Hezbollah loses contact with senior leader Hashem Safieddine: Sources

Hezbollah has lost contact with one of its senior leaders, Hashem Safieddine, who was seen as a possible successor to slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, since Friday after an Israeli air strike on Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood, a Lebanese security source told media.

As the chairman of the armed group’s Executive Council, Safieddine is a very high-ranking member of the organisation. He is a cousin of the late Nasrallah, the former secretary-general, said media’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Beirut.

Jabbari said there was a “sense of urgency” from Lebanese and Hezbollah officials to allow rescue teams in the area to retrieve bodies from the attack on Friday morning.

She added that most Hezbollah commanders are “shadowy”, with Safieddine’s name only coming to light after many believed that he would possibly succeed Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike last month, as Hezbollah’s secretary-general.

“Now, with the possibility of him also being assassinated, it leaves in question the issue of succession within the organisation,” Jabbari explained.

But the lack of contact with Safieddine also proves that there is an intelligence breach within the group, “allowing Israel to locate and attack one leader after another,” media political analyst Marwan Bishara said.

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”.