Ali Shamkhani

Early Life and Military Career

Ali Shamkhani was born on 29 September 1955 in Ahvaz, in Iran's Khuzestan province, to a family of Arab origin. After finishing school he moved with his family to Los Angeles, but returned to Iran to study engineering at Shahid Chamran University in Ahvaz. Before the revolution he joined a clandestine Islamist guerrilla group that waged armed struggle against the Pahlavi monarchy, and after it he joined the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organisation.

During the Iran-Iraq War Shamkhani was deputy commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He became Minister of the Revolutionary Guards in 1988 and, after the war, commanded both the IRGC Navy and the regular Iranian Navy for eight years, holding the rank of rear admiral.

Defence Minister

From August 1997 to August 2005 Shamkhani was Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in Mohammad Khatami's government, and the first Iranian defence official to visit Saudi Arabia since the revolution. In 2004 King Fahd awarded him the Order of King Abdulaziz for his role in developing Iran's relations with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf — the first Iranian minister to receive it. He came third in the 2001 presidential election. From 2005 to 2013 he directed the Center for Strategic Studies and served as military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council

On 10 September 2013 President Hassan Rouhani appointed Shamkhani secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a post he held for nearly ten years — the second-longest tenure since 1979. He was regarded as a critic of the 2015 nuclear deal. After a US strike in Baghdad killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, in January 2020, he warned of Iranian retaliation; that month the US State Department added him to its sanctions list.

From 6 to 10 March 2023 Shamkhani led Iran's delegation in talks in Beijing with Saudi National Security Adviser Musaad Al-Aiban and signed the trilateral China-Saudi Arabia-Iran statement for Iran. He later said that five rounds of preliminary talks hosted by Iraq and Oman had laid the groundwork, that President Raisi's February visit to China had paved the way for the new negotiations, and that the dialogue had been explicit, transparent, all-inclusive and constructive; he praised China's constructive role. He stepped down in May 2023 and became political adviser to the Supreme Leader and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. The New York Times reported that his departure followed scrutiny of his ties to his former ally Alireza Akbari, executed for spying for Britain; Iranian officials gave no such explanation.

Later Years and Death

In 2025 Shamkhani helped oversee Iran's nuclear negotiations with the United States. When Israel struck Iran on 13 June 2025, his home in Tehran was hit and he was pulled from the rubble with severe injuries; Iranian media initially reported him dead before confirming that he had survived. He then became secretary of Iran's newly created Defence Council. On 28 February 2026 the Israeli military announced that Shamkhani had been killed in US and Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iranian authorities subsequently confirmed his death. He was 70.