Ali Abdollahi was appointed chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, while former Army Ground Forces commander Kioumars Heydari was named his deputy.
Khamenei also formally appointed Ahmad Vahidi as commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and promoted him to the rank of major general. Mostafa Izadi was named deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC.
Rear Admiral Ali Azmaei was formally appointed commander of the IRGC Navy, while Hossein Taeb, the powerful former head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, was named commander of the Basij paramilitary force.
The decrees formally confirm the positions of Vahidi and Azmaei, who had already been publicly presented as commanders of the IRGC and its navy respectively without published appointment orders from Khamenei.
Vahidi had been introduced as IRGC chief after Mohammad Pakpour was killed earlier this year, while Azmaei emerged publicly as the Guards’ naval commander in July following the killing of Alireza Tangsiri.
The decrees settle some of the most consequential vacancies created by US-Israeli strikes since the war began on February 28. Abdollahi replaces Abdolrahim Mousavi, who was killed alongside Pakpour and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh in strikes on the opening day of the war.
Abdollahi had been serving as commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the joint operational command responsible for coordinating Iran’s armed forces in wartime.
He emerged as one of Tehran’s most visible military commanders during the conflict, repeatedly issuing warnings to the United States and Israel and overseeing a command central to Iran’s missile operations and its use of the Strait of Hormuz as military leverage.
Taeb’s return to power
Perhaps the most politically notable appointment is Taeb’s return to command of the Basij, the IRGC’s sprawling paramilitary arm which has played a central role in suppressing domestic protests.
Taeb previously headed the Basij before spending more than a decade at the helm of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. He was removed from that intelligence post in 2022 after a series of security breaches and operations inside Iran attributed to Israel.
Taeb nevertheless remained close to the center of power. He is known as part of the older intelligence-security network surrounding Mojtaba Khamenei, and during the current war he has been involved in high-level political and security deliberations, including disputes over negotiations with the United States.
His appointment to the Basij therefore returns one of the Islamic Republic’s most prominent intelligence and security figures to a major operational position at a time when the leadership remains concerned about both external attack and renewed domestic unrest.
Despite Monday’s sweeping announcement, important gaps remain.
Remaining gaps
Neither of the IRGC’s two principal intelligence bodies has a publicly announced permanent chief. Majid Khademi, who headed the IRGC Intelligence Organization and was also serving as head of its Intelligence Protection Organization, was killed in an April 6 strike in Tehran.
The two bodies perform distinct but complementary roles: the Intelligence Organization focuses heavily on political-security operations and domestic repression, while Intelligence Protection is responsible for counterintelligence, loyalty and preventing infiltration within the Guards.
No permanent replacement has also been publicly announced for Gholamreza Rezaeian, the head of the police Intelligence Organization, who was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes.
Two other sensitive posts within the Armed Forces General Staff have lacked publicly announced permanent successors for more than a year. Gholamreza Mehrabi, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, and Mehdi Rabbani, the deputy chief for operations, were killed in Israeli strikes during the June 2025 war.
Cabinet-level vacancies
The military reshuffle also does not resolve two major cabinet-level vacancies created by the current war.
The Defense Ministry remains under acting minister Majid Ebn al-Reza, whom Pezeshkian appointed after Nasirzadeh was killed on February 28. He has continued to represent the ministry in official meetings and international contacts but has not been nominated as permanent defense minister.
The Intelligence Ministry has likewise had no permanent minister since Esmail Khatib was killed in March. Pezeshkian’s office said shortly after his death that an acting minister had been appointed but declined to identify the person, promising that the name would be disclosed later.
No identity has subsequently been made public. Iran International earlier reported that Pezeshkian’s efforts to appoint a permanent intelligence minister had run into resistance from Vahidi and the IRGC leadership.
Those two posts follow a different process from the military commands announced Monday. Although appointments to sensitive ministries such as intelligence and defense are in practice coordinated with and require the approval of the Supreme Leader, they are cabinet positions and cannot simply be filled through a commander-in-chief’s decree.
Under Article 133 of Iran’s constitution, ministers are appointed by the president and must be presented to parliament for a vote of confidence.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202608104122
