The commander of asymmetric warfare

What happened

Ahmad Vahidi has been profiled as one of Iran’s most consequential security figures, with his career tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), intelligence work, external operations, and Iran’s regional proxy network. The profile says he was appointed deputy commander of the IRGC in December 2025 after the June 2025 Iran-Israel war, and later became IRGC commander-in-chief after the killing of Mohammad Pakpour and other senior figures in a new U.S.-Israeli war that began on February 28.

The profile argues that Vahidi’s immediate task is to keep Iran intact, preserve state endurance, and deny any clear enemy victory through asymmetric warfare and pressure around the Strait of Hormuz.

Background and earlier position

The profile traces Vahidi’s rise to the 1979 revolution and describes him as one of the founding guards of the IRGC. It links his early work to the internal-security and intelligence side of the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iran institutionalised the security and external-action structures that later underpinned its regional network.

The profile says Vahidi helped build the IRGC’s intelligence and external-operations apparatus, which later became associated with Lebanon-based resistance and with the de facto external arm of the IRGC, the Quds Force. The profile places his later leadership in the lineage that also runs through Qassem Soleimani and the broader idea of an Iranian “Axis of Resistance”.