Sayyed Hashem Safieddine has emerged as a frontrunner to take over the leadership of Hezbollah after the military group confirmed its leader, Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had been killed in an Israeli air strike on Lebanon on Friday.
While other senior figures were killed during during the attacks on the Lebanese capital including a high-ranking member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, a Hezbollah source told Reuters that Safieddine remains alive and was not injured in the missile attack on its headquarters in the city’s southern suburbs.
Israeli news site Yedioth Ahronoth, citing a military source, reports that Safieddine has begun taking control although the succession plan is yet to be confirmed, with Hezbollah planning to bomb cities, which may include Tel Aviv.
Nasrallah’s assassination marks the culmination of successive blows that Israel has dealt to the military group at an accelerated pace since the assassination of its military operations commander Fouad Shukr on 30 July. This was followed by a wave of blasts hitting pagers and walkie-talkies on 17 and 18 September – which left 3,000 of Hezbollah’s leading members severely injured.]
This escalation continued with the assassination of Radwan Force Commander Ibrahim Aqil and 15 of the elite force leaders on 20 September, culminating in the bombing of Hezbollah’s headquarters on Friday, at 6:15 PM and resulting in the assassination of Nasrallah.
While his successor has not yet been confirmed – and could potentially be any number of living Hezbollah officials – the group will likely look to ensure continuity in leadership.
The name which has been circulating for years as Nasrallah’s successor is that of his cousin, Safieddine.
It is said that Safieddine was very close to Nasrallah from a young age and had a significant influence on shaping some of Nasrallah’s stances within the party. Anyone who sees Safieddine immediately notices the family resemblance. He even shares the same “R” pronunciation quirk.
According to available information, he has been groomed for succession since 1994, managing Hezbollah’s administrative affairs in coordination with Nasrallah, especially since 2006 when Nasrallah was forced to avoid public appearances for security reasons.
Safieddine is famed for his calm and reserved personality in public appearances, in contrast to Nasrallah, who has a stronger public presence. He is also known for his great discretion when meeting with media delegations.
Typically working behind the scenes, Safieddine focuses on the administrative and organisational aspects of the party, according to a cleric who knows him well and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In 2017, the United States added Safieddine to its sanctions list.
Born in 1964 in the town of Qanoun al-Nahr in the Tyre region of southern Lebanon, he pursued his religious studies in the Iranian city of Qom and married the daughter of Sayyed Mohammad Ali Al-Amin, a member of the Shia Islamic Council’s religious authority. He is a firm believer in the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, which is central to Hezbollah’s ideology.
It is worth noting that Safieddine‘s son is married to the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Iranian Quds Force, who was assassinated by the United States via drones and missiles at Baghdad airport in 2020.
He currently serves as the head of the Executive Council, effectively acting as Hezbollah’s prime minister.
Safieddine is considered the second-in-command within Hezbollah, overseeing daily matters such as parliamentary and municipal elections, managing institutions and regularly meeting with the media and politicians due to the dangerous security situation surrounding Nasrallah.
The few accounts i gathered from friends of Safieddine indicate that, as head of the Executive Council, he played a pivotal role in transforming Hezbollah from a mere military resistance movement into an organisation that also manages extensive social and service networks.
He is credited with a significant role in rebuilding the infrastructure of areas under Hezbollah’s control, particularly in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa, particularly during and after the 2006 July War.
On September 18, Safieddine delivered a speech following Israel’s pager attack. In it, he said: “The latest Israeli cyber aggression on Lebanon will have its own punishment, and this punishment is certainly coming.”
