Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has replaced the longtime commander of the unit responsible for protecting the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, state-affiliated media reported on Saturday.
The move comes just two days after the militia announced it would also replace its intelligence chief, following a string of high-profile killings blamed on Israel and amid reports of thwarted Iranian revenge attacks in Turkey.
Ebrahim Jabbari, who commanded the IRGC’s Vali Amr Protection Corps since 2010, was replaced by Hasan Mashroueifar, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, citing militia spokesman Ramezan Sharif.
The unit tasked with protecting Khamenei and his family reportedly operates fairly independently.
Little is known about the new chief Mashroueifar.
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It was not clear if Jabbari would get a new role, but Tasnim reported that IRGC Chief Commander Hossein Salami presented him with a certificate of appreciation for his “valuable and hard-working service”.
This is a very significant step given the delicate role of the Vali Amr entity. Jabbari is also seen as part of the same inner circle around Mojtaba Khamenei that Taeb belonged to. Photo by Ebrahim Jabbari is below. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/3hYatedHar
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) June 25, 2022
Hossein Taeb, the former head of the intelligence organization IRGC, was replaced by Mohammad Kazemi on Thursday.
The replacement of the intelligence chief came after the assassination of a number of members of the IRGC, described as a terrorist group by Iran’s nemesis, the United States.
It also comes after Taeb was identified by Hebrew media last week as the Iranian official behind planned attacks on Israelis in Turkey. The reports, citing Israeli security officials, said Taeb was under intense pressure to carry out an attack amid growing frustration in Iran at repeated Israeli successes in penetrating Iran’s most secret organizations.
Hossein Taeb, former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence apparatus, looks on at a meeting in Tehran June 24, 2018. (Hamed Malekpour/Tasnim News/AFP)
Iran and US ally Israel have been locked in a years-long shadow war, but tensions have risen after a series of high-profile incidents that Tehran has blamed on the Jewish state.
On June 13, Ali Kamani, a member of the Guards Aerospace Division, was killed during a mission in Khomein in the central province of Markazi, the IRGC said in a statement, without specifying.
In early June, according to the state news agency IRNA, Colonel Ali Esmailzadeh, a commander of the IRGC’s external operations unit, the Quds Force, died “in an accident at his home.”
And on May 22, Guards Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, 50, was killed outside his home in the east of the Iranian capital by assailants on motorcycles who shot him five times. Iran’s state television said Khodaei was a member of the Quds Force and was “known” in Syria, where Iran admitted to using “military advisers”.
People walk past a banner depicting Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard before his funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran May 24, 2022. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
The IRGC described Khodaei as a “defender of the sanctuary,” a term used for those working on behalf of the Islamic Republic in Syria or Iraq. The IRGC accused “Zionists” of being behind the assassination and vowed revenge.
Israel last week urged its citizens to leave Turkey immediately over “possible” threats from Iranian agents.
Media in Turkey on Thursday reported the arrest of eight people allegedly working for an Iranian intelligence cell planning to kill Israeli tourists in Istanbul. An Israeli official said on Friday that the Mossad spy agency and its local counterparts managed to thwart three Iranian attacks in Istanbul in recent days.
AFP contributed to this report.
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