@jorgegarcia

‘Granular’ domestic security strategy One of the new appointments brings back a veteran intelligence figure as the head of the Basij volunteer militia, which is under the Guards’ control and was heavily involved in the brutal suppression of protests in January. Hossein Taeb – a close ally of Mojtaba Khamenei – “was a particularly controversial and divisive figure during his tenure as head of IRGC Intelligence, closely associated with the hardline security apparatus’s repression of dissent,” wrote Sina Toossi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, on X. The United States sanctioned Taeb in 2010 for his involvement in suppressing protests the previous year after a presidential election widely thought to have been rigged. His new mandate “calls for strengthening the Basij’s ‘public intelligence network,’ exploiting modern technologies, and expanding neighborhood organization” of the militia, Toossi said.

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