Deputy chief promoted after Israeli assassinations left the Lebanon-based group in a management vacuum.
Hezbollah has introduced Naim Qassem as its new head.
Qassem, whose promotion from deputy chief was introduced on Tuesday, replaces Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general of the Lebanon-based armed group.
Nasrallah was killed in Beirut in late September by an Israeli strike. Many different senior Hezbollah officers have additionally been focused since Israel turned its concentrate on the group that month.
In a press release, Hezbollah mentioned Qassem was elected to take up the place resulting from his “adherence to the rules and targets of Hezbollah”.
It added that the group would “[ask] God Almighty to information him on this noble mission in main Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance”.
Vacuum
The killing of Nasrallah, who embodied the Lebanese Shia motion within the eyes of its supporters and the broader area, was seen as having left a vacuum inside a gaggle that had already had much of its leadership decapitated on account of months of Israeli assassinations.
Nasrallah’s cousin Hashem Safieddine was beforehand considered as favourite to take over on the head of the Iran-linked Hezbollah, however he died in an Israeli strike on Beirut shortly after his relative.
The 71-year-old Qassem has usually been known as Hezbollah’s “quantity two”. He is among the spiritual students that based the group within the early Eighties, having an extended historical past in Shia political activism.
He was essentially the most senior Hezbollah official to proceed making public appearances after Nasrallah largely went into hiding following the group’s 2006 battle with Israel.
Because the former chief was killed, Qassem has made three televised addresses, talking in additional formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese favoured by Nasrallah.
On September 30, he issued a defiant message, insisting that Hezbollah stays able to struggle Israel and to win.
