Allisreal News
Sayyed Hachem Safieddine, Chairman of the Executive Council of Hezbollah in Lebanon, May 25, 2016. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Over the past weeks, Israel has not just killed Hezbollah’s unchallenged leader of some 30 years, Hassan Nasrallah, but also eliminated large parts of its command structure.
However, Hashem Safi al-Din (also spelled Safieddine), who has been widely considered Nasrallah’s likely successor for the past decades, reportedly survived Israeli strikes and looks poised to take over the reins from his maternal cousin.
For casual observers, it will seem as if nothing has changed.
Safi al-Din looks deceptively similar to his cousin, from the same style of beard and the black turban signaling ostensible descent from the prophet Muhammad, down to the speech defect that renders both men unable to pronounce a proper rolling ‘r.’
Hailing from a Shia family of clerics in southern Lebanon, in his youth Safi al-Din soon came under the influence of the infamous Imad Mughniyeh, one of Hezbollah’s founding members.
Together with his cousin Nasrallah, Safi al-Din then set off for a religious education in the Shia holy places, first in Najaf in Iraq and then in Iran’s holy city and religious center of Qom, providing him a first direct point of contact with the Iranian regime, Hezbollah’s patron.
Two years after Nasrallah was appointed the successor of Abbas al-Musawi, who was also killed in an Israeli airstrike, he called his cousin back from Qom.
In the following years, Safi al-Din began taking over senior positions in the organization.
In 1998, he was elected head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, a key position in the group which oversees its network of political and civilian organizations, which it has used to reinforce its stranglehold over the country in recent years.
Since around this time, he has been considered Nasrallah’s heir apparent, despite the title of Deputy Secretary-General belonging to Naim Qassem.
Over the years, Safi al-Din became a member of most of Hezbollah’s senior governing bodies, including its Jihad Council, which directs military operations.
Despite being a cleric, his various positions in the group allowed him to gather military and political experience and develop leadership skills that are admired within Hezbollah.
Since Hezbollah joined Hamas in the war against Israel last October, Safi al-Din has represented Nasrallah at the growing number of funerals of the group’s operatives, and generally has been among its most public faces.
He is also seen as one of the more radical leaders within the group and takes a leading role in promoting its Iranian identity and loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Apart from spending years studying in Iran, he has deep family ties with the regime. His son Reza married the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Quds Force who was killed by the U.S. in 2020.
In addition, Safi al-Din’s brother Abdallah is Hezbollah’s envoy in Iran, and a key figure in the group’s drug smuggling operations.
Safi al-Din has also defended and bragged about his group’s role in suppressing the Syrian revolt alongside the forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad, and has vowed to continue the “resistance” against Israel and the U.S.
Safi al-Din’s close connections to Iran and his long-time status as designated successor make it likely that he will take soon over the post of his cousin Nasrallah.
However, Lebanese media report that Hezbollah might hold off on an official announcement so that the successor will not immediately share the fate of Hassan Nasrallah – and die in an Israeli airstrike.
