Pallade Veneta - Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes

Another source close to Hezbollah previously told AFP that the deeply religious cleric Safieddine, who has family ties to Nasrallah and good relations with its backer Iran, was the "most likely" candidate for the party's top job.

Grey-bearded and bespectacled, Safieddine bears a striking resemblance to his distant cousin Nasrallah, but is several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.

A week after massive Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs killed longtime leader Nasrallah, heavy bombardment early Friday again targeted Beirut's southern suburbs.

"Contact with Sayyed Safieddine has been lost since the violent strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs" Friday, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

"We don't know if he was at the targeted site, or who may have been there with him."

Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, who took over the leadership by default after Nasrallah's death, said Monday the group would name a new chief "at the earliest opportunity".

The powerful decision-making Shura Council must meet to elect a new secretary-general.

Safieddine, a member of the council, has strong ties to the Islamic republic after undergoing religious studies in Iran's holy city of Qom.

His son is married to the daughter of General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards foreign operations arm who was killed in a 2020 US strike in Iraq.

Safieddine bears the title of Sayyed, his black turban marking him -- like Nasrallah -- as considered to be a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

The United States and Saudi Arabia put him on their respective lists of designated "terrorists" in 2017.

- 'Strongest contender' -

Unlike Nasrallah, who lived in hiding for years, Safieddine has appeared openly at recent political and religious events.

Foregoing his usual calm demeanour, he has broken into fiery rhetoric at the funerals of Hezbollah fighters killed in nearly a year of cross-border clashes with Israel.

Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher on Hezbollah based at Cardiff University, said that for years people have been saying that Safieddine was "the most likely successor" to Nasrallah.

"The next leader has to be on the Shura Council, which has a handful of members, and he has to be a religious figure," she said.

Safieddine has "a lot of authority", she added, describing him as "the strongest contender" for the group's leadership.

Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based Hezbollah expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, also said Safieddine has "been touted as a potential successor to Nasrallah for years".

He has "the right credentials", Blanford said -- he is a religious figure, from Lebanon's south, from where "most of Hezbollah's leadership tends to come", and also heads Hezbollah's powerful executive council.

Hezbollah was created at the initiative of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and gained its moniker as "the Resistance" by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

The movement was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982.

In July in a speech in Beirut's southern suburbs, Safieddine alluded to how Hezbollah views its leadership succession.

"In our resistance... when any leader is martyred, another takes up the flag and goes on with new, certain, strong determination," he said.

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R.Lagomarsino--PV