{"id":582583,"date":"2026-08-12T16:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582583\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:52:09","slug":"iran-reshuffles-military-leadership-after-israeli-us-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582583\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran reshuffles military leadership after Israeli, US strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued decrees on Monday appointing six military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials to leadership positions, filling vacancies left by commanders killed in Israeli and US strikes<\/a> during Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury.<\/p>\n

Ali Abdollahi<\/a> was appointed as chief of staff of Iran\u2019s Armed Forces, with Kioumars Heydari named as his deputy.
Abdollahi was a commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters before taking his position, a position that has been vacant since the assassination of Abdolrahim Mousavi during Operation Roaring Lion.<\/p>\n

Abdollahi rises to the top of Iran\u2019s military leadership<\/p>\n

Sanctioned by the United States since 2020, Abdollahi has a long career in the IRGC that has placed him firmly in Khamenei\u2019s inner circle. He was among the first to join the Islamic Republic\u2019s military following the 1979 revolution and served as a commander during the Iran-Iraq wars in the 1980s, according to WANA.<\/p>\n

Abdollahi has also held positions as Deputy Commander of the Law Enforcement Forces, Acting Commander of the Police Forces, Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Affairs, Governor of Gilan and Semnan provinces, Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Support and Industrial Research, and Deputy Commander of the IRGC Air Force.<\/p>\n

Heydari, Abdollahi\u2019s deputy, is a commander in Iran\u2019s regular military and has little experience in the IRGC, despite beginning his service as a volunteer member of the Basij paramilitary force.<\/p>\n

\"ArmoredArmored vehicles equipped with heavy machine guns and armed IRGC forces with their faces covered have been deployed across the streets of Tehran, with martial law effectively imposed. (credit: Courtesy)<\/p>\n

He was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and added to the EU sanctions registry in 2022, before being sanctioned by the United Kingdom in 2023 for his involvement in the violent suppression of protests in Iran in 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Ahmad Vahidi formally named head of IRGC<\/p>\n

Ahmad Vahidi, whose growing influence has been widely reported on, was also named as head of the IRGC, with Mostafa Izadi named as his deputy.<\/p>\n

Vahidi is known for his role in the planning of Hezbollah\u2019s 1994 Buenos Aires<\/a> bombing of the AMIA building. The majority of the 85 people killed in the attack and the 300 wounded were members of the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

One of the few people understood to have direct contact with Khamenei, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said, \u201cVahidi and his inner circle have brought not only Iran\u2019s military response but also the country\u2019s negotiating strategy under their control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Izadi, Vahidi\u2019s deputy, has spent four decades in the military and the IRGC, serving as a commander during the Iran-Iraq War before commanding the IRGC ground forces. Before his recent promotion, Iranian media reported he commanded the Cyber and Emerging Threats Headquarters at the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.<\/p>\n

Ali Azmaei, who has been sanctioned by the US since 2019, \u00a0was named as head of the IRGC Navy, replacing Alireza Tangsiri, who was killed in an airstrike in March.<\/p>\n

Azmaei had commanded the IRGC Navy\u2019s Fifth Naval Region since its formation in 2012 and previously served as deputy commander of the IRGC Navy\u2019s First Naval Region. \u00a0He was promoted to brigadier general by Khamenei\u2019s father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, in April 2022.<\/p>\n

Notably, Vahidi and Azmaei had already been operating as respective IRGC and IRGC Navy heads, but without any official published appointment from the Supreme Leader\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Hossein Taeb was named commander of the IRGC\u2019s Basij paramilitary forces. He has been sanctioned by the United States since 2010 for his involvement in violently suppressing protests in 2009.<\/p>\n

His new mandate \u201ccalls for strengthening the Basij\u2019s \u2018public intelligence network,\u2019 exploiting modern technologies, and expanding neighborhood organization\u201d of the militia, Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said on X\/Twitter.<\/p>\n

Khamenei appoints security council representative, political adviser<\/p>\n

Mohsen Rezaee, who commanded the IRGC<\/a> from 1981 until 1997, was appointed as Khamenei\u2019s representative on the Supreme National Security Council. Rezaee, 71, is also wanted by Interpol over his involvement in the 1994 bombing in Argentina.
Additionally, Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr, who held several senior positions across the IRGC since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, including being deputy chief from 1997 until 2006, was appointed as Khamenei\u2019s political advisor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued decrees on Monday appointing six military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[187792,42,87,53065,46,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-582583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ali-abdollahi","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}