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.
Hashem Safieddine: possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah
https://arab.news/b9vj5
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.
Aid workers find little life in El-Fasher after RSF takeover
- First UN visit to the devastated Sudanese city finds traumatized civilians in ‘unsafe conditions’
PORT SUDAN: Traumatized civilians left in Sudan’s El-Fasher after its capture by paramilitary forces are living without water or sanitation in a city haunted by famine, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said on Monday.
El-Fasher fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October after more than 500 days of siege, and last Friday, a small UN humanitarian team was able to make its first short visit in almost two years.
Mass atrocities, including massacres, torture, and sexual violence, reportedly accompanied the capture of the city. Satellite pictures reviewed by AFP show what appear to be mass graves.
FASTFACT
From a humanitarian point of view, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s ‘epicenter of human suffering’ and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
Brown described the city as a “crime scene,” but said human rights experts would carry out investigations while her office focuses on restoring aid to the survivors.
“We weren’t able to see any of the detainees, and we believe there are detainees,” she said.
From a humanitarian point of view, she said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s “epicenter of human suffering” and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
“El-Fasher is a ghost of its former self,” Brown said in an interview.
“We don’t have enough information yet to conclude how many people remain there, but we know large parts of the city are destroyed. The people who remain, their homes have been destroyed.”
“These people are living in very precarious situations,” warned Brown, a Canadian diplomat and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
“Some of them are in abandoned buildings. Some of them ... in very rudimentary conditions, plastic sheeting, no sanitation, no water. So these are very undignified, unsafe conditions for people.”
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the regular army and its former allies, the RSF, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Brown said the team “negotiated hard with the RSF” to obtain access and managed to look around, visit a hard-pressed hospital, and some abandoned UN premises — but only for a few hours.
Their movements were also limited by fears of unexploded ordnance and mines left behind from nearly two years of fighting.
“There was one small market operating, mostly with produce that comes from surrounding areas, so tomatoes, onions, potatoes,” she said.
“Very small quantities, very small bags, which tells you that people can’t afford to buy more.”
“There is a declared famine in El-Fasher. We’ve been blocked from going in. There’s nothing positive about what’s happened in El-Fasher.
“It was a mission to test whether we could get our people safely in and out, to have a look at what remains of the town, who remains there, what their situation is,” she said.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, driven 11 million from their homes, and caused what the UN has declared “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”
