Failure to prevent assassinations and Basij command: Mojtaba's series of appointments
Six senior military appointments were announced today, including a new Chief of General Staff and an official commander for the Revolutionary Guards. Hossein Taeb, dismissed after intelligence failures to prevent assassinations, returns to the top security echelon.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, announced today, Monday, six appointments in the top military leadership. At the forefront is the appointment of Ali Abdollahi Ali-Abadi as Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, a position that had remained vacant for about five and a half months since the assassination of Abd al-Rahim Mousavi at the start of the war.
Additionally, Ahmad Vahidi was officially appointed commander of the Revolutionary Guards and promoted to the rank of Major General, after having served in the role without an official announcement from the Supreme Leader since the assassination of Mohammad Pakpour.
Kiumars Heydari was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff. Heydari, who commanded the regular army's ground forces, had served until now as Abdollahi's deputy at the Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, and now both are moving to the top of the General Staff.
Other appointments include:
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Mostafa Izadi — Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards
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Ali Azmaei — Commander of the organization's Navy
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Hossein Taeb — Commander of the Basij
A notable appointment is that of Taeb, a cleric born in 1963 who returns to the top security echelon four years after being dismissed. He commanded the Basij from October 2007, and two years later, the then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei entrusted him with the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence organization upon its establishment. For over a decade, Taeb was one of the most powerful men in the regime, holding positions in the intelligence and counter-intelligence apparatus.
In June 2022, he was dismissed from his position and sidelined to an advisory role against the backdrop of his failure to stop the assassinations of nuclear scientists and senior Revolutionary Guards officials on Iranian soil, and to carry out revenge operations against Israel.
The decrees retroactively formalize part of the command structure that was built in haste after the waves of assassinations and operated for many long months without official appointments. Vahidi was presented as commander of the Revolutionary Guards following the assassination of Mohammad Pakpour in February, and Azmaei appeared as commander of the organization's Navy in July, three months after the assassination of Alireza Tangsiri in an attack in Bandar Abbas.
In the appointment decree for Abdollahi, Khamenei tasked him with completing the merger of the General Staff with the Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, a move that, according to the decree, relies on the plan of the previous Supreme Leader.
