Iran has handed control of its top security body to a man who has been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice for nearly two decades over the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history. Presidency spokesman Mehdi Tabatabaei announced Sunday that President Masoud Pezeshkian had appointed Mohsen Rezaei secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, following the resignation of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei separately named Rezaei his own representative on the council, giving him two seats of authority in the same body.

Rezaei has been under an Interpol Red Notice since 2007 over the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Argentine court records attribute the attack to Hezbollah operatives acting on Iranian orders, and the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman alleged in a 2006 indictment that the decision was taken at a meeting in Mashhad in August 1993. Argentine authorities have long alleged a planning role for Rezaei, who was IRGC commander at the time; he denies wrongdoing. Interpol’s General Assembly upheld the notices for Rezaei and five others at its 76th session after Argentina’s request.

Israel responded immediately. Its Foreign Ministry said Monday that the Iranian regime <cite index=”115-1″>“worships terror, rewards its architects” and elevates them to the highest levels of power.</cite>

Who he is

Rezaei, 71, commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from 1981 to 1997, through most of the Iran-Iraq war. He later spent more than two decades as secretary of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council and served as vice president for economic affairs from 2021 to 2023 under Ebrahim Raisi. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Tehran. Since March he has served as military adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as supreme leader after Ali Khamenei was killed at the outset of this year’s war. Rezaei has taken a hard line on the confrontation with Washington and voiced skepticism about negotiations.

A revolving door at the top

Rezaei is the second man to hold the post since Ali Larijani was assassinated by Israel in mid-March, during the early weeks of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran. Zolghadr had been in the job only since late March. The president formally chairs the council, but the secretary carries the greater operational influence, and no decision becomes binding until the supreme leader signs off.

Why it matters commercially

The timing is what businesses should note. Rezaei takes the post amid ongoing talks over the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has used as leverage through the months-long conflict with the United States and Israel. The secretary of the security council is the official who coordinates Iran’s negotiating posture across the presidency, the foreign ministry, the armed forces and the intelligence services. Installing a figure who has publicly doubted the value of talks changes the read on how quickly a Hormuz arrangement gets settled.

That question sits directly on top of global shipping economics. Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil moves through Hormuz, and war-risk insurance premiums for tankers in the Gulf have been the single largest swing factor in freight costs for the region this year. Every week of uncertainty over the strait is priced into charter rates, insurance and the delivered cost of crude and LNG reaching Asian and European buyers.

There is also a compliance dimension for anyone with international exposure. The IRGC, which Rezaei led for 16 years, is designated a terrorist organization by the United States. A sanctioned-entity veteran now sitting at the center of Iranian decision-making narrows the space for any commercial re-engagement with Tehran that European or Asian firms may have been contemplating as part of a settlement.

The legal reality

The Red Notice has never produced an arrest. Argentina asked Qatar to detain Rezaei during a visit in 2022 and made the same request of Nicaragua the year before, when he traveled there for President Daniel Ortega’s inauguration. Both requests failed, and more than three decades after the bombing no one has stood trial.

An Interpol notice does not compel any government to act. It is a request circulated among member states, and in Rezaei’s case it has functioned mainly as a diplomatic marker — one that now attaches to the office coordinating Iran’s negotiations with Washington.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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