Who is Hashem Safieddine, a serious candidate for the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Lebanon?

Hashem Safieddine, a serious candidate to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as Secretary-General of Hezbollah Lebanon, has been a political and military commander of the group for years; a group supported by the Islamic Republic and recognized as terrorist by the United States. Hashem Safieddine was born in 1964 in the town of 'Deir Qanoun al-Nahr' in southern Lebanon, into a prominent Shia family. He is a cousin of Hassan Nasrallah and bears a physical resemblance to the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah. The Safieddine family is well-known in political and religious spheres, having produced numerous religious figures in Lebanon. Among the most prominent political figures from this family is Mohammad Safieddine, a well-known member of the Lebanese Parliament in the 1960s and 1970s. Hashem Safieddine studied in religious seminaries in Najaf and Qom during the 1980s. In 1983, he married the daughter of Mohammad Ali al-Amin, a member of the Supreme Council of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. In 2020, his son, Reza, married the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; this marriage occurred a few months after Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. His brother, Abdullah Safieddine, is also a representative of Hezbollah in Iran and has been sanctioned by the United States for drug trafficking and money laundering for Hezbollah. Political and military experience: In 1994, Hezbollah called Hashem Safieddine from the Qom seminary to return to Lebanon and take on political and military responsibilities within the group. He was one of three individuals specially trained by Imad Mughniyeh, the former military commander of Hezbollah, who was killed in February 2008 in an operation attributed to Israel following a car explosion in Damascus. The other two individuals trained by Mughniyeh include Hassan Nasrallah and Nabil Qawuq, the deputy head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, who was killed in Israeli attacks in southern Beirut on Saturday. In 1998, Hashem Safieddine became the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, an entity resembling Hezbollah's government. Thus, Safieddine became responsible for implementing Hezbollah's domestic policies, developing the internal organization of the group, and overseeing its institutions, assets, and investments both domestically and abroad, particularly in Arab countries, Africa, and Latin America. In this position, Hashem Safieddine effectively became the number two man in Hezbollah after Hassan Nasrallah. He is also active in the military branch of Hezbollah. The United States placed Hashem Safieddine on its 'terrorism' list in 2017, and he was sanctioned by Washington in 2018. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have also included Hashem Safieddine's name alongside several other Hezbollah officials on their terrorist lists.