Senior Hezbollah chief Hashem Safieddine attends a funeral in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, on September 18, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score: AP
Hashem Safieddine, a strongman who rose via the ranks of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah over a long time to turn into the second-most highly effective particular person throughout the organisation, has died.
Safieddine, who was about 60, was killed in early October in a sequence of Israeli airstrikes in a southern suburb of Beirut that shook a lot of the Lebanese capital, a part of Israel’s marketing campaign towards Hezbollah. Israel stated Tuesday (October 22, 2024) that Safieddine had been killed within the strikes; Hezbollah confirmed the dying Wednesday (October 23, 2024).
Safieddine’s dying got here as he was broadly anticipated to be elected the group’s subsequent chief after the dying of Hassan Nasrallah, considered one of its founders.
Safieddine, Nasrallah’s maternal cousin, had spent years getting ready for the place — however the announcement was gradual in coming following the September 27 airstrike within the Beirut suburbs that killed Nasrallah, a part of a sequence of blows dealt by Israel that had left Hezbollah in disarray.
A black-turbaned cleric with a thick grey beard who bore a robust resemblance to Nasrallah, Safieddine was identified for defiant speeches by which he vowed that Hezbollah would hold preventing Israel irrespective of the value.
A well-recognized face in Lebanon and a pacesetter with shut ties to Iran, he was a member of the group’s decision-making Shura Council and its Jihad Council, which acts as its navy command. He additionally headed its Govt Council, which runs faculties and social applications.
Safieddine’s dying comes at a fragile time for Hezbollah. Within the wake of its ally Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel and Israel’s ensuing offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah started firing rockets, drones and missiles at Israel — they usually have exchanged fireplace usually since.
However current weeks have seen a big escalation, as Israel carried out a sequence of strikes on prime Hezbollah commanders and apparently blew up 1000’s of communication gadgets utilized by the group’s members. It has since launched a floor invasion in Lebanon that it says goals to push Hezbollah militants again from the border.
Regardless of the shortage of formal announcement following Nasrallah’s dying, it was broadly identified that Safieddine was already in management and working the group’s affairs, although the official performing chief was his deputy, Naim Kassem.
It’s not clear who will find yourself taking Hezbollah’s prime job now, particularly since one other main candidate, Nabil Kaouk, was additionally killed in an Israeli strike hours after Nasrallah’s dying.
Like Nasrallah, Safieddine held the title of sayyid, an honorific meant to indicate the Shiite cleric’s lineage courting again to the Prophet Muhammad, the founding father of Islam. Since its founding throughout Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has been led by a cleric.
Throughout a funeral in a Beirut suburb final month for Hezbollah members who had been killed within the exploding pagers assault, Safieddine vowed that Hezbollah wouldn’t bow down and would combat again.
“This aggression will certainly face its particular punishment. This punishment is certainly coming,” Safieddine stated.
In the course of the ceremony, a number of walkie-talkies exploded wounding individuals close by. Safieddine stayed on the funeral till the tip, regardless of the brand new spherical of blasts.
Safieddine was near Iran. His son, Rida, is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Pressure, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.
Safieddine’s brother, Abdallah, is Hezbollah’s level man in Tehran, a vital position within the group on condition that Iran is its major backer, offering it with weapons and cash.
In Might 2017, the U.S. and a few of its Arab allies, together with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, imposed sanctions on 10 prime Hezbollah officers together with Nasrallah, Kassem and Safieddine.
Printed – October 23, 2024 09:10 pm IST
