On Tuesday, Hezbollah’s Shura Council, the group’s central decision-making body, appointed the 60-year-old cleric to the post.
Sheikh Qassem is a veteran figure in Hezbollah, having served as deputy secretary general of the Lebanese resistance group since 1991.
He was appointed deputy secretary general under Hezbollah’s late secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack in 1992, and remained in the role when Nasrallah became leader.
His political activism began in the Lebanese Amal Movement, founded in 1974. He left Amal in 1979, in the wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which shaped the political thinking of many young Lebanese activists.
He took part in meetings that led to the formation of Hezbollah in 1982.
Sheikh Qassem has long been one of the leading spokesmen for Hezbollah, conducting many interviews with foreign media.
He was born in 1953 in Beirut’s Basta Tahta district, and his family originally hails from Kfar Fila town in Lebanon’s southern Nabatieh province.
