Iran Appoints Mohsen Rezaei, Longtime IRGC Commander Wanted by Interpol Over 1994 AMIA Bombing, as Top Security Official
Iran has appointed Mohsen Rezaei, a veteran commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who has been wanted by Interpol for nearly two decades over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina, as secretary of the country’s highest national security body. The Iranian presidency announced the move on Sunday, August 9, 2026, placing a figure long accused of involvement in one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks in modern history at the center of Tehran’s strategic decision-making.
Rezaei, 71, takes charge of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the powerful institution that coordinates defense, foreign policy, and internal security matters. He replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who resigned and was reassigned as a political adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. The appointment marks the second leadership change at the SNSC since Israeli forces killed Ali Larijani, the previous secretary, in mid-March 2026. Larijani had emerged as a key coordinator of Iranian strategy after the death of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the opening day of the ongoing conflict between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition. Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son, assumed the supreme leadership role after being injured in the same early strikes and has remained largely out of public view.
The SNSC is formally chaired by the president but the secretary wields substantial operational influence. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office confirmed the change, with spokesman Mehdi Tabatabaei stating that Zolghadr’s resignation had paved the way for Rezaei’s elevation. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei simultaneously appointed Rezaei as one of his personal representatives on the council, citing the veteran’s “valuable experiences,” particularly his leadership during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Rezaei’s career spans the full arc of the Islamic Republic’s security establishment. Born in 1954, he joined revolutionary circles opposing the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He rose rapidly within the newly formed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was appointed its commander-in-chief in 1981 at the age of 27. He held the post for 16 years, overseeing the IRGC through nearly the entire Iran-Iraq War and transforming the force from a revolutionary militia into a powerful military, economic, and political institution. After stepping down from military command in 1997, Rezaei moved into senior political roles, serving for more than two decades as secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, running unsuccessfully for president on multiple occasions, and later acting as vice president for economic affairs under President Ebrahim Raisi from 2021 to 2023. In March 2026, shortly after Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation, Rezaei was named the new supreme leader’s military adviser.
What has drawn international attention is Rezaei’s long-standing status as a fugitive in connection with the July 18, 1994, bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. A van packed with explosives destroyed the building, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds more. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history and one of the most lethal assaults on a Jewish target outside Israel since the Holocaust.
Argentine investigators, led most prominently by the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman, concluded that the attack was ordered by senior Iranian officials and executed by Hezbollah operatives. Nisman’s 2006 indictment described a decision taken at a high-level meeting in Mashhad on August 14, 1993, by a body he termed the “Committee for Special Operations.” According to the indictment, then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave final approval. The Rafsanjani-linked Office of Intelligence and Security allegedly conceived and orchestrated the operation. Rezaei, as IRGC commander and a member of that circle, was accused of co-authoring the plan and of involvement that extended into the implementation phase.
Interpol issued a Red Notice for Rezaei’s arrest in 2007 at Argentina’s request, along with notices for several other Iranian officials and a Lebanese national. The Red Notice remains active. Over the years, Argentina has repeatedly sought to enforce it. In 2022, Buenos Aires asked Qatar to detain Rezaei during a visit, but the request went unmet. The same year, Rezaei’s public appearance at the inauguration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega prompted Argentina’s Foreign Ministry to denounce the presence of a wanted suspect as “an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims.” Iranian authorities have consistently rejected the accusations, describing them as politically motivated.
The appointment comes at a moment of intense internal and external pressure for Iran. More than five months into the conflict that began with the killing of Ali Khamenei, Tehran has conducted successive reshuffles of its military and security leadership. Ahmad Vahidi, another Iranian official subject to an Interpol Red Notice over the AMIA case, has been elevated to command of the IRGC. Analysts view the promotion of longtime hardliners such as Rezaei as a consolidation of power by the old-guard security establishment rather than any generational transition. Rezaei has also been outspoken on strategic issues, declaring in recent months that Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz is “more important than dozens of atomic bombs” and insisting that Tehran will never permit unauthorized passage through the vital waterway.
For Argentina and the families of the AMIA victims, the elevation of a Red Notice subject to one of Iran’s most powerful posts is a stark reminder that justice has remained elusive for more than three decades. Successive Argentine governments have maintained the investigation, secured judicial authorization for trials in absentia, and continued to press for the arrest of the accused. Yet none of the principal Iranian suspects has faced Argentine courts. The case has also featured prominently in broader discussions of Iranian state responsibility for terrorism and of the limits of international legal mechanisms when confronting a determined regime.
Rezaei’s return to the apex of Iran’s security apparatus underscores a consistent pattern: Tehran continues to reward and promote figures linked by foreign investigations to major attacks abroad, treating outstanding international warrants as irrelevant to domestic personnel decisions. In the context of an ongoing war that has already claimed several senior Iranian leaders, the appointment signals both continuity in hardline control and a calculated indifference to external legal pressure. Whether this move further isolates Iran diplomatically or simply reflects the internal logic of a security state under siege remains to be seen. What is clear is that the victims of the AMIA bombing and their families are once again confronted with the reality that those accused of orchestrating the attack continue to hold, and rise within, positions of power in Tehran.
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