Separately, Mohsen Rezaei , the former Guards commander named Khamenei's military adviser in March, became secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the leader's representative on the body.
The appointments put veterans of the Guards, intelligence services and Iran-Iraq war generation across the upper reaches of the security establishment.
Referring to Khamenei's directive for a “grassroots confrontation with enemy threats,” he added that it “certainly sounds like making sure the January protests never happen again.”Taeb has also long been identified with Mojtaba Khamenei's security network.
The Wall Street Journal portrayed the appointments as Khamenei putting his stamp on the national-security system and signaling a tougher approach toward Washington.
Khamenei is placing his own stamp on the military and security hierarchy, centralizing command and restoring trusted figures to key posts.
The six decrees named Ali Abdollahi chief of staff of the armed forces, with Kioumars Heydari as his deputy; Ahmad Vahidi commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, with Mostafa Izadi as his deputy; Ali Azmaei commander of the Guards' navy; and Hossein Taeb , the feared former intelligence chief of the Guards, head of the Basij.
Separately, Mohsen Rezaei , the former Guards commander named Khamenei's military adviser in March, became secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the leader's representative on the body.
The appointments put veterans of the Guards, intelligence services and Iran-Iraq war generation across the upper reaches of the security establishment. But rather than marking a wholesale changing of the guard, they draw heavily on figures who built their careers under Ali Khamenei — leaving open whether the new supreme leader is imposing his authority on the system or assembling an experienced security bloc whose support he needs to exercise it.
Khamenei's directives suggest the changes are not simply about personnel. In his appointment decree for Vahidi, he called for strengthening the force's capabilities for “maximum deterrence” and maintaining readiness to carry out “powerful offensive operations against the enemy.”
Lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei described the appointments as “basically an indication of the fact that the Islamic Republic is moving toward a more offensive military structure.”
War commanders move to the top
The clearest sign that Khamenei may be changing how the military is run, rather than merely replacing its commanders, lies in the elevation of Abdollahi and Heydari from the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters to the two highest positions in the Armed Forces General Staff.
The General Staff is Iran's highest military coordinating body, while Khatam Central Headquarters has a more operational wartime role, coordinating military activity across different branches.
There has been no confirmed announcement that the two bodies have formally merged, but pro-establishment commentator Mohammad-Sadegh Alizadeh said the appointments confirmed a process of centralizing Iran's military command.
“The merger of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters and the Armed Forces General Staff means concentrating the country's wartime, military and offensive activities,” he wrote on X, adding that Abdollahi's decree explicitly tasked him with completing the process.
Abdollahi previously served as coordination deputy of the General Staff and deputy commander of Iran's police. Heydari commanded the regular Army Ground Forces for more than seven years before moving into Khatam's command structure in late 2025.
Heydari's appointment also preserves a senior regular Army presence near the top of a leadership heavily populated by Revolutionary Guards veterans, suggesting that greater centralization does not necessarily amount to straightforward IRGC domination of the command structure.
Taeb’s return puts domestic security in focus
If the Abdollahi and Heydari appointments point to tighter wartime command, Taeb's return to the Basij reveals the domestic-security side of Khamenei's emerging structure.
Taeb commanded the Basij during the unrest following Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election and later spent more than a decade heading the IRGC Intelligence Organization before his removal in 2022.
Khamenei's decree calls for strengthening what it describes as the Basij's “popular intelligence network,” drawing attention to the surveillance and internal-security component of Taeb's mandate.
New York-based journalist and Middle East writer Séamus Malekafzali said Taeb's return was particularly significant given his intelligence background.
“Taeb spent 13 years after leaving the Basij as the head of IRGC intelligence,” he wrote on X on August 10. Referring to Khamenei's directive for a “grassroots confrontation with enemy threats,” he added that it “certainly sounds like making sure the January protests never happen again.”
Taeb has also long been identified with Mojtaba Khamenei's security network. When he was removed as IRGC intelligence chief in 2022, Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, described the move as “an earthquake in Iran's intelligence community,” noting his close relationship with both Ali Khamenei and his son.
His return therefore restores a longtime Khamenei confidant to command of an organization embedded across universities, workplaces, neighborhoods and state institutions, and which has played a central role in surveillance, political mobilization and the suppression of protests.
