Sadegh Larijani, the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, appointed Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr as the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, with the approval of Khamenei and replacing Mohsen Rezaei, who resigned today.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr is one of the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards during the war years, who remained in the Revolutionary Guards after the war and was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC during the command of Yahya Rahim Safavi. Zolghadr, before the revolution, collaborated with monotheistic guerrilla groups close to the clergy, and after the revolution, he was one of the founders of the Mojahedin-e-Enqelab organization and was a member of the right wing of the organization during the internal conflicts. He was a supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and in a speech after his victory in the 2005 elections and while he was still the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC, he said in a speech: “Praise be to God, the fundamentalist forces, with their accurate and multi-layered design, were able to win the support of the majority of the people to serve them more effectively in a real and close competition.” The phrase “accurate and multi-layered design” in the words of this senior official of the Revolutionary Guards caused a great deal of controversy.
In Ahmadinejad’s government, he left the IRGC and then Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi became interior minister. But some time later, in 2007, with Khamenei’s decree, he returned to the Armed Forces and was appointed “Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces in Basij Affairs.” Zolghadr was one of the coordinators of the Jamna movement during the 2017 appointments.
In 2009, Sadegh Larijani appointed Zolghadr as his “social advisor” when he was head of the judiciary. Now this security and military figure, who has a history of working with Larijani, has been appointed by him with a higher rank than he had in the judiciary; A verdict that brought Larijani back to the media’s attention after a long period of ignorance and speculation about his resignation from the Assembly after resigning from the Guardian Council.
