Who Is Naim Qassem, The New Leader Of Hezbollah, To Replace Hasan Nasrallah?

Naim Qassem was elected as the new leader of Hezbollah, Tuesday 29 October. (Wikimedia Commons-Sebastian Baryli)

JAKARTA - Deputy Secretary-General Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Qassem was elected the new Hezbollah Leader to replace Hasan Nasrallah who was killed in an Israeli attack in southern Beirut on 27 September.

Quoting Al Jazeera, Qassem was a senior official for more than 30 years in Hezbollah.

He was born in Beirut in 1953. Active in politics when he entered the Lebanese Shia Charity Movement which was built in 1974.

But Qassem left the group after the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, a movement that shaped political thinking for many young Shia activists in Lebanon at the time.

When the Israeli invasion of Lebanon began in 1982, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded by holding a meeting which was also attended by Qassem. The meeting became the forerunner of the birth of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah was finally formed and able to appear in the 1992 elections in Lebanon. At the moment of the political contestation, Qassem was appointed as the general coordinator of the Hezbollah parliamentary election campaign.

Qassem is now 71 years old, has been deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah since 1991.

He is also one of Hezbollah's main spokesmans, who has frequently conducted interviews with foreign media, especially when cross-border attacks with Israel have been raging over the past year.

When Nasrallah died, Qassem had delivered three speeches in more formal Arabic on television.

In a televised address on October 8, Reuters reported, Qassem stated that the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cried first.

Qassem emphasized that Hezbollah would not shed tears first.

However, Qassem supports his ally Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri who promised Hezbollah's attack on Israel to be stopped on condition that a ceasefire occurs in Gaza, Palestine.