Hossein Jabal Amelian

Brigadier General Hossein Jabal Amelian was an IRGC officer who served as director of SPND — the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research — the classified Iranian body assessed by Western intelligence services and the IAEA as the successor to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's Amad Project for nuclear weapons research. He succeeded Reza Mozaffari Nia as SPND director. Under his leadership, SPND was assessed to have continued research relevant to nuclear weapons development, contributing to accelerating tensions with Israel and the United States that preceded the 2026 conflict. Jabal Amelian was killed on 28 February 2026 in Israeli airstrikes. His killing, alongside that of Mozaffari Nia, effectively decapitated SPND's institutional leadership.