The second man in Hezbollah… The Man who possibly succeeding Nasrallah

After Hezbollah officially confirmed, on Saturday, the death of its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut, speculation has escalated about the identity of his successor in leading Hezbollah.

According to sources within Hezbollah, Hashem Saifuddin is the most likely to succeed Nasrallah.

Who is Hashem Saifuddin?

Hashem Saifuddin holds the position of Chairman of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, and is considered the second man in Hezbollah behind Hassan Nasrallah, to the point that he has been described in media circles for years as Nasrallah’s shadow.

Saifuddin was born in 1964 in the town of Deir Qanoun al Nahr in the Tyre district in southern Lebanon.

There isn’t much information available about the man, but what is known about him is that he has been part of the Hezbollah structure since the group was founded in 1982.

In the 1980s, Saifuddin traveled to the city of Qom in Iran to join his cousin Hassan Nasrallah to study religious sciences. Saifuddin.

He was prepared to succeed Nasrallah in 1994, when the man was summoned from Qom to Beirut to assume the presidency of the Executive Council, which is considered Hezbollah’s government, succeeding Nasrallah, who became Hezbollah’s secretary-general.

His work was supervised at the time by Hezbollah’s former security commander, Imad Mughniyeh.

Over the course of 3 decades, the man has held many sensitive daily files in the party, from managing its institutions to managing its funds and investments at home and abroad, leaving the strategic issues in the hands of Nasrallah.

Like Nasrallah, with whom the man shares many qualities, Saifuddin is distinguished by his popular and political presence, and his eloquent and fiery speeches, which are often wrapped in a strong religious tone.

In these speeches, the man highlights his commitment to confronting Israeli attacks and emphasizing a firm response to them.

In a speech he delivered on July 13, 2024, Saifuddin  said, “If our mission, as it’s today, is to be in the south fighting this enemy and offering our martyrs, then we are prepared to sacrifice everything, and we are confident that God will grant us victory as he granted us victory in 2006”.

In another speech on the 18th of the same month, he stressed that Lebanon is concerned with the war with the Israeli enemy without restrictions or limits”.

Saifuddin has also repeatedly emphasized, during the recent period, what Nasrallah had previously announced, that Hezbollah won’t stop supporting the Gaza front until Israel stops its aggression against the Strip.

It’s known that Mr. Hashem Saifuddin has good relations with Tehran.

In addition to spending years studying religious sciences at the Qom Seminary, the Saifuddin’s son, Reza, is married to the former commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani’s daughter, Zeinab in 2020.

In 2017, the US Treasury Department announced that Saifuddin had been put on “terrorist list” for his affiliation with Hezbollah.