing of Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Qassem was appointed deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group's then-Secretary-General Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader and has long been one of Hezbollah's leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media, including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.

He was the first member of Hezbollah's top leadership to make televised remarks after Nasrallah's killing in an Israeli air attack on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27.

Speaking on September 30, Qassem said Hezbollah would choose a successor to its assassinated Secretary-General "at the earliest opportunity" and would continue to fight Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.

"What we are doing is the bare minimum... We know that the battle may be long," he said in a 19-minute speech.

Reuters