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As President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to resolve whether or not to increase a two-week ceasefire between the nations approaches, consideration is more and more turning to not Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, however to a shadowy Revolutionary Guard commander with an extended document of terror, repression and hardline ideology.
Ahmad Vahidi, just lately elevated to the highest of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite paramilitary pressure inside Iran’s navy, is rising as some of the highly effective males in Iran and, in response to analysts, one of many key figures probably deciding whether or not Tehran resumes combating or continues talks.
“By any commonplace, Vahidi is taken into account a radical even throughout the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s conflict machine now calls the pictures,” Lisa Daftari, overseas coverage analyst and journalist, instructed Fox Information Digital.
“Placing somebody with such a bloody and murderous document on the prime of the Revolutionary Guard Corps confirms that the regime is just not moderating below strain. Quite the opposite,” Daftari added, “it’s doubling down on males whose careers are constructed on hostage‑taking, assassinations, and home repression. By any commonplace, Vahidi is taken into account a radical even throughout the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s conflict machine now calls the pictures.”
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Why it issues: Analysts say Vahidi’s rise might form whether or not Iran strikes towards peace or deeper battle. For the U.S., meaning heightened dangers to troops, allies and world stability if a hardline determine with a historical past tied to terror networks is now serving to name the pictures in Iran.
Ahmad Vahidi, just lately elevated to the highest of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite paramilitary pressure inside Iran’s navy, is rising as some of the highly effective males in Iran. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)
Energy more and more concentrated exterior formal establishments
Vahidi’s rise comes at a second when Iran’s formal political institutions seem weaker than ever.
Specialists describe the Islamic Republic right now as a system through which casual networks and private relationships matter greater than official titles.
Benham Ben Taleblu, senior fellow on the Basis for Protection of Democracies, described Iran as “a system of males, not legal guidelines, however one whose success rested on institutionalizing their energy”, the place choices more and more movement by means of Revolutionary Guard figures slightly than the civilian authorities.
Beni Sabti, an Iran professional at Israel’s Institute for Nationwide Safety Research, mentioned Vahidi might now be much more influential than parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and even Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
“For my part, he’s extra dominant proper now, even when they’re coordinated. This isn’t a time for inside competitors,” Sabti mentioned, including that Vahidi is the one one who meets the brand new supreme chief face-to-face.
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Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Pressure, Esmail Qaani, and Iraj Masjedi, Deputy Coordinator of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Pressure, take part in a ceremony to mark the reminiscence of former IRGC commander, Hossein Salami, who’s killed in Israeli assaults, at a mosque in an IRGC organizational home complicated in Tehran, Iran, July 25, 2025. (Morteza Nikoubazl/Nur Picture)
He beforehand led the Quds Pressure earlier than Qassem Soleimani
Lengthy earlier than the world knew the title Qassem Soleimani, the longtime commander of Iran’s elite Quds Pressure who was killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike, Vahidi was one of many males who helped construct the infrastructure of Iran’s abroad terror operations.
He served as commander of the Quds Pressure within the Nineteen Nineties, earlier than Soleimani took over the elite unit answerable for overseas operations, covert motion and help for proxy teams.
Analysts say Vahidi performed a central position in constructing Iran’s community of terrorist allies throughout the Center East, particularly in Lebanon.
“Ahmad Vahidi is the embodiment of the Islamic Republic’s most militant wing,” Daftari instructed Fox Information Digital. “As Qassem Soleimani’s predecessor on the Quds Pressure, he helped construct Tehran’s terror infrastructure overseas.”
Sabti mentioned Vahidi was a part of the unique era of Iranian operatives who cast ties with militant teams in Lebanon earlier than and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Some accounts recommend he educated in camps linked to Palestinian and Lebanese factions in southern Lebanon, serving to lay the muse for Iran’s alliance with Hezbollah, Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon.
Vahidi has been linked by analysts and Western governments to among the deadliest assaults carried out by Iranian-backed networks over the previous 4 a long time.
