Hashem Safieddine: possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah

Hashem Safieddine: possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah
Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to his slain cousin Hassan Nasrallah, is one of Hezbollah’s most prominent figures and has deep religious and family ties to the Shiite Muslim movement’s patron Iran. (X/@warintel4u)
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Updated 28 September 2024
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Hashem Safieddine: possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah

Hashem Safieddine: possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah
  • Safieddine bears a striking resemblance to his charismatic maternal cousin Nasrallah
  • Safieddine has strong ties with Iran after undertaking religious studies in the holy city of Qom.

BEIRUT: Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to his slain cousin Hassan Nasrallah, is one of Hezbollah’s most prominent figures and has deep religious and family ties to the Shiite Muslim movement’s patron Iran.
Safieddine bears a striking resemblance to his charismatic maternal cousin Nasrallah but is several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.
A source close to Hezbollah, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the grey-bearded, bespectacled Safieddine was the “most likely” candidate for party’s top job.
The United States and Saudi Arabia put Safieddine, who is a member of Hezbollah’s powerful decision-making Shoura Council, on their respective lists of designated “terrorists” in 2017.
The US Treasury described him as “a senior leader” in Hezbollah and “a key member” of its executive.
While Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem automatically takes over the Hezbollah leadership after Nasrallah’s death, the Shoura Council must meet to elect a new secretary-general.
Safieddine has strong ties with Iran after undertaking religious studies in the holy city of Qom.
His son is married to the daughter of General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations arm who was killed in a 2020 US strike in Iraq.
Safieddine has the title of Sayyed, his black turban marking him, like Nasrallah, as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
Unlike Nasrallah, who lived in hiding for years, Safieddine has appeared openly at recent political and religious events.
Usually presenting a calm demeanour, he has upped the fiery rhetoric during the funerals of Hezbollah fighters killed in nearly a year of cross-border clashes with Israel.
Nasrallah said his forces were acting in support of Palestinian Hamas militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher on Hezbollah based at Cardiff University, said that for years people have been saying that Safieddine was “the most likely successor” to Nasrallah.
“The next leader has to be on the Shoura Council, which has a handful of members, and he has to be a religious figure,” she said.
Safieddine “has a lot of authority... he’s the strongest contender” she added.
Hezbollah was created at the initiative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and gained its moniker as “the Resistance” by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.
The movement was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982.
In July in a speech in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Safieddine alluded to how Hezbollah views its leadership succession.
“In our resistance... when any leader is martyred, another takes up the flag and goes on with new, certain, strong determination,” he said.


US orders some Beirut embassy staff members to leave Lebanon

US orders some Beirut embassy staff members to leave Lebanon
Updated 1 min 8 sec ago
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US orders some Beirut embassy staff members to leave Lebanon

US orders some Beirut embassy staff members to leave Lebanon
  • The advisory covered eligible family members as well as non-essential employees
  • “The US embassy strongly encourages US citizens in Southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and or in refugee settlements to depart those areas immediately,” it said

WASHINGTON: The US Department of State on Saturday ordered some employees at its embassy in Beirut and their eligible family members to the leave Lebanon amid escalating tensions in the Middle East following the killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah by Israel.
“US Embassy Beirut personnel are restricted from personal travel without advance permission,” the State Department said in a statement. “Additional travel restrictions may be imposed on US personnel under Chief of Mission security responsibility, with little to no notice due to increased security issues or threats.”
The advisory covered eligible family members as well as non-essential employees.
The State Department also urged Americans in the country to leave, warning the currently limited options to depart might become unavailable if the security situation worsened.
“The US embassy strongly encourages US citizens in Southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and or in refugee settlements to depart those areas immediately,” it said.

 


Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say

Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say
Updated 33 min 40 sec ago
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Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say

Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say
  • Khamenei issued a statement later on Saturday, following Israel’s announcement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront”

