Lebanon’s Hezbollah names replacement for slain former leader

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group announced on Tuesday that Naim Qassem, the deputy of its longtime leader, had been slain Hassan Nasrallahwill lead the Iran-backed organization. Qassem has served as the group’s interim leader since Nasrallah’s death.

“Hezbollah’s Shura (Governing) Council has agreed to elect … Sheikh Naim Qassem as Hezbollah’s secretary general,” the militant group said in a statement on Tuesday.

There was initial speculation that the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, Hashem Safieddine, would follow Nasrallah, but he was killed in another Israeli attack in the southern suburbs of Beirut in October.

Qassem, 71, was among Hezbollah’s founding members in 1982 and has served as the party’s second-in-command since the group entered the political realm in the early 1990s, according to The Counter Extremism Project, an international organization . He was born in 1953, and his family is from the village of Kfar Fila, on the border with Israel.

Nasrallah, who has given speeches only via video because of his fear of assassination, has led the terror group for 30 years with fiery rhetoric. Qassem was the most senior Hezbollah official to continue making public appearances after Nasrallah went largely into hiding after the group’s 2006 war with Israel and was seen as the group’s main media personality, the Counter Extremism Project said.

Since Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on September 27, Qassem has made three televised speeches, speaking in a more formal Arabic than the Lebanese dialect favored by Nasrallah.

Meet the elite people of the US Coast Guard

Key takeaways from the latest Trump-Harris CBS News poll

How a California organization is transforming backyards to feed communities