State Department offers $10 million for information on senior IRGC officials
Source: State Department
The US State Department is offering rewards of up to $10 million for information on a group of senior commanders in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including IRGC Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi, according to reporting by Iran International, which said the offer was publicized by the department's Rewards for Justice program.
Iran International reported that the program announced the additions on X, telling followers there were "five more chances to submit a tip" and that information on the named Iranian commanders could make a source eligible for a reward and relocation. According to that report, a poster shared by the program named Vahidi as commander of the Revolutionary Guards, alongside Ali Abdollahi, chief of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters; Sa'id Aghajani, a drone commander in the IRGC Aerospace Force; Hamidreza Lashgarian, head of the IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command; and Majid Khademi, commander of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. The Yeshiva World reported the same set of names, describing them as commanders overseeing Iran's military, aerospace, cyber and intelligence operations.
The Rewards for Justice website lists the same five officials among the "key leaders" of the IRGC and its component branches covered by a reward offer of up to $10 million. In its published notice, the State Department said the IRGC "plays a central role in Iran's use of terrorism as a key tool of Iranian statecraft," and said the force "is responsible for numerous attacks targeting Americans and U.S. facilities, including those that have killed U.S. citizens." The Hill quoted the same language from the reward notice, framing the offer as coming from the Trump administration amid the ongoing US conflict with Iran.
The latest names appear to expand an offer first publicized days earlier. The Times of Israel reported on March 13 that Washington was offering up to $10 million for information on senior Iranian military and intelligence officials, including Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and noted at the time that the reward website also listed four other officials, including the IRGC commander, without naming them or showing their photographs. Fox News reported that the earlier tranche also covered Ali Asghar Hejazi, deputy chief of staff for the Supreme Leader's Office, Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani, military adviser Yahya Rahim Safavi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni.
Fox News described Rewards for Justice as a mechanism that lets the US government pay for information helping to disrupt terrorist networks or identify people involved in attacks on Americans, and reported that officials cast the Iran offer as an effort to gather intelligence on the IRGC and its leadership. The Rewards for Justice site notes that the State Department designated the IRGC, including its Quds Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in April 2019, and that the Treasury Department had designated the group as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2017.
Vahidi is among the most heavily sanctioned figures in the Iranian system. The Times of Israel reported that Vahidi, a former head of the IRGC's extraterritorial Quds Force, was appointed IRGC chief in early March and is suspected of involvement in the 1990s bombings of the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Euronews reported that he was named the first commander of the Quds Force in 1988 and held the post until 1997, when he was succeeded by Qassem Soleimani, and that the AMIA attack killed 85 people and wounded more than 300. Israel Hayom reported that Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman concluded in 2006 that the bombing was agreed at the highest levels of the Iranian government, and that Argentine courts issued international arrest warrants naming Vahidi. United Against Nuclear Iran states that Interpol maintains a Red Notice for his arrest in connection with the case.
The offer comes during open hostilities. A Congressional Research Service report published in March said Iranian leaders, including Mojtaba Khamenei — selected on March 8 to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed on February 28 — appear to view the conflict as an existential threat to the regime. The Critical Threats Project reported that Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first statement as supreme leader, vowed Iran would extract reparations from its enemies.
Neither the reward notice nor the reporting reviewed specified what particular information Washington is seeking on the newly named commanders. Fox News reported that the department said people providing credible information may be eligible for rewards of up to $10 million. BreakFirst has not independently verified the list of officials named or the reward amounts.