Hezbollah elects Naim Kassem as new chief after Nasrallah’s death

Hezbollah has elected a new chief, the militant group announced in a statement on Tuesday.

Naim Kassem had spent three decades as deputy to Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in September in an Israeli airstrike. He has served as the militant group’s acting leader since Nasrallah’s death.

Hezbollah vowed to continue with Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

Kassem was appointed deputy chief of the Lebanese militant group in 1991, by Abbas al-Musawi, its leader at the time. He remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, after al-Musawi was killed the next year.

Although he is widely seen as lacking the former leader’s charisma and oratory skills, Kassem has often been the public face of the group, and continued to show up at rallies and ceremonies after Nasrallah went into hiding out of fear of being assassinated by Israel. He has also sat for interviews with foreign journalists.

In 2005, Kassem wrote a book about the history of Hezbollah, which was then considered a rare “insider’s look” into the organisation.

Following Nasrallah’s death, Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversaw the group’s political affairs, was widely expected to become its new leader — but he too was killed in an Israeli strike early October.

Qassem wears a white turban, unlike Nasrallah and Safieddine, whose black turbans denoted their status as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.