Who is Hashem Safieddine, potential new leader of Hezbollah?

By Stephanie Rady

BEIRUT (AA) - As Hezbollah confirmed the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli airstrikes on a Beirut suburb, speculations regarding a potential successor have intensified.

According to sources, Hashem Safieddine will most likely succeed Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for 32 years until his death on Friday.

Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah, serves as the head of Hezbollah's executive council and was widely regarded as his heir.

Born in 1964 in the town of Deir Qanoun En Nahr, Tyre district of southern Lebanon, the cleric, who wears a black turban, has been part of Hezbollah's structure since the group's founding in 1982.

In the 1980s, Safieddine traveled to Qom, Iran, to join Nasrallah in studying religious sciences. He has been groomed to succeed Nasrallah since 1994, when he was summoned from Qom to Beirut to head the executive council, overseeing the group's political affairs.

Over three decades, he has handled many sensitive daily affairs within the group, from managing its institutions to overseeing its finances and investments both domestically and internationally.

- Public and political presence

Like Nasrallah, Safieddine is known for his public and political presence, as well as his fiery and eloquent speeches.

In his addresses, he has emphasized his commitment to confront and respond to Israeli "aggression."

In a speech on July 13, he said: "If our duty, as it is today, is to be in the south (of Lebanon) fighting this enemy and offering our martyrs, we are ready to sacrifice everything, confident that Allah will grant us victory as He did in 2006."

In another speech the same month, he stressed that "Lebanon is concerned with the war against the Israeli enemy without restrictions or limits."

Like Nasrallah, Safieddine has often reiterated that Hezbollah will not cease supporting the Gaza front until Israel stops its offensive, which has killed more than 41,000 people since last October.

- Close relations with Iran

Safieddine has good relations with Tehran. Besides spending years studying religious sciences in Qom, he is related to the former commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani - in 2020, his son Reza married Zeynep, the late officer's daughter.

In 2017, the US Treasury Department added Safieddine to its counter-terrorism blacklist.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala