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Iran Focus
 Tehran, Iran, Sep. 27 - As part of a plan to bring Iran’s Supreme
National Security Council (SNSC) under the complete domination of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), several highly-placed commanders
of the elite military organisation are filling
the top slots in the key decision-making body on security and defence policies, Iran Focus has learnt.
The most significant changes include the expected entry of the
second-in-command of the IRGC who will soon be named as the new deputy
chief of the Supreme National Security Council, which is in charge of the
country’s nuclear negotiations with the West and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA).
IRGC Deputy Commandant Brigadier General Mohammad-Baqer
Zolqadr is expected to be appointed to the post
in the coming days, according to several sources with first-hand
information on the new build-up of the SNSC.
Iran Focus first reported on August 31 that in continuation of significant
changes in the Revolutionary Guards high command, Brigadier General Zolqadr would leave his post to take up another senior
position.
Zolqadr is a protégé and trusted confidant of Iran’s
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and has a key
role in the country’s security apparatus. He has been close friends with
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
for years. His departure from the IRGC high command will be a significant
change in the force’s command.
Another senior IRGC commander, Brigadier General Mohammad-Ali (Aziz) Jaafari, was confirmed
on Sunday as the new head of the SNSC’s directorate
for internal security.
In mid-August, Khamenei put Brigadier General Jaafari in charge of forming the “IRGC Centre for
Strategy”.
The idea for the creation of the new centre for strategy came from Khamenei himself, who regularly receives the top IRGC commanders
and closely follows their activities. He had asked IRGC Commandant, Major
General Rahim Safavi,
and his commanders to devise a new command structure and military strategy
for the IRGC that would give the elite military force unlimited access to national
resources and absolute priority over the regular army in case of a foreign
military confrontation. The new centre will draw up the new strategy and
implement the necessary changes to ensure rapid and efficient
transformation of the country’s civilian infrastructure and resources to
military footing under the control of the IRGC.
Another key Revolutionary Guards commander who will be entering the Supreme
National Security Council is Brigadier General Seyyed-Ali
Hosseini-Tash, a highly-placed source has told
Iran Focus. Hosseini-Tash was the deputy Minister
of Defence in the administration of Mohammad Khatami and according to the opposition National
Council of Resistance of Iran, was the ranking defence
official involved in Tehran’s
suspected nuclear weapons program.
Several other senior Revolutionary Guards commanders have also been added
to the SNSC rota including a radical hard-liner
who was named in mid-September as the new chairman of the powerful foreign
policy directorate of the Supreme National Security Council.
In his new position, Seyyed Ali Monfared will be the chief negotiator in Iran’s
nuclear talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA and Western
governments. He will replace Hossein Moussavian, a former ambassador to Germany.
Monfared is a founding father of Iran’s
notorious secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and was
a senior officer in the IRGC.
He is not the only former Revolutionary Guards officer to have recently
entered Iran’s
nuclear team; his new boss, Ali Larijani, was
recently installed as the Secretary General of the SNSC. Larijani, a former General of the Revolutionary Guards,
is another protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
and a key ally of President Ahmadinejad, himself
a former senior commander in the IRGC.
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