Because the commander of the Quds Pressure from 1988 to 1998, he has been linked to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. service members, the 1996 Khobar Towers assault in Saudi Arabia, and a 2008 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.
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Iran Supreme Chief Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei receives safety from elite NOPO pressure following his father’s assassination in U.S.-Israel assault on Tehran compound Feb. 28. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)
One of many world’s most wished Iranian officers
Daftari famous that Vahidi “has been implicated by Argentine prosecutors within the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) Jewish neighborhood middle in Buenos Aires.” Eighty-five individuals had been killed within the bombing.
Argentine investigators and courts have additionally linked Vahidi to the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, though the Interpol crimson discover in opposition to him is particularly for his alleged position within the 1994 AMIA bombing.
In April, Argentina renewed consideration on him after its President Javier Milei’s authorities designated the whole Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group and singled out Vahidi by title.
In asserting the transfer, the Argentine authorities mentioned that red notices remained in place for a number of Iranian officers, “amongst them former Protection Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who was just lately appointed to guide the IRGC.”
Vahidi is below a number of layers of sanctions by each the US and the European Union. The sanctions considerably limit his potential to journey, transfer cash or do enterprise internationally.
Washington first sanctioned him in 2010 for hyperlinks to Iran’s nuclear and missile packages. Vahidi was redesignated in 2022 for “being an official of the Authorities of Iran and being answerable for or complicit in, or answerable for ordering, controlling, or in any other case directing, the fee of serious human rights abuses in opposition to individuals in Iran or Iranian residents or residents, or the members of the family of the foregoing, on or after June 12, 2009, no matter whether or not such abuses occurred in Iran.”
He was redesignated by the US in 2022 below Govt Order 13553 after Mahsa Amini’s loss of life, when he served as inside minister and oversaw the regime’s response to nationwide protests.
Vahidi was sanctioned for orchestrating web blackouts and directing Iran’s Legislation Enforcement Command, often called NAJA, in the course of the crackdown, in response to the U.S. Treasury.
The European Union first sanctioned him in 2008, and imposed parallel sanctions in 2022 over the usage of dwell ammunition, arbitrary detention of protesters and journalists, and the violent suppression of demonstrations.
Human rights teams accused Iranian authorities of utilizing dwell fireplace, mass arrests and torture in opposition to protesters, which resulted in additional than 30,000 deaths.
Yigal Carmon, founder and president of the Center East Media Analysis Institute (MEMRI) warned, “Beneath his management, extra such crimes are to be anticipated within the West in opposition to each Jews and non-Jews.”
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Iran’s Inside Minister Ahmad Vahidi briefs the media on elections in Tehran, Iran, March 4, 2024. Argentina sought the arrest of Vahidi on April 23, 2024, over his alleged involvement within the lethal 1994 bombing of Buenos Aires Jewish neighborhood middle. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Analysts say he represents the regime’s most radical faction
Specialists say Vahidi is just not merely one other hardliner, however some of the excessive figures even inside Iran’s already radical ruling elite.
Sabti is warning that Vahidi’s rising affect might make Tehran much less more likely to conform to a real ceasefire.
“He brings much more radicalization into the system and should not need to cease the conflict, as a result of it serves the pursuits of the Revolutionary Guards to proceed,” Sabti mentioned.
One of many largest considerations surrounding Vahidi is that even when Iran agrees to a ceasefire, he may even see it solely as a possibility to regroup.
That concern has taken on new urgency as Trump’s deadline approaches.
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Iranians react after a ceasefire announcement on the Enqelab sq., in Tehran, on April 8, 2026. America and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire Tuesday barely an hour earlier than U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline to obliterate the rival nation was set to run out, with Tehran to quickly reopen the very important Strait of Hormuz. (AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
If Vahidi is certainly the person more and more calling the pictures in Iran, analysts say the important thing query is just not whether or not Iran needs a ceasefire, however whether or not the Revolutionary Guard commander believes continued confrontation higher serves his pursuits.
Carmon mentioned, “Trusting him is a grave mistake. He belongs to the arduous ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ corps.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to remark.