DUBAI: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been taken to a secure location inside Iran amid heightened security, sources told Reuters, a day after Israel killed the head of Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah in a strike on Beirut. The move to safeguard Iran’s top decision-maker is the latest show of nervousness by the Iranian authorities as Israel launched a series of devastating attacks on Hezbollah, Iran’s best armed and most well-equipped ally in the region.
Reuters reported this month that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, the ideological guardians of the Islamic Republic, had ordered all of members to stop using any type of communication devices after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah blew up.
Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel was behind the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. Israel neither denied nor confirmed involvement.
The two regional officials briefed by Tehran and who told Reuters that Khamenei had been moved to a safe location also said Iran was in contact with Hezbollah and other regional proxy groups to determine the next step after Nasrallah’s killing.
The sources declined to be identified further due to the sensitivity of the matter. As well as killing Nasrallah, Friday’s strikes by Israel on Beirut killed Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Other Revolutionary Guard’s commanders have also been killed since the Gaza War erupted last year and violence flared elsewhere.
Khamenei issued a statement later on Saturday, following Israel’s announcement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront.”
“The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged,” he said in a separate statement, in which he announced five days of mourning to mark Nasrallah’s death.
Nasrallah’s death is a major blow to Iran, removing an influential ally who helped build Hezbollah into the linchpin of Tehran’s constellation of allied groups in the Arab world. Iran’s network of regional allies, known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, stretch from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Hamas has been fighting a war with Israel for almost a year, since its fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched missiles at Israel and at ships sailing in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea along the Yemeni coast.
Hezbollah has been engaged in exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border throughout the Gaza War and has repeatedly said it would not stop until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.
After the pager and walkie-talkies strikes, one Iranian security official told Reuters that a large-scale operation was underway by the Revolutionary Guards to inspect all communications devices. He said most of these devices were either homemade or imported from China and Russia.
The official said Iran was concerned about infiltration by Israeli agents, including Iranians on Israel’s payroll and a thorough investigation of personnel has already begun, targeting mid and high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards.
In another statement on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the United States had played a role in Nasrallah’s killing as a supplier of weapons to Israel.
“The Americans cannot deny their complicity with the Zionists,” he said in the statement carried by state media.

 

 


Turkiye says Hezbollah’s Nasrallah will be hard to replace

Turkiye says Hezbollah’s Nasrallah will be hard to replace
Updated 29 September 2024
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Turkiye says Hezbollah’s Nasrallah will be hard to replace

Turkiye says Hezbollah’s Nasrallah will be hard to replace
  • Hakan Fidan said the “helplesness” of the United States and other Western countries was allowing the violence to continue

ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister said on Saturday that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was an important figure for Lebanon and the region and would be hard to replace after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut a day earlier.
Speaking to state broadcaster TRT Haber in New York, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also said Turkiye believed Israel would not stop in Lebanon and would spread the war in Gaza to the wider region.
He said the “helplesness” of the United States and other Western countries was allowing the violence to continue.

 


Iraq PM says Israel crossed ‘all red lines’ with Nasrallah killing

Iraq PM says Israel crossed ‘all red lines’ with Nasrallah killing
Updated 29 September 2024
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Iraq PM says Israel crossed ‘all red lines’ with Nasrallah killing

Iraq PM says Israel crossed ‘all red lines’ with Nasrallah killing
  • Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani condemned on Saturday the Israeli killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as a “crime.”
The Friday attack on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that killed the Iran-backed group’s leader was a “shameful attack” and “a crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement, calling Nasrallah “a martyr on the path of the righteous.”
 

 


Syria condemns ‘despicable’ Israeli killing of Nasrallah

Syria condemns ‘despicable’ Israeli killing of Nasrallah
Updated 29 September 2024
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Syria condemns ‘despicable’ Israeli killing of Nasrallah

Syria condemns ‘despicable’ Israeli killing of Nasrallah
  • The government announced three days of official mourning, SANA reported

DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday condemned Israel’s killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, one of Damascus’s key supporters in years of civil war, and declared public mourning.
A foreign ministry statement carried by state news agency SANA said that the late Friday air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed Nasrallah was a “despicable aggression.”
“The Zionist entity (Israel) confirms through this despicable aggression, once again... its barbarism and wanton disregard for all international standards and laws,” it said.
“The Syrian people... have never for a day forgotten (Nasrallah’s) positions of support,” the statement added.
The government announced three days of official mourning, SANA reported.
Hezbollah since 2013 has openly backed the forces of President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war, which broke out after the repression of anti-government protests.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country since the war began in 2011, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Hezbollah.
Along with Russia, Hezbollah backer Iran has helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war.
While Damascus condemned Nasrallah’s killing, in areas outside government control, some were celebrating, including in the Idlib jihadist-run rebel bastion.
Many Syrian opposition supporters and activists consider Hezbollah responsible for their woes, after the group fought Syrian rebels in a number of areas, leading to heavy losses among opposition factions and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee.