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A small group of mostly current or former senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders is guiding decision-making in Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the New York Times (NYT) reported. The report identifies the key figures by names in a detailed profile of the men now running Iran.
Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader for 37 years, was killed on Feb. 28 in the opening Israeli airstrike of the war against Iran. He was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei. Senior Iranian officials maintain that all key matters are run by the 56-year-old heir. But decision-making extends beyond one man, experts told the NYT.
"It is not the Guards as an organization that is exerting control," the NYT reported, "but a hardened 'band of brothers,' whose seminal experience was the brutal, eight-year war between Iran and Iraq that began in 1980."
Founded in 1979 to safeguard the Islamic revolution, the Guards promoted these commanders to the rank of general while they were still in their late 20s or early 30s.
Western support for Iraq during the war convinced them that Iran had to forge its own path regardless of the cost. After the war, they took control of the intelligence and security services. Most are believed to have personal connections to Mojtaba Khamenei from the years he spent directing his father's office, the NYT reported.
"They had information and intelligence, they had a lot of information about how the system works, about the opposition, about reformists, even about hard-liners," Saeid Golkar, an IRGC expert and political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, told the NYT.
"They survey, they control, they spy on each other. Because of that dominance over intelligence, they gradually became dominant in almost any aspect of politics in Iran," he added.
Golkar described the group as "a brotherhood running the country," telling the NYT that over nearly 40 years, this intelligence fraternity first dominated the Guards and has since expanded its grip across the Iranian state.
The NYT identified six figures as among the most powerful men in Iran today.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 64, the speaker of parliament since 2020, previously commanded the Guards air force, served as the national police chief and was mayor of Tehran. Considered a pragmatic figure, he negotiated directly with the United States in Pakistan last month, the NYT reported. Some detractors suspect he is seeking a peace deal that would make him an Iranian strongman.
Ahmad Vahidi, 67, took over the Guards in March after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed his predecessor. A veteran general, he previously served as both defense minister and interior minister. He became prominent in 1988 as the first commander of the Quds Force, which built proxy regional militias, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Attacks during his watch included the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and a 1996 truck bomb targeting a U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 servicemen. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in both attacks, the NYT noted.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, 69, has headed Iran's judiciary since 2021 and carries a reputation as a hanging judge who has used the courts to suppress dissent, including a wave of executions of anti-government protest participants earlier this year. As intelligence minister during the 2009 Green Movement protests, his ministry helped crush demonstrations through imprisonment, torture and executions, the NYT reported. He has been sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union.
Hossein Taeb, 63, a Shiite cleric who ran the Basij militia and later the Guards' intelligence organization from 2009 to 2022, is notorious for crushing dissent. During his tenure, the organization imprisoned Iranian Americans and other dual nationals for ransom or exchange, according to reports by Human Rights Watch and Iranian daily Etemad cited by the NYT. He is believed to be close to Mojtaba Khamenei, having served with him in the same Habib Battalion during the Iran-Iraq war.
Mohammad Ali Jafari, 68, commanded the Guards from 2007 to 2019 and now lacks an official role. He is credited with developing the "mosaic strategy" of decentralized command that has allowed Iran's forces to keep fighting despite the deaths of many key commanders, the NYT reported. He also played a central role in building the regional proxy forces confronting Israel.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, 72, was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in March, replacing Ali Larijani, who was killed. The council formulates Iran's security and foreign policy. His appointment, the NYT noted, is a prime example of what analysts see as the fusion of military and political authority in Iran.
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