Iran Appoints New Security Chief
Iran's Security Chief Ali Shamkhani has stepped down with President Ebrahim Raisi appointing a heavily sanctioned Revolutionary Guards commander as his replacement.
Iran's Security Chief Ali Shamkhani has stepped down with President Ebrahim Raisi appointing a heavily sanctioned Revolutionary Guards commander as his replacement.
Shamkhani, who served as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) for almost a decade, was replaced by Ali Akbar Ahmadian, an IRGC chief of the Joint Staff in the 2000s who later headed the Guards’ strategic center.
In recent months there were rumors about Shamkhani stepping aside as hardliners blamed him for failure to suppress protests. In video-taped remarks released on the internet in November, former lawmaker Hamid Rasaei, a hardliner cleric, accused him of failing to quash protests.
He will be replaced by Ahmadian, a natural born IRGC commander, designated by the UN Security Council in March 2007 and listed by the European Union in April 2007. By October same year, he was added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list of the US Department of the Treasury. He is also sanctioned by the governments of Australia and Japan.
It is unclear if Shamkhani resigned or was pushed. A long-time ally of the Supreme Leader appointed as the secretary of the SNSC in September 2013, he has been instrumental in shaping the regime’s security policies during his tenure. The rear admiral upper half (two-star general) was the only ethnic Arab Iranian in such a senior position and was active across the whole political sphere in the Islamic Republic since its establishment.
Shamkhani was engaged in an armed struggle against the Pahlavi dynasty as a member of a clandestine Islamist guerrilla group, Mansouroun, and joined the IRGC shortly after the Islamic Republic’s formation in 1979. He served as deputy commander of the Guards from 1981 to 1988 and as defense minister under two-term reformist president Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005.
Like most regime insiders, he has been dogged by scandal, including reports about Shamkhani’s sons -- Hassan and Hossein -- owning dozens of businesses, such as large shipping companies. There have also been reports about the extravagant lifestyle of his family members in Iran and abroad. Following “rumors” that even his toddler grandson has hundreds of thousands of dollars in just one bank account as well as several properties, authorities announced that the bank account was blocked. Iran International’s investigative journalist Mojtaba Pourmohsen has published several exposés about the family corruption, including his nephews Mo’ud and Naji Shamkhani.
His final legacy was the China-brokered détente with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had severed relations with the Islamic Republic in January 2016 after pro-government Iranian mobs attacked and ransacked its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad following the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric.
After Shamkhani signed the agreement to end a years-long political rift with Saudi Arabia in Beijing on March 10, he embarked on regional trips to improve strained relations with Arab neighbors. Visits to the UAE and then Iraq were part of the effort to keep up the momentum.
Journalist Ehsan Mehrabi told Iran International that the sidelining of Shamkhani is that Khamenei wanted someone with a less scandalous career for the job. He added that although Ahmadian -- the new security chief – played a key role in the Islamic Republic’s naval mining of the southern waters of Iran, he mostly kept a low political profile, hardly appearing in the media or delivering speeches.
The pundit also believes that Khamenei and Raisi may also seek to prevent Shamkhani winning any further credit for Tehran’s upcoming diplomatic gains after the restoration of ties with Riyadh, perhaps with Egypt on the agenda.
Speaking to Iran International, political commentator Morteza Kazemian suggested the new security chief will likely expand focus on the regime’s security policy to Iran’s regional proxy forces, holding views similar to those of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Forces killed by the US in Baghdad in 2020. The long-time IRGC loyalist even served as the head of the Imam Hossein University, where Iran recruits and trains Revolutionary Guards.
He is also of the opinion that Raisi assigned Ahmadian for the job under the orders of Khamenei, who recently also appointed the IRGC commander as a member of the country’s Expediency Discernment Council, an administrative assembly whose members are appointed by the Supreme Leader.
Speculation continues over whether or not the personnel change will lead to real policy shifts, some even suggesting Shamkhani might be considered for a "more important position" in Iran, especially considering a parliamentary election on the horizon. Whatever the reasons, Shamkhani’s departure may indicate the regime is heading toward an ever-more conservative direction, reshuffling anyone even deemed moderately centrist.
The new package of sanctions targets five Iranians and two entities responsible for serious human rights violations in Iran, according to the European Council.
The Council listed the Revolutionary Guards’ Cooperative Foundation, which is the body responsible for managing the IRGC’s investments and funneling money into the regime’s repression machine.
The other IRGC entity that was blacklisted was its Student Basij Organization (SBO), which acts as the IRGC’s arm in enforcing hijab and cracking down protests on university campuses. “The SBO consists of the youngest and most radical members of the Basij," the EU said, adding that during raids on a number of university campuses -- including at Sharif University, Shahid Beheshti University and Amirkabir University -- security forces, including the SBO members, used live ammunition and opened fire on students.
Furthermore, the current commander of the Tehran Police Relief Unit of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (LEF), Salman Adinehvand, was added to the EU list because his unit “was directly responsible for the violent suppression of protests in Tehran in September and October 2022, during which dozens of protestors were killed by security forces using live ammunition.”
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace (SCC), Mohammad-Amin Aghamiri, was blacklisted over the blockage of popular online news and communications platforms. The SCC, the centralized authority for policymaking in cyberspace, has also used digital technology to spy on and harass journalists and regime dissidents, the EU statement said.
Mohsen Nikvarz, the public prosecutor of Sirjan in Kerman Province, was sanctioned over the “Maryam Arvin case” -- a lawyer who was brutally arrested, gravely mistreated, and subsequently died for her activities in defense of protesters. He was also responsible for several arbitrary arrests of lawyers and death sentences in Sirjan during the 2019 protests.
Deputy Supervisor of Public Spaces of the Public Security Police Colonel Nader Moradi was put on the list for persecution and arrest of shop owners who closed their businesses and were planning on striking in protest of the death of Mahsa Amini.
The other sanctioned official was Iranian police spokesman Saeed Montazerolmahdi, who repeatedly downplayed nationwide schoolgirl poisonings by claiming the "majority" of those alleged were "not real". “His intimidating statements on monitoring, the closure of businesses and other public spaces, and the warning texts that are being sent by the authorities have a very significant repressive impact,” added the statement.
EU’s restrictive measures now apply to a total of 216 individuals and 37 entities. They consist of an asset freeze, a travel ban to the EU and a prohibition to make funds or economic resources available to those listed.
The G7 countries had already issued a tough statement in their summit in Japan on Saturday, calling on all countries to consider UN resolutions against Iranian arms transfers.
“We express our grave concern regarding Iran’s continued destabilizing activities, including the transfer of missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and related technologies to state and non-state actors and proxy groups, in breach of UNSCRs including 2231 and 2216.”
The Iranian foreign ministry appeared jittery about the G7 statement. Its spokesman on Monday unleashed a barrage of criticism and accusations against “some members” of the group that he called “colonial” powers “who for decades have projected their policies of dominance over the world and especially in our region.”
Spokesman Nasser Kanaani flatly denied that Tehran has transferred armed drones to Moscow, despite overwhelming and clear material evidence. Russia has so far used hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed killer drones against Ukraine’s civilian targets.
G7 countries also expressed deep concern over Iran’s nuclear program that gallops forward with high levels of uranium enrichment.
“We reiterate our clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon. We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s unabated escalation of its nuclear program, which has no credible civilian justification and brings it dangerously close to actual weapon-related activities,” the final communiqué said.
The G7 also accused the Islamic Republic of gross human rights violations, after unrelenting executions of dissidents and the killing of more than 500 people during protests in 2022 and jailing more than 20,000 people.
Iran’s unabated uranium enrichment, regional interventions that fuelled recent Israeli Palestinian fighting, and its provision of weapons for Russia can all add up and lead to an effort by the West to revive international sanctions against Tehran.