Hashem Safieddine / Hashem Safi al-Din
Hashem Safieddine is the head of the executive council of Hezbollah. An Axios correspondent quoted three Israeli officials as saying that an Israeli strike targeted Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader and one of the candidates to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, early Friday morning 04 October 2024. Correspondent Barak Ravid said in a post on the "X" website that The target for the Israeli strike in Beirut was Hezbollah senior leader Hashem Safi a-Din - who was Hassan Nasrallah's likely successor, Two Israeli officials tell me." An Israeli official said that Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader and a candidate to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, was in a deep underground bunker and it was not yet clear whether he was killed in the strike that targeted him early Friday morning, according to what was reported by the American Axios website correspondent. Barak Ravid reported that the strike took place in the southern suburb of Beirut, where there are many Hezbollah compounds. Lebanese media reported that the Israeli strike that targeted Safieddine was much larger than the one that killed Nasrallah last week.
There was RUMINT that Israel got the whole Hezbollah Shura Council that was meeting to elect Safieddine as Nasrallah's successor. This led some observers to think that Israel knew where Safieddine has been, all along, and was waiting for this meeting to take them out wholesale, instead of one by one. Senior Israeli Officials believe that in addition to Safieddine, and several other Senior Commanders, the head of Hezbollah’s Intelligence Directorate, Hussein Hazimah, was also believed to have been eliminated. It was revealed that just hours after the strike that targeted the new Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine, the Israeli Air force also struck his brother.
Hezbollah has lost contact with one of its senior leaders, Hashem Safieddine, who was seen as successor to slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, since an Israeli air strike on Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood, a Lebanese security source told Al Jazeera 05 October 2024. Hezbollah’s media office has issued a statement saying reports citing sources within the group regarding “the fate of Hezbollah officials” are “worthless rumors”. The group stressed that only statements issued by their media office are valid.
Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University, says losing contact with Nasrallah’s successor is “another serious and significant setback for Hezbollah”. “The wording that they’ve lost contact with him is an attempt to prepare Hezbollah supporters with the coming announcem
ent that he has been confirmed dead,” he told Al Jazeera from Ottawa, Canada.
Hezbollah's Shura Council on 29 September 2024 elected Hashim Safi Al Din as Secretary General of the organization, replacing Nasrallah. His Statement: "My message to the Zionists: your celebrations won't last long." Al Arabiya and Al Hadath sources confirmed that Hezbollah’s Shura Council chose Hashem Safieddine as Secretary-General.
After Hezbollah confirmed the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, the name of Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah's executive council, emerged as a potential candidate to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as Secretary-General of Hezbollah. Hashem Safieddine is related to Hassan Nasrallah by family, in addition to the great similarity in appearance, manner of speaking, and even the lisp in the war of the letter “ra”. He is not an ordinary leader, as he supervises, by virtue of his position as head of the Executive Council, Hezbollah’s economic and social activities. Safi al-Din was tasked with all important files within Hezbollah for three decades. Except for what is described as “strategic files,” which were directly supervised by Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, quoting a military source, indicated that the head of Hezbollah's executive body, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, has begun to take charge of matters, and Hezbollah is planning to bomb cities, including Tel Aviv, in response to the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Amid the ambiguity surrounding the mechanism for selecting leaders within Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine , Nasrallah’s cousin and Qassem Soleimani’s son-in-law, tops the list of candidates to succeed him. Safieddine resembles Nasrallah in many aspects, including his appearance and manner of speaking, and has been groomed since 1994 to take over the leadership of the party, when he returned from Qom, Iran, to assume the presidency of the Executive Council.
For many years, Safi al-Din remained out of sight, but several tight security measures surrounding Hassan Nasrallah prompted him to appear instead of him in a number of prominent events within the party, most notably those related to the funerals of its members and leaders. Choosing Safieddine to succeed Hassan Nasrallah was not a spur-of-the-moment choice, but rather a choice that has been in place for more than 15 years. Since 2008, 16 years ago, Iranian and Israeli media outlets have been circulating the news of Safieddine being chosen to be the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and the “successor” to Hezbollah’s Secretary-General. Since that day, the scenario of "assassinating Hassan Nasrallah" was set by Hezbollah, and that Safieddine would be the Secretary-General of the party if Israel succeeded in eliminating the Secretary-General. According to the Israeli Alma Center for Studies and Research, his future position was already determined in 1994, by Iran, but was confirmed in 2008.
Safi al-Din is considered a supporter of the Iranian regime, and he believes that “the theory of the guardianship of the jurist is one of the most important theories that Imam Khomeini derived from religious and rational evidence in order to be a complete project that addresses the most important problems that faced the Islamic movements and that led to a state of fragmentation.”
Safi al-Din's position within the party was strengthened by his close relations with the Iranian leadership, as he studied in Qom and communicated with senior officials in Tehran. In one of his writings, Safi al-Din said, "The Lebanese Shiite Islamic arena was mostly biased towards the products of thought coming from Najaf and its experience in many cases, while national specificities were largely absent from it except in some rare cases." He continued, "Suddenly and contrary to the expectations lived in the Islamic arena in general, the dawn of victory for the Iranian revolution appeared, led by Imam Khomeini, to achieve a great dream for the liberal Islamic approach, announcing a dazzling and stunning success."
