Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named a new head for the elite Revolutionary Guard, an organization Washington is looking to list as a terrorist group, state media announced Saturday.
No reason was given for the change and it was not clear if the reshuffle would affect the possible US move to pressure businesses the corps is thought to control, from construction to oil sectors. The United States accuses the Guard of responsibility for terrorist acts abroad and especially violence against American forces in Iraq.
Khamenei appointed Mohammed Ali Jafari, described only as a senior figure in the hardline force with "valuable experience and shining record," to replace General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who has led the Guards for the last decade.
The decision comes two weeks after Safavi told the local press that the Guards would retaliate against Washington's attempts to register it as terrorist.
"America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future," he was quoted as saying on August 16 by the conservative daily Kayhan. "We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them."
Safavi, meanwhile, was appointed in a separate decree as the supreme leader's top advisor.
Reshuffles of top military commanders take place with relative frequency among the other branches of the service but the Revolutionary Guards appeared to be the exception with Safavi's decade-long tenure.
The estimated 200,000-strong Revolutionary Guards answers directly to Khamenei and is seen as a defender of the clerical establishment brought to power by the 1979 Islamic revolution that swept away a pro-US regime.