Iran11 August, 20262 min read
Iran Appoints Six Senior Military Commanders, Reshaping IRGC and Basij Leadership
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Mojtaba Khamenei appoints six senior commanders across IRGC, Basij, and armed forces. The leadership reshuffle occurs amid Iran's wartime posture and ongoing health speculation.
Military shakeup in Iran
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei appointed six senior military commanders on Monday, reshaping Iran’s top command structure across the armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij Resistance Force.
The decrees named Ali Abdollahi as chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces and Kioumars Heydari as deputy chief of staff, while Ahmad Vahidi was promoted to major general and appointed commander-in-chief of the IRGC.
Mostafa Izadi was named deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC, Ali Azmaei was appointed commander of the IRGC Navy, and Hossein Taeb was named head of the Basij Resistance Force.
The reshuffle followed Khamenei’s earlier appointment of Mohsen Rezaee as his representative to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, replacing Mohammad Baqir Zolghadr, according to a decree published on Sunday.
Fox News Digital quoted Dr. Omar Mohammed saying the timing and language of the decrees signal Tehran is preparing for "prolonged confrontation" and not a settlement with Washington.
Health claims and leadership
As the reshuffle unfolded, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is "completely healthy" after what he described as a nearly seven-hour meeting with the supreme leader. Gulf News reported that Khamenei has not appeared publicly since taking office and is believed to have been wounded in the strike that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in February. Haaretz said just five months after his appointment, Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary-General Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr was replaced on Sunday by Mohsen Rezaei, adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
Fox News Digital also described the appointments as part of a wartime rebuild of a command structure impacted by months of U.S. and Israeli strikes, and it said the decrees were promoted on social media. Fox News Digital quoted Mohammed warning that "Tehran is establishing its command structure as a fact on the ground before it signs anything."
Compensation and regional stakes
Al Jazeera said that while Iran undergoes a security shakeup with several senior commanders appointed to new roles, Washington and Tehran continue to demand compensation from one another over the war. The Al Jazeera feed framed the moment as part of "War on Iran: phase II: Day 31" and reported that Pezeshkian said Khamenei is in "perfect health". Haaretz linked the leadership shake-up to Tehran arming up for Trump's economic war over Hormuz, placing the reshuffle in the context of the Strait of Hormuz.
Fox News Digital added that the decrees blamed the deaths of predecessors on what Iran called the "Zionist-American enemy," and Mohammed said that phrase "codifies the United States as a co-belligerent." The Economic Times reported Pezeshkian’s statement that "Someone who can sit and discuss for seven to eight hours cannot have any health problems," as Iran issued the reshuffle alongside health clarifications.