Hezbollah has named a new leader, appointing Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem to take over the Shia paramilitary group allied to Iran. He replaces Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general, who was killed by heavy Israeli airstrikes in southern Beirut on September 27.

The man widely believed to have been initially ready to take the top spot, Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, was also killed in Israeli airstrikes earlier this month.

File photo of Hezbollah Leader Sheikh Naim Qassem.

According to Hezbollah, Qassem has selected due to his “adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah,” as quoted in Al Jazeera. The Shia Muslim group said it would ask “God Almighty to guide him in this noble mission in leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance.”

The 71-year-old Qassem is a cleric who helped found Hezbollah in the early 1980s and he was already long dubbed Hezbollah’s number two leader.

In the wake of the pager attack which killed and wounded dozens of Hezbollah members last month, Qassem had announced, “We are quite ready, if the Israelis want a ground incursion, the resistance forces are ready for that.”

He had also called out and condemned the United States as “a partner with Israel, through unlimited military support – culturally, politically, financially” – vowing ultimately “We will win, just as we won in our confrontation with Israel in 2006.” According to a review of his background:

Qassem, Hezbollah’s new leader, was born in 1953 in southern Lebanon. He served as a Shiite cleric and educator until the late 1970s, when he joined the Amal terror group and political party during the Lebanese civil war.

When a number of Amal members split from the party to found Hezbollah in 1982, Qassem followed and was appointed deputy leader in 1991 under founding leader Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader in 1992, and served as his deputy until Nasrallah’s death.

He was clearly already the group’s leading spokesman at this point, but most view him as lacking the strong presence and charisma of Nasrallah.

Last month’s Israeli pager attack was the start of a series major setbacks and losses for Hezbollah in rapid succession. Hezbollah had been penetrated by Israeli intelligence, and its leadership and command structure somewhat thrown into disarray.

Muhammad Ali praying behind Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem in Beirut 1985 pic.twitter.com/orLqL7Nkwj

— aziz (@broletari) October 29, 2024

However, the Lebanese group – which actually has seats in parliament – has sought to present to the world and its allis in Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen that its structure has been rapidly reconstituted. It has unleashed dozens or sometimes hundreds of rockets on northern Israel per day, and claims to have halted the advance of the Israeli ground offensive into southern Lebanon.

Israel is meanwhile already threatening to take out the newly appointed Hezbollah leader. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday said of the election of Naim Qassem as Hezbollah chief that “the appointment is temporary and the countdown has begun” – which marks an obvious death threat.