Pakistan says it briefed Iran on defense pact with Saudi Arabia, Turkey
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday and outlined a recently signed defense agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said.
Dar underscored the agreement’s objectives of “strengthening strategic cooperation and contributing to regional peace and security,” the ministry said.
The two ministers also discussed regional and international developments, including the evolving situation in the region and efforts to promote peace and stability, the ministry added.
Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council on August 9, 2026.
Mohsen Rezaei, whose four decades in Iran’s ruling establishment span the disputed Karbala-4 offensive, repeated failed presidential campaigns and an Interpol Red Notice over the AMIA bombing, returned to a top security post on Sunday.
The 71-year-old former commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council after Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr resigned little more than four months into the job.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei separately appointed Rezaei as his representative on the council, consolidating his position in a body central to decisions on war, diplomacy and Iran's confrontation with the United States.
The appointment adds another chapter to a career spanning command of the Revolutionary Guards through most of the Iran-Iraq war, decades in senior political institutions and four attempts to become president.
It also returns to prominence a figure whose record encompasses one of Iran's most disputed wartime operations, an Interpol Red Notice over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina and years as a recurring subject of satire among Iranians online.
From Islamist militant to Guards commander
Born Mohsen Sabzevar Rezaei Mir-Ghaed in 1954, Rezaei became involved before the 1979 revolution with Mansouroun, an armed Islamist organization opposed to the monarchy.
Following the revolution, Mansouroun and six other Islamist organizations joined to form the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization.
Rezaei's ascent through the new political order was rapid. Ruhollah Khomeini appointed him commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards in 1981, when Rezaei was 27 and Iran was a year into its war with Iraq.
He remained in command until 1997, overseeing the Guards for almost the entire eight-year war and during its transformation from an armed organization into one of Iran's principal centers of military power.
Mohsen Rezaei (second from left) alongside Ali Khamenei (center) during the Iran-Iraq War.
Rezaei left military command in 1997 and moved into the Expediency Council, becoming its longtime secretary. He later served as vice president for economic affairs under President Ebrahim Raisi.
Politics did not deliver the electoral success he sought.
Rezaei entered presidential contests repeatedly, running in 2005 before withdrawing shortly before voting, and contesting elections in 2009, 2013 and 2021 without winning. His repeated appearances on presidential ballots eventually generated a running joke on Persian-language social media that wherever an election was taking place, Rezaei would inevitably become a candidate.
Mohsen Rezaei displays his identification document and inked finger as he registers to run in Iran’s presidential election.
Karbala-4 and a dispute that followed him for decades
No episode of Rezaei's military career has generated more lasting controversy inside Iran than Operation Karbala-4, launched against Iraqi forces in December 1986.
Rezaei was commander of the Revolutionary Guards when Iranian forces embarked on the operation. Accounts from commanders and participants later indicated that Iraqi forces had obtained advance knowledge of the offensive.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who commanded Iran's war effort at the political level, later recalled learning shortly before the operation that it had been compromised.
Precise casualty figures remain disputed. Rafsanjani's wartime accounts put the toll at around 1,000 killed, 3,900 missing and 11,000 wounded.
The operation acquired renewed public significance decades later, particularly after the remains of 175 Iranian combat divers were returned to Iran in 2015.
File photo of Iranian forces preparing for Operation Karbala-4 during the Iran-Iraq War.
Rezaei reopened the controversy in 2018 when he wrote that Karbala-4 had been conducted to deceive Iraq before Iran launched the larger Karbala-5 offensive days later.
The description prompted criticism from veterans, former officials and military figures who argued that Karbala-4 had been designed as a genuine major offensive rather than a diversion.
Rezaei later clarified his remarks, saying Karbala-4 had indeed begun as a main operation but had subsequently been turned into a deception after the decision was made to withdraw.
An audio recording of Rezaei speaking to division commander Hossein Kharrazi during the opening phase also attracted attention because Rezaei could be heard instructing forces to continue advancing.
For critics, the episode became a wider argument over wartime accountability: whether commanders persisted with an operation despite evidence that Iraqi forces were prepared for it, and whether the later characterization of it as deception obscured the original plan.
Wanted in Argentina over AMIA bombing
Rezaei's years commanding the Guards also left him facing an international arrest request.
Argentina has sought him in connection with the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds.
Interpol's Executive Committee approved a Red Notice for Rezaei and five other suspects in 2007 following a request from Argentina. Its General Assembly upheld the decision later that year.
Argentine authorities say Rezaei participated in a meeting at which the attack was decided. Rezaei and Iran have rejected Iranian responsibility.
His international travel has periodically revived the dispute. Argentina sought his arrest when he visited Qatar in 2022, without success.
Hostages for billions
Rezaei's public comments have also periodically generated controversy at home.
In 2015, he suggested that if the United States attacked Iran, Iranian forces could capture at least 1,000 Americans in the first week and demand billions of dollars for each one's release.
Mohsen Rezaei holds a banknote during a televised debate in Iran.
The proceeds, he suggested, could solve Iran's economic problems.
Such remarks, combined with his unsuccessful presidential campaigns and frequent television appearances, helped create a second public persona far removed from the image of the young wartime commander.
For some users on Persian-language social media, Rezaei became a stock character for political jokes.
That response resurfaced when Mojtaba Khamenei appointed him military adviser following the 2026 war. Users mocked everything from his return to office to the positioning of his belt buckle, which has itself become a longstanding internet meme.
Appointment revives criticism and ridicule online
Rezaei’s return to a senior security position prompted criticism and satire on X, where Iranian users revisited his wartime record, repeated presidential campaigns and controversial public remarks.
“Is Mohsen Rezaei’s military record, particularly during the war with Iraq, really defensible?” one user wrote. “Where does this extraordinary desire come from? From calling the Karbala-4 failure a deception operation, or from his idea of taking hostages to make money?”
Another user invoked the casualties of Karbala-4 more directly.
“Do you know that a huge number of young people in Operation Karbala-4 never saw the next morning?” the user wrote. “Yes, guess who the commander was. That’s right, Mohsen Rezaei.”
Some users instead interpreted the appointment through Iran’s internal power struggles.
One argued that the Revolutionary Guards had gained influence during the war while technocrats controlled the government, leaving the clergy with diminished power. The user portrayed Rezaei, a veteran Guards commander long removed from operational command, as a possible vehicle for restoring some of that influence.
Another suggested Rezaei’s appointment could strengthen parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, himself a former senior Guards commander.
Other posts sought to connect the reshuffle to reports of friction involving President Masoud Pezeshkian, with one user asking whether Rezaei’s appointment made previous reports about the president considering resignation more credible.
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, speaks at an event.
Speculation over Pezeshkian’s position had begun before Rezaei’s appointment.
Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, secretary-general of the Hezbollah of Iran political group, predicted the security council reshuffle in remarks circulated widely on social media, portraying it as part of an effort to constrain President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Kharrazi said that Pezeshkian had resigned or threatened to resign 28 times and that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had grown frustrated with him and warned that another resignation would be accepted.
“That is why they are changing the Supreme National Security Council, moving Mr Zolghadr and replacing him with Mr Mohsen Rezaei,” Kharrazi said.
The prediction gained renewed attention after Zolghadr stepped down and Rezaei was appointed in his place.
Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s office have denied accounts that the president repeatedly offered or threatened to resign.
A survivor returns
Rezaei's latest promotion comes at a markedly different moment from the one in which he first accumulated power.
The Supreme National Security Council has undergone rapid leadership changes following the killing of its former secretary Ali Larijani in March and Zolghadr's brief tenure afterward.
Rezaei now takes charge as Iran confronts the consequences of war and negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz, where he has taken an uncompromising public position.
He said in July that control over the waterway was “more important than dozens of atomic bombs,” and more recently said Iran would not accept an unauthorized shipping route through the Strait.
The appointment nevertheless puts a familiar figure back at the center of the system he helped build: a commander whose career has survived military setbacks, electoral defeats, international accusations and decades of political change, and who now again occupies one of the most consequential seats in Iranian national security policy.
Award-winning Iranian photo-journalist Yalda Moayeri was sentenced to 15 years in prison on August 8, 2026
Iran marked its annual Journalists’ Day this week as reporters remained behind bars, others faced lengthy prison sentences and rights groups warned that a crackdown on independent reporting has intensified since nationwide anti-government protests erupted earlier this year.
Among those detained is photojournalist Artin Ghazanfari, who has spent nearly seven months in custody and is being held at Greater Tehran Prison despite serious health problems, according to the Defending Free Flow of Information organization (DeFFI).
Ghazanfari, a Baha’i who suffers from heart failure, high blood pressure and asthma, was arrested at his Tehran home on Jan. 18, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ said no charges against him had been disclosed.
Amirhossein Rezaei, a journalist and political science student at the University of Tehran, has meanwhile remained in temporary detention for more than three months. Security forces arrested him at his family home in Arak on May 6, according to the Hengaw rights group.
Photojournalist Yalda Moayeri said on social media this week that she had been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by Branch 29 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
Pressure persists
The cases come amid broader pressure on journalists and independent media following the anti-government protests that began in late December and spread across Iran in January.
Authorities imposed a near-total internet shutdown on Jan. 8 as the protests intensified, severely restricting journalists’ ability to report and cutting much of the country off from the outside world.
Iran ranks 177th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index, ahead of only China, North Korea and Eritrea. In March, amid war and a near-total communications blackout, CPJ said at least 15 journalists remained imprisoned in the country.
