The former commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohsen Rezaei, has been named head of the country’s highest national security body, the Iranian presidency announced on Sunday.

In addition to previously leading the elite IRGC paramilitary, Rezaei, 71, is wanted on an international arrest warrant for his alleged role in one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks of recent decades, the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1994.

Rezaei is the second person tapped to head Iran’s Supreme National Security Council since Israel assassinated the powerful Iranian official Ali Larijani in mid-March, just weeks into the US-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic. Israel’s military said, upon killing Larijani, that he had served as the “de facto leader” of Iran following the killing of former supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the war’s first day.

The current supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, was injured in that same strike and has not been seen publicly since.

Rezaei’s appointment was the latest shuffle at the top for the politburo-like Supreme National Security Council, which has a range of political opinions and rivalries and is adapting to the loss of several senior officials in the war.

He replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who will become a political adviser to Khamenei.

“In light of the resignation of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr from his position as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and his........

© The Times of Israel