Iran’s leader names new Revolutionary Guards air force chief

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 25 – Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed a veteran Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) general as the new commander of the IRGC air force, the country’s official news agency, IRNA, reported on Thursday. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 25 – Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed a veteran Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) general as the new commander of the IRGC air force, the country’s official news agency, IRNA, reported on Thursday.

Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Alireza Zahedi joined the IRGC soon after it was formed in 1979 and has been one of its top commanders since then, serving in the various branches of the elite armed force loyal to the Supreme Leader.

In July 1999, Zahedi was one of 33 top IRGC commanders who wrote an open letter to then-President Mohammad Khatami in the midst of a nationwide uprising against clerical rule, telling him to stamp out the protests with force, or they would take matters in their hands.

Zahedi replaces another IRGC general, Ahmad Kazemi, who was appointed on Saturday as the new Ground Forces commander of the Guards.

As commander of the IRGC air force, Zahedi will be in charge of the country’s ballistic missile development project, a key component of the IRGC’s “asymmetric warfare doctrine”.

The doctrine is based on two components as strategic tools in any military confrontation: the massive use of suicide operations and weapons of mass destruction. Missiles are important as means of delivery for such weapons.

In an article on August 4, Iran Focus divulged the Iranian leaders’ plans to set up a “centre for strategy” for the IRGC and Khamenei’s decision to name then-commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, General Mohammad-Ali Jaafari, as the head of a strategy centre.

The idea for the creation of the new centre came from Khamenei himself, who regularly receives the top IRGC commanders and closely follows their activities. He wanted the IRGC commanders to devise a new command structure and military strategy for the Revolutionary Guards that would give the elite military force unlimited access to national resources and absolute priority over the regular army in case of a foreign military confrontation.

Khamenei called on Jaafari to “identify and propose key individuals and scientists in the Revolutionary Guards for membership in this important centre”.