Ebrahim Raeisi appoints IRGC commander as Iran’s security chief

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has appointed Brigadier General Ali Akbar Ahmadian as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

In a decree issued on Monday, Raeisi, who also serves as the SNSC head, hailed 10 years of service by the body’s former secretary Ali Shamkhani and appointed Ahmadian, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), as his replacement.

Ahmadian, 62, is a graduate of the University of Tehran in dentistry and has a Ph.D. in strategic management from the Supreme National Defense University of Iran.

Ahmadian began his military career as the commander of the IRGC Navy in August 1997. He was the deputy commander of the IRGC Navy for eight years, before serving as the chief of that force for three years.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who is the commander in chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, then appointed Ahmadian as the chief of Staff of the IRGC. During his seven-year stint in that post, he greatly contributed to the development of the IRGC’s administrative structure and the promotion of its capabilities in various fields.

He has held other key positions, such as the head of Imam Hussein University and the head of the IRGC Strategic Studies Center.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Ahmadian in 2007 as a key person linked to the IRGC. The European Union also imposed sanctions on him in that year.

Ahmadian is now a member of the Expediency Council.