Iran: New chief appointed for secretive military unit

Iran Focus:

The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi appointed on Wednesday a senior commander in the Bassij as the new head of the IRGC’s secretive Ansar-ol-Mahdi Protection Corps.

The announcement was made by the state-run ISNA news agency.

The post was given to Abdol-Ali Najafi, a 45-year-old veteran IRGC Brigadier General and commander of the Bassij in Iran’s southern Fars province.

Ansar-ol-Mahdi Corps is primarily responsible for the protection of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials of the regime. But as an elite, secretive force within the IRGC, its officers are entrusted with many other special assignments, including those in the area of weapons of mass of destruction and terrorist activities beyond Iran’s borders.