This month, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, made six new appointments to the regime’s military command. Yet the most glaring of these had little to do with the war with the United States.
The surprise return of hardline cleric Hossein Taeb as the commander of the Basij Organisation – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) domestic militia – was about control of Iran’s internal security apparatus. Taeb last commanded the Basij 20 years ago. His reinstatement offers a window into the core of the regime’s threat perception, and is perhaps the clearest indication yet that it fears and expects major protests.
Having demonstrated his loyalty, Taeb was invited to join the all-powerful intelligence office (etalaalat movazi) of the office of the supreme leader, where he would report directly to Khamenei himself.
The cleric has demonstrated a particular talent for sadism, distinguished by the calculated cruelty with which he has pursued those he deems enemies of the system. Joining the IRGC upon its founding in 1979, his rabid ideological dedication to Khomeinist ideology saw him quickly assigned to its counterintelligence office, where he would root out “traitors” within the system.
By the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, he had risen to head the office. However he really began to make a name for himself after the conflict when he was appointed to serve as the director of the counterintelligence office of the ministry of intelligence and security (MOIS).
Here he used his position to help Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba’s father, consolidate his power as supreme leader. He targeted Khamenei’s main rival, then Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, by investigating Rafsanjani’s son on economic corruption charges. This would result in Rafsanjani firing Taeb from MOIS, but redundancy was a blessing in disguise. It would open the door for the Sheikh to the most exclusive corridors of power: the office of the supreme leader.
Having demonstrated his loyalty, Taeb was invited to join the all-powerful intelligence office (etalaalat movazi) of the office of the supreme leader, where he would report directly to Khamenei himself. There, he was assigned a mission to work closely with Mojtaba to undermine the so-called “reformists” and the administration of Mohammad Khatami.
This period would see Mojtaba and Taeb forge a brotherhood built on blood. The two worked together to manufacture dossiers to purge those who posed a threat to the supreme leader’s reign, orchestrate the killings of opponents and engineer electoral outcomes.
Taeb returned to the IRGC in 2005 and, three years later, was appointed commander of the Basij. The timing was significant. By 2008, Khamenei and the senior IRGC command had grown increasingly concerned about the prospect of a “colour revolution” in Iran.
Taeb’s counterintelligence background, record of repression and unwavering loyalty to Khamenei made him an ideal candidate to confront that threat. Upon assuming its command, the Sheikh would fundamentally change the Basij’s modus operandi: transforming it from a force predominantly focused on street thuggery into a far more sophisticated instrument of repression, centred around ruthless intelligence and counterintelligence operations.
In 2009 when anti-regime unrest rocked the Islamic Republic, the Basij was perfectly positioned to spearhead the violent crackdown and outperform MOIS in intelligence-gathering operations. Taeb himself took a hands-on approach; reports at the time alleged that Taeb and Mojtaba Khamenei were directly involved in coordinating the crackdown.
As an award for his key role, Khamenei upgraded the IRGC’s intelligence office to full organisational status and appointed Taeb as its founding commander. He would go on to serve in this position for nearly 13 years.
But while the Sheikh mastered the art of brutally suppressing unarmed protests and fostering a chilling domestic atmosphere, the same cannot be said for his efforts to confront the regime’s external enemies.
But while the Sheikh mastered the art of brutally suppressing unarmed protests and fostering a chilling domestic atmosphere, the same cannot be said for his efforts to confront the regime’s external enemies.
This would be marked by successive failures: from Israel stealing secretive nuclear files from inside Iran in 2018 and the assassination of the IRGC’s chief nuclear weapons scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh to continuous botched terrorist plots against the US and Israel. In the end, despite his unwavering loyalty, these mounting counterintelligence failures were widely seen as contributing to his removal in June 2022.
Taeb would subsequently recede into the shadows, fully aware that his exile from the inner-core was unlikely to be permanent. Having spent decades cultivating his relationship with the Khamenei family, he knew that Mojtaba was being groomed eventually to assume the mantle of supreme leader. Taeb also knew that should domestic unrest once again threaten the regime, the Islamic Republic would need the particular skill set he had spent decades perfecting.
This is precisely why Taeb’s return to the Basij is anything but a normal reshuffle. It is a declaration of Mojtaba’s priorities. Even as the Islamic Republic fights an external war, its leadership appears to be preparing for another battle at home: one against a population it increasingly views as the main source of existential instability.
This is made clear in Mojtaba’s public statement outlining Taeb’s mission – which appears to be to turn Iran into a North Korean-style surveillance state. The Sheikh is tasked with forming “public intelligence networks” and equipping them with the training and technology for “grassroots confrontation with the enemy”.
The strategy is designed to stop protests at their source: deep societal surveillance that creates an atmosphere in which everyone feels watched, listened to and monitored. But Taeb’s mission extends beyond this. He is also tasked with increasing “effective engagement” with other government bodies.
Embedding the Basij more deeply across the state apparatus would not only facilitate greater coordination; it would also give Taeb greater reach into the bureaucracy itself, opening new avenues for surveillance and the identification of internal dissent. The Sheikh has also been given a mandate to expand the Basij’s international ties and promote it as a “model of popular resistance” around the world against “Zionist-American imperialism”.
Taeb’s appointment in 2008 came at a time when the regime was becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of mass unrest. His return to the Basij today has a similar rationale. The difference this time, however, is that Iran’s internal and external landscape has fundamentally shifted.
In January – weeks before the outbreak of the Iran War – the Islamic Republic experienced the most significant wave of anti-regime protests since the revolution. By its own remarkable admission, for the first time, the regime temporarily lost control of several major cities, including the capital, Tehran.
The crackdown that followed was unprecedented even by the standards of the Middle East: as many as 40,000 unarmed civilians were killed in just two days, while hundreds of thousands were and remain detained. Eight months on, the wounds remain fresh – and anger is simmering.
His task is not simply to crush the next uprising, but to prevent it from ever reaching the streets—at least for the duration of Trump’s tenure.
Against the backdrop of war with the US and Israel, the Islamic Republic cannot afford unrest on the scale of January again. Having effectively lost the ability to defend its skies, it could potentially face the scenario it fears the most: protests with air support.
The regime knows that, unlike any US president before him, Trump may be willing to pursue such a course—and he would do so with the support of many Iranian people, some of whom were openly calling for US military intervention in January. Such a scenario could bring the complete collapse of the system.
This is why Taeb is back. His task is not simply to crush the next uprising, but to prevent it from ever reaching the streets—at least for the duration of Trump’s tenure. Mass surveillance, informants and fear are the new weapons of pre-emptive repression.
Mojtaba is preparing for the next battle – and this time, he believes the enemy is at home.
