With unconfirmed reports emerging that Hezbollah’s Lebanese secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday after 32 years at the head of his group, questions have grown about his future successor.
Despite the secrecy and ambiguity associated with the leadership selection process in organizations like Hezbollah, there are certain predictions.
The list of possible candidates is headed by Hashim Safi ad-DinNasrallah’s cousin and son-in-law Qassem Soleimaniformer commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Everyone notices that Safi ad-Din is similar to his cousin and has been preparing to become his successor since 1994. He arrived from Qom, Iran, to Beirut to head the Executive Council, considered the party’s government. His work was carried out by the former head of the party’s security service. Imad Mughniyeh.
Safi al-Din was mainly Nasrallah’s shadow and the second man of the party. For three decades, this man presided over all important day-to-day affairs, from the party’s institutions to the management of its funds and investments at home and abroad, leaving strategic matters in the hands of Nasrallah. Safi al-Din has been on the United States terrorist list since 2017.
He also has excellent relations with Tehran, having spent years in Qom, Iran’s spiritual capital, where he studied until Nasrallah summoned him to Beirut to take charge of the party.
Safi ad-Din’s name was proposed by Iranians as Nasrallah’s successor 16 years ago. But insiders behind the scenes say the decision was made much earlier.
There is not much information about the successor; This man remained virtually unknown in Lebanese political circles for a long time, until he began to appear in place of Nasrallah at party events, especially at the funerals of its members and leaders.
The scant information available about him suggests that Safi al-Din was born in 1964 in the city of Deir Qanun Nahr in the Tire region of southern Lebanon and came from a family with “strong social status.”
In addition to the party’s day-to-day affairs, the Executive Council, headed by Safi al-Din, also manages a huge investment package aimed at ensuring the organization’s financial independence and financing its enormous apparatus, which is not subject to chargeable financing. to “legal funds” allocated primarily to military activities.
