Iran has named a missile expert as its defence minister in a signal to the US that it is prepared for a new round of conflict.

Mehrdad Akhlaghi, nicknamed Iran’s “Missile Man”, has been sanctioned for years by the UN, US, EU, Australia, Canada, France, Belgium, and Switzerland for his leading role in developing Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile and suspected involvement in its nuclear programme.

The Iranian parliament confirmed his nomination in a 237-15 vote, with state media billing his inaugural appearance before legislators as the world’s first image of a man who has spent his career in the shadows. Mr Akhlaghi used his first public remarks after the nomination to threaten the US.

“We have made preparations and continue our work with ease of mind,” he said to Iranian state media.

“The US president must think of getting his forces out of our region in one piece. If he drops one bomb, he must see how many of his troops he will have to evacuate horizontally.”A woman walks in front of an anti-Trump billboard in Tehran In his comments, Mr Akhlaghi pledged to put surface-to-surface and cruise missiles and air defence first, and said Iran’s first domestically-built heavy fighter jet would take to the air next year. Iranian sources said he was a close associate of Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the architect of Iran’s missile project, and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist framed as the chief of its nuclear programme.

Mr Akhlaghi, 68, replaced the interim leadership formed after his predecessor Aziz Nasirzadeh was killed by US-Israeli strikes when the war broke out in February.

A chemical engineer by training – with a degree from Tehran’s Amirkabir University and a master’s in strategic management from the military’s Malek-Ashtar University – Mr Akhlaghi is a specialist in the solid-fuel propellants that extend a missile’s range and shorten its launch time.

‘A sense of business as usual’“What the Iranian regime wants to convey is a sense of business as usual, and it wants to convey a sense of so-called victory vis-a-vis the United States, even if in real terms this so-called victory is really just rhetoric,” said Dr Lina Khatib, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House.

“With this appointment, they are trying to say ‘nothing has changed, the regime is resilient, it will survive’,” she said. “The reality will be very different, and I expect that in a next phase of US-led escalation, [Iran] is likely to see more decapitations happen of leadership.”Such rhetoric has marked the ongoing stalemate between the US and Iran, with neither side willing to capitulate to the other’s demands.

Donald Trump’s administration has begun to push for Iranian concessions on its nuclear programme. Tehran has said this is off-limits, instead asking for a complete ceasefire before further talks progress.

Mr Akhlaghi’s appointment is notable in that he has primarily risen through Iran’s defence-industrial base with expertise as an engineer, which suggests that the regime aims to prioritise rebuilding its depleted stock of weapons.

Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, urged parliament to support Mr Akhlaghi when he was nominated in early October, highlighting his extensive experience in defence production and logistics, suggesting this was a priority for the Iranian regime.

“Iran is replenishing its missile supply; it has not been able to bring them back to pre-war levels, but it has done that, and is doing that,” said Dr Khatib. But, she added, “no matter how much Iran has been able to replenish its missile capability, this is not a way up for Iran that is going to be sustainable for this regime”.

In Iran’s power structure, the defence ministry is largely a procurement and arms-production body, and Mr Akhlaghi’s new post is in many ways symbolic.

Operational command of the ballistic missiles, drones and air defences rests not with the ministry but with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the decisions with Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader, and the supreme national security council.

Despite repeated threats against the US, it is unclear where Iran stands in terms of its willingness to escalate the war.

US officials have maintained that its robust package of economic sanctions is hurting Iran and prompting its leadership to rethink the conflict.

But the Iranian regime is notoriously opaque, and experts have noted that the increasingly ideological aim of its leaders means increasing risk of unpredictable, potentially hostile actions.