Iran has appointed Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a retired brigadier general and former deputy commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the Iranian presidential office announced Tuesday.
با نظر و موافقت رهبر عالیقدر انقلاب اسلامی و با حکم رئیس جمهور محمد باقر ذوالقدر به عنوان دبیر شورای عالی امنیت ملی منصوب شد.
— سيد مهدي طباطبايي (@tabaei1356) March 24, 2026
Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy for communications at President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office, posted the announcement on X, stating the appointment was made with the consent of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Zolghadr succeeds Ali Larijani, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 17.
Zolghadr spent 16 years in IRGC command positions, first as head of the Guards’ joint staff and then as deputy commander-in-chief.
In 2005, he was named deputy interior minister for security and police under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a posting that was widely described at the time as an expansion of IRGC influence into civilian governance.
Most recently he served as secretary of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, the advisory body that mediates between branches of government and the supreme leader.
Al Jazeera‘s Tehran correspondent Ali Hashem said Zolghadr’s appointment “suggests Iran’s leadership is trying to add more military layers to the national security establishment,” adding that “whoever is sitting at the negotiation table will have to get Zolghadr’s approval before anything passes.”
That assessment carries immediate weight. The IRGC stated Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social claim of “very good and productive conversations” with Tehran “only reflects a crisis in the American position.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said “no negotiations” were under way and accused Trump of seeking “to manipulate the financial and oil markets.”
2/ No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.
— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) March 23, 2026
Larijani, 67, had been described by AFP as a potential diplomatic interlocutor given his standing as one of the most prominent non-clerical figures in Iranian politics. His replacement by a figure whose career is rooted entirely in the IRGC removes that option from the table.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since succeeding his assassinated father in early March, leaving Iran’s command structure without a visible top authority.
On Tuesday, Trump extended by five days a threatened deadline to strike Iranian power infrastructure, even as Iranian missile attacks on Tel Aviv and Gulf Arab states continued.
