Report: US-sanctioned general named to lead Iran security council after Larijani

2026-03-19 - 13:13

According to a report by Iran International, Iran appointed former Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan on Thursday as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, filling the position left vacant by the killing of Ali Larijani. Dehghan, 68, is a senior military figure who rose through the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He served as commander of IRGC forces in Lebanon and Syria in the early 1980s, as commander of the IRGC Air Force between 1990 and 1992, and as head of the Defense Ministry from 2013 to 2017 under President Hassan Rouhani. The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2019 for his alleged involvement in the October 1983 bombing of the multinational force bases in Beirut, in which 241 American soldiers were killed along with dozens of additional troops, most of them French. Hossein Dehghan (Photo: Arab media) Dehghan currently serves as chairman of the Mostazafin Foundation. He will now replace Larijani as head of Iran's National Security Council.