Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has appointed Ali Larijani, a senior advisor to the country’s supreme leader, as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), according to local media reports on Tuesday.

This leadership change comes in the wake of significant institutional shifts following a 12-day aerial conflict with Israel in June—one of Iran’s most serious security crises since the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

Larijani, a former member of the Revolutionary Guards, previously held the SNSC secretary post from 2005 to 2007 and later served as speaker of parliament from 2008 to 2020. He succeeds Ali Akbar Ahmadian, who was appointed to the position in 2023.

In a related move, Iran recently reactivated its wartime Defence Council—originally formed during the conflict with Iraq—to centralize military planning and strengthen the armed forces. Both the SNSC and the Defence Council operate under the authority of the president.