Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr is an Iranian military officer and politician, formerly among the senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, serving as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council since March 2026. He was born in 1954 in the city of Fasa in Fars Province, Iran. He completed his primary and secondary education in Lushan and Fasa, and later studied economics at the University of Tehran. In the 1970s, he was active in the armed Islamic group “Mansouroun,” and after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he joined the Revolutionary Committees and subsequently the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He later was also a member of the “Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution” organization. During the Iran–Iraq War, he served as a senior commander and became particularly known as the commander of the Ramadan Headquarters, a body established in 1983 that focused on cross-border operations and cooperation with Kurdish and Arab groups opposing the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. After the war, he continued to hold senior command positions in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including Head of the Joint Staff and Deputy Commander of the organization. He later also held political and security positions, including serving as Deputy Minister for Internal Security in the Ministry of Interior during the tenure of Mostafa Pourmohammadi. In 2021, he was appointed Secretary of the Iranian Council for Securing the Regime’s Interests, a position to which he was appointed by the council’s chairman Sadeq Amoli Larijani and with the approval of the Supreme Leader. In addition, he has been subject to international sanctions, including under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747, due to his involvement in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. In March 2026, he was appointed to serve as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council following the assassination of his predecessor, Ali Larijani.