The Departure or Stay of Shamkhani
The Last Moderate Left in Raisi’s Government
The Departure or Stay of Shamkhani: According to Iran Gate, following the release of unofficial news about the dismissal of Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, on some Telegram channels, the Nour News website, which is described as being close to the Secretary of this council, has denied this and stated that no decision has been made on this matter.
Contradictory news about Shamkhani’s dismissal has been published while in recent days, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence announced in a statement that Alireza Akbari, who was the Deputy of International Affairs in the Ministry of Defense during Ali Shamkhani’s tenure, is one of the most important infiltrators of the British intelligence service.
In an audio file released from Alireza Akbari, he says that interrogators accused him of receiving confidential information from Shamkhani in exchange for giving him a bottle of perfume and a shirt, and passing it to foreigners.
Alireza Akbari, whom some Iranian media call a super spy, has been sentenced to death. He has a history of working in Iranian military and security institutions and holds dual citizenship of Iran and the UK.
Nour News Denial
However, the Nour News website, which is one of the media outlets close to Ali Shamkhani, has attempted to mitigate the potential costs of Akbari’s arrest for Ali Shamkhani. In a note, while confirming the intelligence and security achievements in dealing with espionage, which was within one of the governmental agencies and in contact with various individuals, it added that this issue cannot be a reason to associate this individual’s actions with that agency or its officials.
In this note, Alireza Akbari’s name is not mentioned, but there is criticism of how he is linked to Shamkhani, and pressure groups have been accused of exploiting this issue for their political and factional goals.
In this article, Shamkhani’s political rivals are implicitly threatened, stating that there are important things to be said that will be addressed at the appropriate time.
In this writing, security agencies are also called upon to identify irresponsible individuals who create media hype to appropriate the valuable achievements of these agencies in uncovering espionage networks for their own benefit.
Ali Shamkhani, the Last Moderate
Although the exact reason for the pressures on Shamkhani or his associates is not yet clear, reports of dissatisfaction from Ayatollah Khamenei with Ali Shamkhani were published during the recent four-month protests.
In one of the confidential bulletins of the Fars News Agency, published after the agency was hacked, it was stated that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic expressed dissatisfaction with his delay and inactivity.
During the recent protests, the Nour News website occasionally published articles criticizing the harsh treatment of protesters.
In one of the analytical articles on this site, security forces were asked to differentiate between protesters and opposing movements and to resort to ‘Jihad of Explanation’ based on Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements.
The ‘Jihad of Explanation’ is a term used by the Iranian leader to persuade protesters and quickly became one of the repetitive keywords in government propaganda.
Nour News also wrote in an article that the way to eliminate the impactful advertising temptations on the minds of young people is not with batons, but through explanation and enlightenment.
Ali Shamkhani: From the IRGC to the National Security Council and Surroundings
Ali Shamkhani, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, was one of the founders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and during the war, was one of its senior commanders. Shamkhani is mentioned as one of the main liaisons between the IRGC and senior officials of the Islamic Republic, especially Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the then war commander, and Hassan Rouhani, his deputy.
At the start of the war, he commanded the IRGC in Khuzestan Province but was soon appointed as the deputy commander of the IRGC and shortly thereafter, the commander of the IRGC Ground Forces.
After the war ended, Shamkhani, by the order of Ayatollah Khamenei, who had recently become the leader, permanently left the IRGC and joined the Iranian Army as the commander of the Navy.
Shamkhani’s military rank is Admiral, equivalent to Major General in the Navy, which is the highest military rank given to Iranian military personnel by the Commander-in-Chief.
He became the Minister of Defense in Mohammad Khatami’s first cabinet in 1997. However, when, after four years, Mohammad Khatami ran for the presidential election again, Shamkhani, alongside a significant number of principlists, challenged him by running as a candidate in the election.
Despite this, when Khatami won the election again in 2001, he once more appointed Ali Shamkhani as the Minister of Defense, and he remained in this position until the end of Khatami’s government.
During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s eight-year presidency, like many other politicians close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Shamkhani was sidelined. However, after Hassan Rouhani’s victory in 2013, Shamkhani’s name resurfaced in the media, this time as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a position he attained by Rouhani’s order, replacing Saeed Jalili.
He is the fourth Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran after Hassan Rouhani, Ali Larijani, and Saeed Jalili, and has held this position since then. Before Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, this council was responsible for Iran’s nuclear negotiations with world powers, but after Rouhani’s presidency began, he assigned this mission to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the then Foreign Minister, stated that the Supreme National Security Council still determines the main strategy of the negotiations.
According to Iranian laws, the presidency of the Supreme National Security Council is held by the President. Before being appointed as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Shamkhani was the head of the council’s Defense and Security Committee for a while. In 2021, the Shamkhani family made headlines again when Iranian media reported that a cable ship belonging to Admiral Company, seized in India, was owned by the Shamkhani brothers, who are actually Ali Shamkhani’s sons.
In response to these reports, Shamkhani tweeted, without directly mentioning the seizure of the ship in India or attributing its ownership to his sons, that he would not divert his thoughts and eyes from the main enemy to the fifth column. Ali Shamkhani, referring to the wound of sanctions and addressing the internal Western sympathizers, wrote that he would sacrifice his life and reputation to heal this wound. At the end of this tweet, he also implicitly threatened his critics, writing that the untold stories will remain for later.
Iran Gate has exclusively documented a special file on Shamkhani. One of the articles published on this subject was released under the following title:
Corruptions of the Shamkhani Family Under the Protection of the Supreme National Security Council