ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran has appointed Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a retired Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, as national security chief, succeeding the slain Ali Larijani, the presidency's office announced on Tuesday.

“With the opinion and approval of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and by decree of the President, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr was appointed as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council [SNSC]," wrote Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy director of the presidency’s communications and information department.

Zolghadr’s appointment comes a week after his predecessor Larijani was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Zolghadr is a retired commander of the IRGC. He co-headed the IRGC's educational division in the early 1980s, and later served as commander of the Irregular Warfare Headquarters and the Ramazan Headquarters. 

In 2007, he was appointed as deputy chief of general staff of Iranian Armed Forces for Basij-related affairs.

Zolghadr has also served as Iran's deputy judiciary chief for strategic affairs, a post he assumed in 2012, after two years of serving as advisor to Iran's former Chief Justice Sadeq Larijani.

Ali Larijani rose to prominence during the current war, and was labeled by Israel as Iran’s de facto leader following Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death.