Iran named a former Revolutionary Guards commander and senior figure in the hardline political faction on Tuesday to replace the powerful head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes last week.
Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr © Mena Today
Iran named a former Revolutionary Guards commander and senior figure in the hardline political faction on Tuesday to replace the powerful head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes last week.
Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr was appointed as Larijani's successor as secretary of the SNSC, the Iranian president's deputy of communications posted on X on Tuesday.
The SNSC, formally chaired by the elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, coordinates security and foreign policy, and includes top military, intelligence and government officials in addition to representatives of the supreme leader who has ultimate say over all matters of state.
Zolqadr is a former Revolutionary Guards commander who has in the past held senior security positions such as deputy for security at the Interior Ministry, deputy at the armed forces' general staff and advisor to the judiciary chief for crime prevention.
He headed the electoral headquarters of the hardline political faction, the Popular Front of Islamic Revolutionary Forces.
Since 2022 he has served as secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, an assembly that resolves differences between parliament and the Guardian Council of Shi'ite clerics and jurists who can veto legislation and supervise elections.
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom
Saudi Arabia expects imminent coordinated attacks from Iraqi militias north of the Gulf state and from Yemen's Houthis from the south under the supervision of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a senior Saudi official said.
An Iranian parliamentary committee is reviewing a preliminary bill that would bar U.S., Israeli and other "hostile" vessels from transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing a lawmaker.
With President Donald Trump’s war against Iran now in its sixth month, this week's flurry of threats and diplomacy has underscored the ever-tighter bind he finds himself in as he tries to extricate the U.S. from an unpopular conflict he originally claimed would last just weeks.
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