Concerns extend beyond detention itself to the conditions faced by journalists already serving prison terms.
Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh, imprisoned at Tehran’s Evin Prison, said in a recording obtained by CBS News in June that prisoners were being denied adequate medical treatment. DeFFI said Valizadeh has also been denied family visits for months.
The US government has designated Valizadeh as wrongfully detained. He was sentenced on appeal in January 2025 to 10 years in prison, according to DeFFI.
Wider crackdown
Pressure on the media predates this year’s protests and war.
DeFFI documented judicial or security measures against at least 225 journalists and media outlets in 2025, with at least 148 new cases opened during the year.
Twenty-five journalists or media managers received sentences totaling more than 30 years in prison, while eight media outlets were shut down or banned, according to the organization’s annual report.
DeFFI recorded at least 398 instances in which it said judicial or security bodies violated the rights of journalists and media organizations, including harassment, arbitrary detention, denial of access to lawyers and pressure on journalists’ families.
A large banner depicting Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and his slain father and predecessor Ali Khamenei is displayed at an event marking religious processions of Arbaeen, in Iran, Iran August 3, 2026
Mojtaba Khamenei’s continued absence from public view has created an unusual system of authority in Tehran, where decisions are made and justified through written messages attributed to him while responsibility appears dispersed across a core establishment network.
With no public appearance or clear final word from Khamenei, competing figures can interpret his intentions differently, and those with the greatest institutional and military power are best placed to turn their interpretation into policy.
Khamenei has been absent from major political and personal events since becoming supreme leader, including the funeral of his wife and the extensive ceremonies marking his father’s death.
His disappearance has produced contradictory accounts about his condition, ranging from claims that he is in good health to reports of injuries or even the loss of a limb.
Officials and media close to the establishment have meanwhile cited extraordinary security precautions to explain why neither his image nor his voice has been released.
‘In principle’
Whatever the security rationale, Iranians have little means of assessing the new leader’s condition, capabilities or views for themselves. Instead, they encounter him largely through written statements and officials explaining what he means.
The clearest example came in a message attributed to Khamenei concerning negotiations and the memorandum of understanding with the United States.
He allowed President Masoud Pezeshkian to take responsibility for negotiations and effectively permitted the agreement to be signed, while saying that “in principle” he had held a different view.
Those two words immediately became a matter of political interpretation.
The IRGC’s political deputy rejected suggestions that they meant Khamenei fundamentally opposed negotiations. “This interpretation is incorrect and does not correspond with the existing realities,” he said.
But a military adviser to Khamenei offered a different reading: “When the Leader says, ‘in principle, I held a different view,’ it means the path that Agha had in mind was better than the path taken by the Supreme National Security Council.”
The same message could therefore be presented as permission for diplomacy or evidence of reservations about it, with figures claiming proximity to Khamenei effectively speaking on his behalf.
Speaking for the leader
The same process is helping construct Khamenei’s image as a wartime leader.
Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the IRGC commander, has spoken of Khamenei’s “command and mastery” of military affairs and his management of expert meetings of the armed forces.
Supporters have also promoted the slogan “Khamenei has become young again,” presenting the succession as a renewal of leadership during war.
Such accounts give the military and security establishment an important role not merely in implementing the supreme leader’s decisions but in explaining his character, capabilities and intentions to the public.
Foreign leaders have inadvertently reinforced his position. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly said Khamenei is alive, while US President Donald Trump has described him as “definitely and 100 percent” involved in negotiations between Tehran and Washington and even raised the possibility of meeting him.
Khamenei is thus presented by his subordinates as directing military affairs and confronting Iran’s enemies, while those same enemies publicly treat him as the ultimate decision-maker — even as he remains absent from public view.
Who decides?
That absence becomes more consequential as Iran confronts the choice between continued confrontation and diplomacy.
Khamenei has apparently authorized negotiations and the signing of an agreement, but messages attributed to him have also promised vengeance. Officials advocating different courses can therefore claim to be acting in accordance with the same leader.
Iran’s military and security institutions possess both the organizational power to act during wartime and an extensive presence in the state’s decision-making and media structures.
When Khamenei’s wishes are unclear, those institutions are better positioned than advocates of compromise to determine how they are translated into policy.
Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, has called on others to follow the supreme leader’s wishes as his forces carry much of the burden of the current war. Yet precisely what those wishes are remains unclear.
Policy instead emerges through written messages, competing interpretations and repeated invocations of the leader’s authority. Successes can be attributed to his leadership, while responsibility for costly decisions and their consequences is spread across a wider network.
The less Iranians see or hear from Mojtaba Khamenei, the more they must rely on others to tell them what he thinks. As the country weighs war against diplomacy, the question is increasingly not simply what Iran’s supreme leader wants, but who gets to decide what his wishes mean.
