Who is Naim Qassem? Hezbollah leader who fled Lebanon to evade 'assassination'

Naim Qassem fled to Iran for safety. Iranian sources say his last address was delivered from the Islamic Republic's capital Tehran.

Militant group Hezbollah's deputy secretary general Naim Qassem has fled Lebanon for Iran amid threats of assassination from Israel after Tel Aviv eliminated its top leaders including Hassan Nasrallah and his cousin Hashem Safieddine. The fate of Safieddine is still unclear after the intensive strikes launched by the Israeli army on the southern suburbs of Beirut earlier this month.

An image grab taken from Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV shows the group's deputy chief Naim Qassem delivering a speech from an undisclosed location on October 15, 2024. (AFP)

Iranian sources told news portal Erem News that Qassem left Lebanese capital Beirut on October 5 for Syrian capital Damascus and then flew to Tehran for safety. He was also accompanied by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.

“The transfer of Naim Qassem to Tehran was by order of the higher authorities in Iran for fear of being assassinated by the Israeli entity, because he is on the list of wanted by the occupation government,” said a top Iranian source to the portal.

Facts about Naim Qassem

1. According to portal hezbollah.org, he is one of the group's earliest members from its formative years and one of its chief ideologues. He was a part of a network of radical Shia scholars including Abbas al-Moussaoui, Subhi al-Tufaili, Mohammad Yazbek, Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, and Hassan Nasrallah.
2. Qaseem completed his Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from Lebanese University in 1970s while simultaneously pursuing his religious and theological studies under Islamic scholar Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. He was the head of the Association for Islamic Religious Education from 1974-1988 and also the founding member of the Lebanese Union of Muslim Students.
3. Qaseem maintained a supervisory role over Hezbollah's network of schools and was elected as the group's Deputy Secretary General in 1991. Later, he replaced Abbas al-Moussaoui as the Secretary General after the former's assassination.
4. He is a member of the powerful executive council called as the Shura Council and is in charge of the militant group's governmental and paramilitary activities.
5. Fluent in French, Qaseem is also a prolific writer. He is the authour of "Hizbullah: The Story from Within", which recounts the movement’s foundation and ideology as the group perceives. This work has been translated into six languages -Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Indonesian, Turkish and Urdu.

Latest address

Iranian sources said Qassem's last address to the people of Lebanon on October 15 was delivered from Tehran. In his speech, Qassem said the group cannot be defeated by intense Israeli bombardment of its strongholds or the killing of its senior leadership.

"I am telling the Israeli home front: the solution is a ceasefire," he said, while threatening to escalate Hezbollah's attacks across inside Israel. "Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place" in Israel," he added.