Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday replaced the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards force, in a surprise move at a time of mounting tension with the West.
State television said Revolutionary Guards chief General Yahya Rahim Safavi would be stepping down to become a special military adviser to Khamenei and would be replaced by fellow Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jaafari.
The move comes just two weeks after US officials said US President George W. Bush was set to issue an executive order blacklisting the force as a terror group in order to block its assets.
"Acknowledging General Safavi's 28 years of honest service in different military fields and 10 years of successful leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, I appoint you top adviser in military affairs," Khamemei said in a decree.
A separate decree read: "General Jaafari, taking into account your valuable experience and your brilliant record in the Revolutionary Guards, I appoint you as head of this revolutionary organization."
No reason was given over the reason for the switch, which was first announced on the main evening television news bulletin.
Khamenei thanked Safavi for his "valuable" service and advised his successor to highlight the "increasing progress" of the Guards.
The Guards is a force fiercely committed to defending the ideals of Iran's revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and whose influence has now extended beyond the military into politics and the economy.
Safavi explained the Guards' role in an interview last month: "We are a major offensive and defensive power in the Middle East. We have trained and equipped our forces with the latest equipment to defend our soil."
His replacement comes at a time of mounting tension with the West over the Iranian nuclear program, which Washington argues is aimed at making a nuclear weapon. Tehran insists its atomic program is peaceful.
Bush has never ruled out military action against Tehran, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned last week that Iran risked being bombed if no solution was found to the nuclear crisis.
Iran's military leaders have always warned that while Iran would never make the first attack it would launch a crushing response to any aggression against its territory.
In recent years, the Guards' influence has started to permeate all areas of Iranian society.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS