A veteran of the missile industry has been named Iran’s new defense minister, replacing the previous minister killed on February 28, the first day of US and Israeli strikes against Iran.
Iranian parliamentarians on Sunday overwhelmingly approved the appointment of Mehrdad Akhlaghi Ketabchi, 68, as the country’s new defense chief.
Akhlaghi studied chemical engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology, then spent more than four decades working in Iran’s military industries, holding senior positions at the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, the Aerospace Industries Organization – which worked on missile development in cooperation with Russia, China and North Korea – and the Defense Industries Organization.
He worked with Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps widely considered the father of Iran’s missile industry.
Akhlaghi has been the subject of international sanctions since 2007 due to his involvement in Iran’s missile programs.
His appointment comes as Iran struggles to rebuild its military installations and replenish weapons lost during the war. He has pledged to bolster domestic weapons production, and his track record suggests that rebuilding Iran’s missile programs will be a priority for the department.
Iranian military spokesman Mohammad Akraminia has repeatedly asserted since late August that Iran has rebuilt its weapons manufacturing capacity, including last week when he said the country was now capable of making more weapons than “even before the war started.”
At the start of the war, the The US military said he had destroyed more than 85% of Iran’s “defense industrial base,” and President Trump had previously claimed Iran’s military capabilities have been destroyed by U.S. strikes, but experts have questioned that assessment, and Iran has demonstrated its continued ability to launch attacks on shipping in the region.
Gn world
