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Nasrallah’s cousin likely to become new Hezbollah leader

Hasan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for 32 years, was killed in an underground area of a building in Beirut.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

A black-turbaned cleric and cousin of Hassan Nasrallah, who is head of the terror group’s executive council, Hashem Safieddine, is most likely to become the next leader of Hezbollah after Nasrallah’s killing on Friday.

Nasrallah, who led the Lebanese terror group for 32 years, was killed in an underground area of a building in Beirut where the terror group was embedded.

Safieddine, a maternal cousin of Nasrallah, is a cleric who wears a black turban, indicating direct descent from Mohammed.

As head of the executive council, Safieddine is in charge of the political affairs of the terror group.

He also has a seat on the Judicial Council which controls military operations.

The U.S. State Department designated Hashem Safieddine as a terrorist in 2017.

He has strong ties with Iran and completed religious studies in Qom.

Safieddine’s son is married to the daughter of IRGC General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a 2020 airstrike in Iraq.

At the funeral of a Hezbollah commander, Safieddine threatened Israel when he exclaimed, “Let [the enemy] prepare himself to cry and wail.”

He has expressed strong solidarity with the Palestinian cause and its struggle with Israel.

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At an event in Dahiyeh in Beirut, he said, “Our history, guns, and rockets are with you.”

In a speech in Beirut in July, Safieddine discussed Hezbollah’s view of succession when he said, “In our resistance… when any leader is martyred, another takes up the flag and goes on with new, certain, strong determination.”

Phillip Smyth, an expert who studies Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organizations, said Nasrallah “started tailoring positions for him within a variety of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. Some of them were more opaque than others. They’ve had him come, go out, and speak.”

Safieddine had harsh words for the US, and in 2017, he said, “This mentally impeded, crazy US administration headed by [Donald] Trump will not be able to harm the resistance.