{"id":23188,"date":"2026-08-11T17:45:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=23188"},"modified":"2026-08-11T17:45:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:45:01","slug":"trump-says-he-is-number-one-on-irans-target-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=23188","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he is &#8216;number one&#8217; on Iran&#8217;s target list"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><!----><time class=\"time\" datetime=\"Tue Aug 11 2026 07:25:36 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)\">6 hours ago<\/time><!----><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"title\"><!--[-->Iran installs new war chiefs as Tehran signals \u2018prolonged confrontation,\u2019 expert warns<!--]--><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div><!--[--><!--[--><!----><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei formally appointed six senior military commanders Monday, cementing a wartime reshuffle as Tehran rebuilds a command structure impacted by months of U.S. and Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>The appointments, announced by Khamenei\u2019s office and promoted on social media, fill posts across Iran\u2019s armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij paramilitary force, with a counterterrorism expert warning the timing and language of the decrees signal Tehran is preparing for &#8220;prolonged confrontation&#8221; and not a settlement with Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>&#8220;Strategically, the announcements made were issued in English, on X, while Iranian and Omani negotiators finalize the coordinates of a proposed shipping route through Hormuz, which is deliberate sequencing,&#8221; Dr. Omar Mohammed, director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative at George Washington University\u2019s Program on Extremism, told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>&#8220;Tehran is establishing its command structure as a fact on the ground before it signs anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>Mohammed also pointed to language in the appointment announcements blaming the deaths of predecessors on what Iran called the &#8220;Zionist-American enemy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>&#8220;That phrase, in formal state documents, codifies the United States as a co-belligerent,&#8221; Mohammed said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>Khamenei appointed Ali Abdollahi as chief of staff of the armed forces and Kioumars Heydari as his deputy. He also formally named Ahmad Vahidi commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, promoting him to the rank of major general.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>Mostafa Izadi was named deputy IRGC commander, Ali Azmaei as commander of the IRGC Navy and Hossein Taeb as commander of the Basij.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><!----><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-item-body\">\n<p>Mohammed said Vahidi was also instructed to maintain readiness for &#8220;powerful offensive operations against the enemy,&#8221; by the Supreme Leader, while Abdollahi was tasked with completing the integration of the General Staff into the Khatam al-Anbiya wartime joint command.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--]--><!--]--><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6 hours ago Iran installs new war chiefs as Tehran signals \u2018prolonged confrontation,\u2019 expert warns&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}