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Long before Israel eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, he had anointed a successor to take over the Iran-backed organisation in such a scenario, said Arab security sources and political analysts who have tracked the militant group for decades.
The sources told The National that Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem nominally might take over as leader for an interim period before Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine, is named as his successor, although the secretive nature of the organisation and the sway of Iran over it could yield a different figure.
If Mr Safieddine, one of people closest to Nasrallah, is eventually chosen, it will be the first time a Hezbollah leader will have been succeeded by a close relative since it was founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Syrian intelligence in the 1980s.
“Nasrallah has created a successor in his image,” said one of the sources.
The two men, the sources say, worked closely to strengthen Hezbollah’s grip over Lebanon and expand it into a cross-border strike force in the past two decades. They also substantially augmented its financing through a multibillion-dollar-a-year drugs trade, with the Captagon amphetamine. The group has denied involvement in smuggling.
Little is known about Mr Safieddine, except that he has built a reputation as a day-to-day organisational and logistics figure. He studied Islamic jurisprudence in the Iranian city of Qom and his son is married to the daughter of Qassem Suleimani, the IRGC commander assassinated by US forces in Baghdad in 2020.
The organisation Mr Safieddine could be taking over is much diminished from the one he helped run before the Gaza war began almost a year ago.
Shortly after the war began, Hezbollah started attacking Israel with rockets, with the declared aim of relieving pressure on Hamas, another militant group supported by Iran. A series of Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Syria since October has wiped out many senior Hezbollah commanders and crucial field officers, as well as technicians who ran the groups communications network.
The Israeli onslaught shows no signs of relenting. On Sunday, Hezbollah confirmed the death of its southern front commander Ali Karaki, who had been leading the attacks on Israel since October. He was killed alongside Nasrallah in the Beirut air strike on Friday.
The continued elimination of the senior cadre has narrowed the choices left for succession.
Mr Safieddine's family ties to Nasrallah and Suleimani, who is still revered by Iran’s hardline IRGC, constitutes another advantage for him over potential rivals. Like Nasrallah, Mr Safieddine wears a black turban, symbolising descent from the Prophet Mohammed, giving him more ideological legitimacy than Mr Qassem and other senior figures who had not been killed by Israel, the sources say.
Aymen Abdel Nour, a veteran Syrian political commentator, said the Israeli strikes have not only killed operational commanders and Hezbollah technicians, but also figures in charge of maintaining ideological purity.
Any new leader, he said, would also have to deal with a Shiite constituency in Lebanon that increasingly doubts Hezbollah's acumen and regard for the safety of civilians, after a punishing Israeli retaliation that appeared to reveal that so much of Hezbollah's arsenal is hidden in their midst.
The Israeli attacks he said, could result in "the end of the Hezbollah era" and further "erosion of trust" between Hezbollah and its constituents, regardless of who replaces Nasrallah. The doubts also extend to Iran, which has done little to help its ally, Mr Abdel Nour added.
A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet on Sunday said Iran should "think carefully" before "daring" to attack Israel, amid possible retaliation over the killing of Nasrallah.
"The entire Middle East, and Iran in particular, understands that Israel is not the country you want to mess with because the price you pay is very painful," Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar said.
Israel could force Nasrallah's eventual successor to review whether the group can still hold its confrontational stance towards its main foe while maintaining a regional reach in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the source said.
"There are no answers currently to which direction what has remained of this party will take," a Lebanese source said. "We are still at the beginning. It could get much worse for Hezbollah."
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Haltia.ai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202023%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECo-founders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Arto%20Bendiken%20and%20Talal%20Thabet%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20AI%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2041%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20About%20%241.7%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Self%2C%20family%20and%20friends%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz
Rating: 5/5
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
CREW
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ERajesh%20A%20Krishnan%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ETabu%2C%20Kareena%20Kapoor%20Khan%2C%20Kriti%20Sanon%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Company profile
Name: Infinite8
Based: Dubai
Launch year: 2017
Number of employees: 90
Sector: Online gaming industry
Funding: $1.2m from a UAE angel investor
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Results
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; Winner: Nadhra, Fabrice Veron (jockey), Eric Lemartinel (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: AF Dars, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: AF Musannef, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: AF Taghzel, Malin Holmberg, Ernst Oertel
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: M’Y Yaromoon, Khalifa Al Neyadi, Jesus Rosales
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (PA) 1,400m; Winner: Hakeem, Jim Crowley, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
CHELSEA SQUAD
Arrizabalaga, Bettinelli, Rudiger, Christensen, Silva, Chalobah, Sarr, Azpilicueta, James, Kenedy, Alonso, Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic, Saul, Barkley, Ziyech, Pulisic, Mount, Hudson-Odoi, Werner, Havertz, Lukaku.
In numbers
- Number of children under five will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401m in 2100
- Over-80s will rise from 141m in 2017 to 866m in 2100
- Nigeria will become the world’s second most populous country with 791m by 2100, behind India
- China will fall dramatically from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2024 to 732 million by 2100
- an average of 2.1 children per woman is required to sustain population growth
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
Ibrahim's play list
Completed an electrical diploma at the Adnoc Technical Institute
Works as a public relations officer with Adnoc
Apart from the piano, he plays the accordion, oud and guitar
His favourite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach
Also enjoys listening to Mozart
Likes all genres of music including Arabic music and jazz
Enjoys rock groups Scorpions and Metallica
Other musicians he likes are Syrian-American pianist Malek Jandali and Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou Khalil
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
