Khamenei’s Military Adviser Runs for Iranian Presidential Elections

Khamenei and his military advisor Hossein Dehghan. Photo: Khamenei’s website
Khamenei and his military advisor Hossein Dehghan. Photo: Khamenei’s website
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Khamenei’s Military Adviser Runs for Iranian Presidential Elections

Khamenei and his military advisor Hossein Dehghan. Photo: Khamenei’s website
Khamenei and his military advisor Hossein Dehghan. Photo: Khamenei’s website

A military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has officially announced running for the presidential elections, scheduled for June 2021.

Iranian news agencies circulated on Tuesday a video recording in which Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, a commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said he will run for the elections.

Khamenei has repeatedly stressed the importance of having a young president to run a revolutionary government.

Dehghan was the first to announce his candidacy to fill the post of the eighth Iranian president after the 1979 revolution, which toppled the Shah's regime.

The elected president will assume his duties after the incumbent’s second term ends in August 2021.

Few days before his announcement, Dehghan, who has been sanctioned by the US Treasury since November 2019, held an exclusive interview with the Associated Press in which he warned against any potential US attack on Tehran.

He said any negotiations with the West could not include Iran’s ballistic missiles, which he described as a “deterrent” to Tehran’s adversaries.

“The Iranian government will not negotiate its defensive power ... with anybody under any circumstances,” he stressed. “Missiles are a symbol of the massive potential that is in our experts, young people and industrial centers.”

Dehghan held several positions before being appointed as the Supreme Leader’s advisor for defense affairs in 2017.

He served as defense minister under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and during President Hassan Rouhani's first term (2013-17) and as deputy to the then defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 till 2003.

The senior official described himself as a “nationalist” with “no conventional political tendency.”

Among former senior IRGC commanders to run in previous presidential elections are Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, currently parliamentary speaker, and Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Expediency Council since 1997.

In the first response to Dehghan’s candidacy, former Minister of Culture and Information Ali Jannati tweeted that given the multiple problems facing the country, such as the sanctions, economic pressures and public discontent from living conditions, as well as the president’s limited powers to decide on foreign and domestic policies, “we must doubt the mental health of those who want to run for the presidential elections.”



Remains of All 10 People Killed in Alaska Plane Crash Recovered

This photo provided by the US Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (US Coast Guard via AP)
This photo provided by the US Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (US Coast Guard via AP)
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Remains of All 10 People Killed in Alaska Plane Crash Recovered

This photo provided by the US Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (US Coast Guard via AP)
This photo provided by the US Coast Guard on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, shows a small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on a flight that was bound for the hub community of Nome. (US Coast Guard via AP)

The remains of all 10 people killed when their small plane crashed into ice on the Bering Sea have been recovered, authorities said.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department made the announcement on its Facebook page Saturday afternoon. Recovery crews had been racing to recover the bodies before a winter storm was expected to hit the region.
“All ten individuals aboard the Bering Air plane have been officially brought home,” the fire department wrote in the social media post at about 3 p.m.
Crews were still working on recovering the aircraft, the fire department said.
The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. It was found the next day after an extensive search with all nine passengers and the pilot dead, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years.
The aircraft is on an ice floe that is drifting about 5 miles (8 kilometers) a day, creating difficult conditions for recovery crews, The Associated Press quoted National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy as saying during a press conference Saturday afternoon.
“Please know that we'll work diligently to determine how this happened with the ultimate goal of improving safety in Alaska and across the United States,” said Homendy.
As the community tried to process the deadly event, crews worked swiftly on unstable, slushy sea ice to recover the bodies and the wreckage. The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, with snow and winds up to 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour) expected to hit the region Saturday night, lasting into Sunday evening.
Among those killed in the crash were Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson. They had traveled to Unalakleet to service a heat recovery system vital to the community’s water plant, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
"The loss of these two incredible individuals and everyone else on board the plane will be felt all over Alaska,” David Beveridge, vice president of environmental health and engineering for the organization, said in a statement.
The pilot, 34-year-old Chad Antill of Nome, was also killed. The other victims ranged in age from 30 to 58 years old.
The flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, according to Lt. Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers.
A photo provided by the Coast Guard showed the plane’s splintered body and debris lying on the sea ice. Two people in brightly colored emergency gear circled the wreckage.