Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (born 23 August 1961) is an Iranian politician, pilot, and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) brigadier general, who has served as Speaker of the Parliament of Iran since 2020. As of April 2026, he has been described as handling the strategic matters of Iran.
Ghalibaf began his military career in 1980 during the Iran–Iraq War. He became chief commander of the IRGC Imam Reza Brigade in 1982, and was then chief commander of the IRGC 5th Nasr Division from 1983 to 1984. After the war, in 1994 he became Managing Director of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, a major engineering firm controlled by the IRGC. From 1997 to 2000, he was the commander of the IRGC Air Force. From 2000 to 2005, he was the chief of the Law Enforcement Force, during which time he was accused of ruthless violent suppression of protestors, arrests of intellectuals and journalists, and imposing a strict morality and hijab edict on the citizens of Iran.
In 2005, Ghalibaf was elected mayor of Tehran by the Islamic City Council of Tehran, a position that he held until 2017. While mayor, he completed numerous high-profile construction projects in Tehran, including Iran's tallest building, the Milad Tower, but was also accused of being implicated in corruption scandals including the below-market-value sale of properties in northern Tehran to regime officials. An Iranian Principlist, he was a member of the Expediency Discernment Council from 2017 to 2020.
In the 2020 Iranian legislative election, the conservative Iranian Principlists regained the majority in the legislature, and Ghalibaf was elected as the new Speaker of the Parliament of Iran. Today Ghalibaf and his family own multiple luxury apartments in Istanbul, Turkey. During the 2025–2026 Iranian protests, he called for the punishment of protestors, whom he called enemies and terrorists. He was described by Time as having a reputation for sycophancy and corruption. Ghalibaf has been a perennial candidate in the Iranian presidential elections, having stood unsuccessfully for the office four times, never garnering more than 17% of the vote.
Early life and education Ghalibaf was born on 23 August 1961 in Torqabeh, a city near Mashhad, in the province of Razavi Khorasan in north-eastern Iran. His father, Hossein Ghalibaf, was of Kurdish origin, while his mother, Kheirolnessa Boujmehrani, was of Persian origin. His mixed ancestry was typical in Khorasan, an ethnically diverse region. In 2026, the Iranian opposition media outlet IRBriefing claimed that "Ghalibaf’s mother comes from Khameneh in Iranian-Azerbaijan, the ancestral village of the now-deceased former leader Ayatollah Khamenei", although it was not verified. His early life before the revolution in 1979 was largely undocumented. His father worked as a grocer in Mashhad. He had a brother, Hassan Ghalibaf, who was killed during Iran-Iraq war.
Ghalibaf has a bachelor's degree in human geography from Tehran University, a master's in human geography from Islamic Azad University and a PhD in political geography from Tarbiat Modares University.
As a teenager in the early 1970s, Ghalibaf first showed an interest in religious politics "by attending sermons given by Imam Khamenei and other rebellious, hard-line clerics like Abdolkarim Hasheminejad at a mosque in Mashhad, in north-eastern Iran."
Military career Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps At the age of 19, Ghalibaf was one of the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces during the Iran–Iraq War. Shortly afterwards he was named commander of the . At age 22, in 1983 he was commander of the 5th Nasr Division.
After the war he was selected as Deputy Commander of the IRGC Basij Resistance Force and Troops under General Alireza Afshar. Ghalibaf became one of the senior commanders of the IRGC in later years. He received the title of Major General in 1996, after he completed a master's degree in geopolitics.
Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters From 1994 through 1997, he was head of the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which is the engineering arm of the IRGC. Under his management, the headquarters launched a railway connecting Mashhad to Sarakhs.
Revolutionary Guard Air Force In 1997, when Yahya Rahim Safavi took over as the IRGC's new commander-in-chief, Ghalibaf was named Commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He held the position until 2000.
During his tenure as Commander, there was a clash between the IRGC Air Force and the Artesh-controlled Shiraz Air Base. Brigadier General Shahram Rostami explained that, contrary to explicit orders from the Supreme Commander, the IRGC Air Force attempted to seize part of the air base, which led to a military confrontation between the two forces and the death of an Artesh soldier from the air base. Following this incident, the Judiciary and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran interrogated Rostami, but did not question Ghalibaf, who avoided accountability.
Threatening letter to President Khatami As Commander of the IRGC Air Force during the 1999 pro-democracy student protests, Ghalibaf was one of the 24 IRGC commanders who sent a threatening letter to the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, stating that if the protests were not crushed, they would take matters into their own hands. The letter received significant attention, with many interpreting it as a direct threat to the presidency of the Islamic Republic.
Chief of Police
Following the 1999 protests, he was appointed Chief of the Law Enforcement Force by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, to succeed Brigadier General Hedayat Lotfian. Ghalibaf then initiated some reforms in the forces, including dropping all lawsuits against newspapers, modernization of police equipment and the Police 110 project, establishing an emergency police telephone number.
Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Hassan Rouhani said that during the 2003 Iranian student protests and the attack on the Tarasht dormitory, Ghalibaf said: "Students should come so we can use gas to finish the job." The Kalameh website releasaed an audio recording of Ghalibaf saying: "I will 'crush' anyone who comes to the dormitory to do these things." On 5 April 2005, Ghalibaf submitted his resignation from the military positions (including the police forces) due to his intention to run for the presidency of Iran.
Suppression of protests During the 2013 presidential election debates, the issue of plainclothes officers confronting students during the 2003 Tehran unrest and the attack on the Tarasht dormitory was raised between Ghalibaf and Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani revealed Ghalibaf's intent to suppress the students, quoting him as saying: "Students should come so we can use gas to finish the job." Rouhani emphasized that a more transparent approach would be to either deny permission for protests or make the terms clear from the start.
Additionally, a 15 May 2013 report on the Kalameh website revealed an audio recording of Ghalibaf during a Supreme National Security Council meeting, where he threatened to allow law enforcement forces to enter universities and use force, stating: "I will 'crush' anyone who comes to the dormitory to do these things."
Arrest of intellectuals and journalists In 2002 and 2004, the police summoned dozens of intellectuals, journalists, political activists, news website managers, and bloggers—including figures like Aydin Aghdashloo, Houshang Golmakani, Houshang Asadi, Massoumeh Seyhoun, Bahram Beyzai, Younes Shokrkhah, Kaveh Golestan, Nasser Zarafshan, Noshabeh Amiri, Farhad Behbahani, Abbas Kosha, Hanif Mazrouei, Farid Modaresi, and Behrouz Gharibpour—to the precinct office for interrogation or temporary detention. Some, such as journalist and film critic Siamak Pourzand, were held for months. The police also provided Judge Mortazavi with a special detention center in Tehran’s Youth Square for the interrogation of the arrested individuals. Ahmad Masjed-Jamei, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, along with the Writers' Association of Iran, protested these arrests. A few weeks later, Ghalibaf publicly stated that these individuals had either acted against national security or were involved in promoting cultural vulgarity. He claimed that they had formed a widespread network to distribute obscene films, from which more than 13,000 illicit compact discs were seized.
In 2002, Ghalibaf commented on Siamak Pourzand’s arrest, stating, "Pourzand had engaged in a series of anti-cultural activities that fell outside the framework of the Islamic system. Through connections his ex-wife and daughter had with Reza Pahlavi, he had been supplying Reza Pahlavi with information from inside the country, which led to the matter being raised with Mr. Khatami, the head of the National Security Council."
During this period, the police force was portrayed by reformists as a key component of a parallel intelligence apparatus.
Moral Security Plan In October 2002, Ghalibaf announced that he would present the moral security plan and stated: "The law enforcement force, together with the elites of other institutions, is responsible for defining and explaining moral security, and for enforcing its requirements against violators. The will and orders of the Supreme Leader reflect the will of the general public."
In 2004, he commented on moral security, saying: "At times, when discussing improper hijab, the political significance of the issue may outweigh its moral significance. What I want to emphasize is that we should raise our perspective and examine the issue more thoroughly. First and foremost, we need to draw a clear distinction between proper hijab and improper hijab based on the regulations, as this is a fundamental requirement for civic life."
Mayor of Tehran
When Ghalibaf lost the 2005 presidential election, he was proposed as Mayor of Tehran along with Mohammad Aliabadi and Mohammad-Ali Najafi. On 4 September 2005, he was elected as the next Mayor by the City Council of Tehran to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who left the office after being elected president. He received 8 out of 15 votes of the council. He was reelected for a second term on 2007 after receiving 12 votes with no opponent.
According to Bloomberg, he used his position as mayor "to foster a reputation as a politician who gets things done."Defying Iran Sanctions Propels Tehran Mayor Before Vote| By Ladane Nasseri | bloomberg.com| 4 February 2013 Ghalibaf vowed to expand Tehran Metro by building a new "metro station every month". While Tehran's subway network was indeed rapidly enlarged under Ghalibaf's leadership, the breakneck speed of its expansion caused significant problems for commuters, as the "system ran out of rolling stock to adequately service the new stations." According to reports by Iranian opposition media, the subway expansion project may also have had a military dual use, allegedly serving as cover for the construction of underground bunkers for the political leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran; it was claimed that "workers who thought they were building metro tunnels for the municipality were in fact unwittingly duped into also constructing the Ayatollahs’ bunkers."
Ghalibaf's signature project as mayor of Tehran was the completion of the long stalled construction works on the skyline defining Milad Tower, which was completed within three years of Ghalibaf taking office.