On Tuesday, Hezbollah's Shura Council, the group's central
decision-making body, appointed the 71-year-old cleric to the post.
“Based on faith in Allah Almighty…, adherence to Hezbollah’s
principles and goals, and following the established procedure for the election
of the Secretary-General, Hezbollah’s Shura Council has elected His Eminence
Sheikh Naim Qassem as Secretary-General of Hezbollah, entrusting him with the
blessed banner on this journey. We pray to the Almighty to grant him success in
this honorable mission of leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance,” the
council said in a statement, Press TV reported.
The statement also pledged to the fallen victims, fighters
of the Islamic resistance as well as well the steadfast and loyal Lebanese
nation that Hezbollah will stand by its principles, goals and path to keep the
flame of resistance alive and its banner held high until final victory.
Sheikh Qassem is a veteran figure in Hezbollah, having
served as deputy secretary general of the Lebanese resistance group since 1991.
He was appointed deputy secretary general under Hezbollah’s
late secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli
helicopter attack in 1992, and remained in the role when Nasrallah became
leader.
His political activism began in the Lebanese Amal Movement,
founded in 1974. He left Amal in 1979, in the wake of Iran’s Islamic
Revolution, which shaped the political thinking of many young Lebanese
activists.
He took part in meetings that led to the formation of
Hezbollah in 1982.
Sheikh Qassem has long been one of the leading spokesmen for
Hezbollah, conducting many interviews with foreign media.
He was born in 1953 in Beirut’s Basta Tahta district, and
his family originally hails from Kfar Fila town in Lebanon’s southern Nabatieh
province.
