BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement announced on Tuesday it has chosen deputy leader Naim Qassem to succeed Hasan Nasrallah as leader after his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.
“Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect... Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general of Hezbollah,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement, more than a month after Nasrallah’s killing.
Like Nasrallah, Qassem is one of the founding members of the Shiite political party and armed group, but he is widely seen as lacking the former leader’s oratory skills.
Qassem has been sanctioned by the United States, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist group.
He was born in the town of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon and studied chemistry at the Lebanese University before working for several years as a chemistry teacher.