He completed his religious studies in the Iranian city of Qom. His wife is the daughter of the well-known Shiite cleric Muhammad Ali al-Amin, a member of the Sharia Authority of the Supreme Shiite Islamic Council in the country. Wasfi al-Din is the cousin of Hassan Nasrallah’s mother and was close to him.
In addition to his close relationship with Nasrallah, Safi al-Din has a special relationship with Iran, which gives him influence in the party’s leadership hierarchy. His brother Abdullah is the party’s representative in Iran. Abdullah is a well-known figure under U.S. sanctions for drug trafficking and money laundering on behalf of Hizballah. His son’s marriage to the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force who was killed by the United States in a precision strike, has also enhanced his standing, making him the natural choice to succeed Nasrallah. Safi al-Din's son Reza Hashem is married to the daughter of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Zainab, which was announced in June 2020, six months after her father was killed in a US raid in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The timing of the wedding surprised many Iranians, as it came about six months after the killing of Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Baghdad, as Iranian families usually avoid marriages before the first anniversary of the death of a family member. It has recently been reported that Reza is responsible for one of the routes used to smuggle small military components from Iran to Lebanon.
After her father's death, Zeinab became well-known, especially among Iranian hardliners. Zeinab Soleimani first appeared in public during a visit by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Soleimani's home to offer condolences over his death. A few days later, she appeared at her father's funeral in Tehran, where she gave a speech calling on Hassan Nasrallah to avenge her father. Zeinab Soleimani has close ties to members of the Lebanese Hezbollah, and gave a speech at an event organized by the party's women's committee in Beirut, during which she spoke in Arabic with a Lebanese accent, and met Nasrallah and published a photo of the meeting.
In 1994, Nasrallah appointed Safieddine as head of Hezbollah's Beirut region. In 1995, Safieddine assumed the presidency of the Jihad Council responsible for Hezbollah's military activity and began serving as a member of the Shura Council. In 1998, Safieddine was promoted to head of the Executive Council, and was considered Nasrallah's second-in-command and designated successor.
A report by the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in 2008 quoted people close to Hashem Safieddine’s family as saying that Hashem was one of three “who were of interest and care to Imad Mughniyeh.” The three were: Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, one of the prominent leaders in Hezbollah, and Hashem Safieddine. It noted that Imad Mughniyeh was the one who sent the three to Qom to complete their religious studies and facilitate their affairs there.
This trio became the most prominent leaders of the organization. Nasrallah became Secretary-General, Sheikh Qawouk became the practical leader of the southern region, which is important to the organization and the site of its major military power, and Safi al-Din became the executive director of the organization from the institutional side and the head of the party’s government. According to the Asharq Al-Awsat report, quoting what it described as “informed” sources on the situation in Hezbollah, Hezbollah has never been without a substitute leadership and that Safieddine was prepared since 1994 to be the alternative to Nasrallah.
Safi al-Din's work in the daily management of the party's affairs and his involvement in the management of its large institutions provided him with the opportunity to "train as the CEO in leadership and control of the basic joints of the organization, especially the management of the financial and administrative files." The three leaders formed Hezbollah's "power trio," with Nasrallah as the political force, Mughniyeh as the military force, and Safi al-Din as the administrative force.
The position of “CEO” is considered the second leadership position in Hezbollah, as he follows the daily details of Hezbollah and all organizational procedures and controls all aspects of the party. The head of this council is also automatically considered a member of the Shura Council, which is the actual leadership of the organization and is elected every three years, renewable. This council consists of seven figures, headed by Hassan Nasrallah, each of whom handles a special file and manages a sector of the party. The executive council, headed by Safieddine, manages a group of huge investments that aim to secure Hezbollah’s independence and finance its huge organizational body, which is not subject to funding from “legitimate funds” (coming from Iran) that are allocated for armed action.
Hashem Safieddine, aka Hashem Safi al-Din, aka Hashem Safi a-Din, aka Hashim Safi al Din, aka Hashim Safi Al-Din, aka Hashim Safieddinewas designated by the State Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on 05 May 2017. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia joined the United States in designating Hashem Safieddine. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia designated Safieddine under its Law of Terrorism Crimes and Financing and Royal Decree A/44. As a result, any of his assets held in Saudi Arabia are frozen, and transfers through the Kingdom’s financial sector, are prohibited.
The action against Safieddine is the latest example of the partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia in combatting the financing of terrorism. The Safieddine designation is also consistent with the U.S. government’s ongoing effort to expose and apply pressure against the actions of Hizballah, which is supported by the foremost State Sponsor of Terrorism, Iran. Designations of terrorist individuals and groups expose and isolate organizations and individuals and result in denial of access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist or complement the law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies and other governments.
It is noteworthy that the US Treasury Department classified Hashem Safieddine, among many others, on the terrorism list 16 May 2018. The seven member nations of the Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center (TFTC) took significant actions to disrupt an Iranian-backed terrorist group by designating the senior leadership of Lebanese Hizballah. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the co-chair of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC), and the other TFTC member states – the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – designated members of Hizballah’s Shura Council, the primary decision-making body of Hizballah.
These designations followed President Trump’s decision to cease U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and to begin reimposing U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on the Iranian regime. They are in furtherance of the goal of addressing the totality of Iran’s malign activities and regionally destabilizing behavior, including that of Hizballah.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