Journalist Morteza Kazemian linked the appointment to worsening economic conditions and public discontent, arguing that Taeb had become one of Khamenei's trusted instruments of security and governance and that the Basij under his command was intended to embody the leadership's “iron fist.”
Rezaei comeback underscores reliance on old guard
If Taeb's return highlights Khamenei's reliance on trusted security figures, Rezaei's comeback makes the generational continuity harder to miss.
Rezaei commanded the Revolutionary Guards from 1981 to 1997, including through most of the Iran-Iraq war, before moving into politics and holding a succession of senior state positions.
He later served at the Expediency Council, repeatedly ran for president and became vice president for economic affairs under Ebrahim Raisi. Khamenei appointed him military adviser in March before naming him secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and his representative on the body less than five months later.
Journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi questioned why Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr had been replaced by Rezaei and what substantive change the appointment was intended to bring.
“What does the appointment of Mohsen Rezaei in place of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council mean, and what change is it supposed to bring to the way this position operates?” he wrote on X.
Some Iranian social-media users responded with mockery, reviving jokes surrounding Rezaei's repeated presidential campaigns and decades-long circulation through senior state positions.
The criticism reflected one of the broader themes surrounding the reshuffle: that Khamenei's first major appointments have elevated not a new generation of officials, but men who have occupied the Islamic Republic's military and political establishment for decades.
Vahidi promotion highlights hardline continuity
Vahidi's promotion adds another dimension to that continuity: the elevation of a commander whose record spans Iran's external military operations and domestic repression.
Vahidi had served as acting Guards commander following Mohammad Pakpour's death during the war with the United States and Israel. Khamenei formally installed him as commander and promoted him to major general.
He previously held senior roles in the Quds Force and served as defense minister under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and interior minister under Ebrahim Raisi.
Argentine prosecutors have sought Vahidi in connection with the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Iran denies involvement.
Israel's foreign ministry focused its response to the reshuffle on Vahidi and Rezaei, linking both men to allegations surrounding the AMIA case and accusing Tehran of elevating figures associated with attacks abroad.
“The Iranian regime worships terror, rewards its architects and promotes them to the highest levels of power,” the ministry said on X.
The United States has also sanctioned Vahidi over his role as interior minister during the suppression of protests following Mahsa Amini's death in custody in 2022.
But the wartime record of Vahidi, Abdollahi and Taeb also complicates the idea that their elevation simply represents Khamenei extending his personal control over the security apparatus.
President Masoud Pezeshkian accused Vahidi and Abdollahi of taking unilateral military actions that undermined efforts to secure a ceasefire, Iran International reported in April. The report also described a heated confrontation involving Taeb.
All three men now occupy senior positions in the military-security structure under Khamenei, raising the possibility that the new leader has elevated figures whose institutional power was already considerable before he formally appointed them.
Khamenei’s first imprint on security establishment
Several major international outlets interpreted the reshuffle as an early indication of how Khamenei intends to shape the security establishment after succeeding his father.
The Wall Street Journal portrayed the appointments as Khamenei putting his stamp on the national-security system and signaling a tougher approach toward Washington.
“Iran's mysterious ruler signals a hard line on Trump with new leadership,” the newspaper wrote.
The Financial Times focused on the promotion of loyalists and the possibility that Rezaei's return could point toward a harder line on the United States, while Reuters described Rezaei as a close ally of Khamenei and highlighted his recent opposition to extending a ceasefire and his skepticism toward negotiations with Washington.
Those readings emphasize Khamenei's role in choosing the new hierarchy. But the identities of the men he chose point just as strongly to continuity with the security establishment inherited from his father.
Iran International analysts had raised that tension even before the latest decrees.
The deaths of Ali Khamenei and other senior officials created a leadership gap in which his successor was still working to consolidate his position, Kazemian said in May.
After the appointments were announced, journalist Kamyar Behrang argued that the death of Ali Khamenei, who had served as the system's final arbiter, had given the Revolutionary Guards greater room to shape the political order that followed him.
The appointments can therefore be read in both directions. Khamenei is placing his own stamp on the military and security hierarchy, centralizing command and restoring trusted figures to key posts.
But he is doing so largely through men formed under his father's rule — veteran commanders and intelligence officials whose institutional weight may be as important to his authority as their loyalty to him.
The first map of power under Mojtaba Khamenei is taking shape. What remains unclear is whether these men are primarily instruments of his control, or the establishment on which that control depends.