A man looks at the packaging of red meat at a supermarket in Iran, undated file photo
Soaring food prices are reshaping what Iranian families eat, with new figures showing a steep decline in dairy consumption alongside a longer retreat from red meat as household purchasing power erodes.
Annual dairy consumption has fallen from around 130 kilograms per person in 2010 to just 40 kilograms today, according to Ali Ehsan Zafari, head of Iran's Dairy Cooperatives Union.
According to the latest figures from the Statistical Center of Iran, dairy products in July cost around 147 percent more than a year earlier.
The fall in consumption leaves Iran well below both international and regional levels. Global dairy consumption averages roughly 117–119 kilograms per person annually, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), while neighboring Turkey consumes more than 250 kilograms per capita.
At 40 kilograms, Iran's consumption is now roughly one-third of the global average.
Meat disappears
The retreat from dairy follows a longer change in Iranian diets as years of inflation and declining purchasing power have pushed households away from more expensive sources of animal protein.
FAO data show Iran's red meat supply fell to approximately 623,000 metric tons last year, around 20 percent lower than in 2024 and nearly 39 percent below its 2010 level.
Over much of that period, poultry offered families a cheaper alternative. Per capita poultry consumption has risen by roughly 40 percent since 2010, suggesting households have increasingly substituted chicken for more expensive beef and lamb.
The comparison with Turkey illustrates how differently consumption has developed across the two neighboring countries.
Poultry consumption in Turkey also rose by about 40 percent over the same period, but red meat consumption increased by 146 percent. FAO estimates put per capita red meat consumption in Turkey at roughly 3.9 times the Iranian level.
The figures do not by themselves explain the reasons for the divergence, but Iran's shift toward cheaper poultry has taken place during a prolonged erosion of household purchasing power and repeated surges in food prices.
Fewer alternatives
That substitution is becoming harder as inflation spreads across virtually every source of animal protein.
Prices of beef, lamb and chicken were all around 149 percent higher in July than a year earlier, according to the Statistical Center of Iran. Dairy prices rose by a similar 147 percent.
The latest increases follow the recent war, which added to existing inflationary pressures and accelerated price rises across basic goods.
For years, households unable to afford beef and lamb could turn to chicken. The sharp increase in poultry prices now threatens that fallback, while the collapse in dairy consumption suggests even relatively basic sources of animal protein are becoming harder for many families to afford.
The consequences are potentially significant, particularly for lower-income households and children whose diets depend on affordable sources of protein and calcium.
But the figures also point to a broader change in Iranian living standards: families are not simply paying more for the same food. They are changing what they eat, and increasingly giving up foods that were once ordinary parts of the household diet.
After years of substituting cheaper foods for more expensive ones, the narrowing range of affordable alternatives raises a more immediate question: what is left to substitute?
Mohsen Rezaei was appointed as Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s representative on Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Sunday, before being named secretary of the powerful security body.
“In view of your valuable experience, I hereby appoint you ... as my representative on the Supreme National Security Council,” Khamenei said in a decree, describing Rezaei as a veteran of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War.
Rezaei commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from 1981 to 1997, including through much of the war. He also serves as a senior military adviser to Khamenei and is a member of the Expediency Council.
Khamenei’s decree also thanked Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who had been SNSC secretary and one of the Supreme Leader’s representatives on the council, for his “tireless efforts day and night.” The decree did not say he was stepping down as SNSC secretary.
Shortly after the announcement, IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News reported, citing the president’s office, that President Masoud Pezeshkian had appointed Rezaei as SNSC secretary.
“Following Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr’s resignation as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and his acceptance of a new responsibility, Mohsen Rezaei has been appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council by decree of President Masoud Pezeshkian,” said Tabatabaei, deputy for communications and information at the president’s office.
The SNSC is Iran’s top national security body, coordinating security and foreign policy and bringing together senior political, military and intelligence officials. The president chairs the council, while the Supreme Leader appoints two representatives to it.
Zolghadr, a former senior IRGC commander, took over as SNSC secretary in March, a week after Ali Larijani was killed in US-Israeli strikes. Larijani had returned to the post in August 2025 after previously serving as secretary from 2005 to 2007 and as parliament speaker from 2008 to 2020.
Zolghadr’s resignation
The appointments followed days of reports about Zolghadr’s position.
Earlier on Sunday, Tasnim removed a report announcing Rezaei’s appointment as Khamenei’s representative on the council. The outlet did not explain the deletion. The report had said Rezaei and Saeed Jalili would serve as the Supreme Leader’s two representatives on the SNSC.
Reformist newspaper Sazandegi reported on Friday that Zolghadr had offered his resignation but Pezeshkian had asked him to remain.
A day later, Pezeshkian did not deny that Zolghadr had offered to resign, saying there were “some differences that we are trying to resolve.”
Senior cleric and Khamenei relative Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi had also said on Monday that Rezaei was set to replace Zolghadr.
