Iran’s parliament speaker emerges as key figure in war after assassinations

2026.03.20 05:50 Two men ride their motorbike past a billboard of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran. Photo: AP Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and a veteran of the Revolutionary Guards, has emerged as the highest-profile political figure in the Islamic Republic after the killing of its leaders. A pillar of the Iranian establishment for some three decades and one of the Islamic republic’s most prominent non-clerical figures, Ghalibaf, 64, now appears to be playing a key role spearheading the war effort. Whereas the son and successor of slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not appeared in public and has issued just three written statements, Ghalibaf has been unleashing regular posts on X and giving multiple interviews. “We are in an unequal war, with an asymmetrical set-up, we must do something and use equipment with our own culture, design and creativity,” he told Iranian television on Wednesday. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in 2024. Photo: Hassan Ibrahim/Lebanese Parliament via dpa In a post on X, he added that after attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure, “an eye-for-an-eye sum is in effect, and a new level of confrontation has begun”. However, possibly aware of the threat to his own security, he did not, unlike the late Larijani, appear in public at pro-government rallies last week in support of the Palestinian cause. Larijani was killed in an Israeli air strike on Monday, which followed the killing of Khamenei at the start of the war on February 28. Ghalibaf’s varied experience, which spans military and civilian life, has seen him work as commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace corps, Tehran police chief, Tehran mayor and now speaker of parliament. Known to be fiercely ambitious, he has stood for the Iranian presidency on multiple occasions but has never been successful, most notably in 2005 when the ultraconservative Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, little known at the time, took the presidency. A qualified pilot

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