BEIRUT (AP) — Sheikh Naim Kassem has been the acting head of Hezbollah since its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed as part of an Israeli offensive that has taken out many of the Lebanese militant group’s senior officials.
Kassem made a defiant televised speech Tuesday, claiming that the group's military capabilities are intact and Israelis will only suffer further as fighting continues.
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FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, after casting his vote during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in Beirut, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, attends a ceremony in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, raises his finger after casting his vote during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in Beirut, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut's southern suburbs, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, listens to a speech by then-leader Hassan Nasrallah on a screen in southern Beirut, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Like Nasrallah, Kassem is one of the founding members of the Shiite political party and armed group, but he is widely seen as lacking the former leader’s charisma and oratory skills.
Still, the white-turbaned cleric with a gray beard has often been the public face of the group. After Nasrallah went underground out of fear of being assassinated by Israel, appearing only in televised speeches, Kassem continued to show up at rallies and ceremonies, and he has sat for interviews with foreign journalists.
Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank who researches Hezbollah, said that Kassem is perceived by many as “more extreme” than Nasrallah, at least in his public statements.
In practice, however, his power within the group was limited under Nasrallah. Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees the group’s political affairs — not Kassem — was generally regarded as the leader's heir apparent. But no announcement has been made, and Safieddine has not appeared publicly or made any public statements since Nasrallah’s death.
Kassem has been sanctioned by the United States, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist group.
He was born in the town of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon and studied chemistry at the Lebanese University before working for several years as a chemistry teacher.
At the same time, he pursued religious studies and participated in founding the Lebanese Union for Muslim Students, an organization that aimed to promote religious adherence among students.
In the 1970s, Kassem joined the Movement of the Dispossessed, a political organization founded by Imam Moussa Sadr that pushed for greater representation for Lebanon’s historically overlooked and impoverished Shiite community. The group morphed into the Amal movement, one of the main armed groups in Lebanon’s civil war, and now a powerful political party.
He then joined the nascent Hezbollah, formed with support from Iran after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the country’s southern region.
From 1991, he served as deputy secretary-general of the group, initially under Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas Mousawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack in 1992.
FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, after casting his vote during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in Beirut, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, attends a ceremony in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, raises his finger after casting his vote during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in Beirut, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut's southern suburbs, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, listens to a speech by then-leader Hassan Nasrallah on a screen in southern Beirut, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump's demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day's outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”
The House approved Johnson's new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.
“This is a good outcome for the country, ” Johnson said after the House vote, adding he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”
President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law Saturday.
“There will be no government shutdown," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. And it raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.
Trump's last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.
Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” scoffed Musk on social media ahead of the vote.
The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.
But it's far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.
House Democrats were cool to the latest effort after Johnson reneged on the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, was calling the shots for Trump and Republicans.
“Who is in charge?” she asked during the debate.
Still, the House Democrats put up more votes than Republicans for the bill's passage. Almost three dozen conservative House Republicans voted against it.
“The House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the nation,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, referring to Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan.
In the Senate, almost all the opposition came from the Republicans — except independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Musk's interference was “not democracy, that's oligarchy.”
Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.
The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees and is counting on Republicans for a big tax package. And Trump's not fearful of shutdowns the way lawmakers are, having sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted early in the morning on social media.
More important for the president-elect was his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn't want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation's borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be on the hook to deliver.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a new five-year debt limit increase. "Without this, we should never make a deal."
Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would send millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without paychecks.
Biden has been in discussions with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this.”
As the day dragged on, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to remind colleagues “how harmful it is to shut the government down, and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it.”
At one point, Johnson asked House Republicans at a lunchtime meeting for a show of hands as they tried to choose the path forward.
It wasn’t just the shutdown, but the speaker’s job on the line. The speaker’s election is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and some Trump allies have floated Musk for speaker.
Johnson said he spoke to Musk ahead of the vote Friday and they talked about the “extraordinary challenges of this job.”
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Capitol is pictured in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., talks with reporters after attending a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., as the House works on a spending bill to avert a shutdown of the Federal Government, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
FILE - President-elect Donald Trump poses for a photo with Dana White, Kid Rock and Elon Musk at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden, Nov. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. The vote failed to pass. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
