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Sheikh Naim Kassem has been the performing head of Hezbollah since its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed as a part of an Israeli offensive that has taken out most of the Lebanese militant group’s senior officers.
Kassem made a defiant televised speech on Tuesday, claiming that the group’s army capabilities are intact and Israelis will solely undergo additional as combating continues.
Like Nasrallah, Kassem is likely one of the founding members of the Shiite political get together and armed group, however he’s extensively seen as missing the previous chief’s charisma and oratory expertise.
Nonetheless, the white-turbaned cleric with a grey beard has typically been the general public face of the group. After Nasrallah went underground out of concern of being assassinated by Israel, showing solely in televised speeches, Kassem continued to point out up at rallies and ceremonies, and he has sat for interviews with international journalists.
Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Center East Middle assume tank who researches Hezbollah, mentioned that Kassem is perceived by many as “extra excessive” than Nasrallah, at the least in his public statements.
In observe, nonetheless, his energy throughout the group was restricted underneath Nasrallah. Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees the group’s political affairs — not Kassem — was typically thought to be the chief’s inheritor obvious. However no announcement has been made, and Safieddine has not appeared publicly or made any public statements since Nasrallah’s loss of life.
Kassem has been sanctioned by the US, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist group.
He was born within the city of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon and studied chemistry on the Lebanese College earlier than working for a number of years as a chemistry trainer.
On the identical time, he pursued non secular research and took part in founding the Lebanese Union for Muslim College students, a corporation that aimed to advertise non secular adherence amongst college students.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, Kassem joined the Motion of the Dispossessed, a political group based by Imam Moussa Sadr that pushed for better illustration for Lebanon’s traditionally missed and impoverished Shiite group. The group morphed into the Amal motion, one of many fundamental armed teams in Lebanon’s civil battle, and now a robust political get together.
He then joined the nascent Hezbollah, shaped with assist from Iran after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the nation’s southern area.
From 1991, he served as deputy secretary-general of the group, initially underneath Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas Mousawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter assault in 1992.