When Hamas launched its cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,200 people, Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr, then Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, called it a “turning point” for Palestinians. “This operation is the starting point of the fall of the Zionist regime,” he said. The chain of events triggered by the attack has now led to a full-blown Israeli-American war on Iran. The conflict has brought the 72-year-old former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the centre of Iran’s security decision-making.
After the U.S. and Israel launched the war on February 28, by killing Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and several other leaders, Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, emerged as the face of the Iranian state and defiance. Larijani was already one of the most powerful men in the Islamic Republic. A ‘principalist’ himself who had close ties to Ali Khamenei, Larijani was an inflluential ink between Iran’s military establishment and its political class. On March 17, Larijani was assassinated by an Israeli air strike. Seven days later, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Mr. Zolqadr as Larijani’s successor. As Secretary of the Security Council, he is expected to play a significant role in key security decision-making at a time when the state is fighting a war of survival.
