The United Arab Emirates city of Dubai State media said that President Ebrahim Raisi, the foreign minister, and other people were found dead Monday morning after their helicopter crashed in a foggy, mountainous area of the northwest of the country. Raisi was 63 years old.
The crash happened while the Middle East was still in a state of chaos because of the war between Israel and Hamas. Last month, Raisi, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel using drones and missiles. Under Raisi, Iran brought uranium closer than ever to levels that could be used in weapons. This made things even worse between Iran and the West, since Tehran also gave Russia bomb-carrying drones for its war in Ukraine and armed militias across the region.
At the same time, Iran’s Shiite theocracy has been facing years of mass protests over its failing economy and women’s rights. This makes the present even more important for Tehran and the country’s future.
State TV didn’t say what caused the crash in East Azerbaijan province of Iran right away.
The governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60, and other officials and bodyguards were among the dead, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Early Monday morning, the Turkish government released what they said was drone footage of what looked like a fire in the woods that they “suspected to be helicopter wreckage.” The video shows that the fire is 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the border between Azerbaijan and Iran, on the side of a steep mountain.
The IRNA released video early Monday morning that showed what they said was the crash site. It was in a green mountain range across a steep valley. Soldiers who spoke the Azeri language said, “There it is, we found it.”
Khamenei himself told everyone to pray on Sunday night.
Khamenei spoke and the people in the mosque responded with a “amen.” “We hope that God the Almighty returns the dear president and his colleagues in full health to the arms of the nation,” he said.
The supreme leader did say, though, that the government of Iran would stick to its plans no matter what. If the president of Iran dies, the constitution says that the vice first president takes over with Khamenei’s approval. Within 50 days, there would be a new presidential election. State media said that while Raisi wasn’t there, First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber had already started getting calls from officials and foreign governments.
Raisi, a strict conservative who used to run the country’s courts, is seen as Khamenei’s protégé, and some experts think he could take over as leader after Khamenei dies or steps down.
Since Raisi died, Mojtaba Khameini, the supreme leader’s 55-year-old son, has been the only other person called into question. There are, however, concerns that this is only the third time since 1979 that the position has been given to a family member. This is especially true since the Islamic Revolution ended the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.
In the 2021 presidential election in Iran, Raisi won with the fewest votes ever cast in the country’s history. Part of the reason the U.S. sanctions Raisi is because he helped kill thousands of political prisoners at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war in 1988.
Iran now enriches uranium to levels close to those needed for weapons and makes it harder for international inspectors to do their jobs. As part of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Iran has sent a lot of drones and missiles at Israel. It has also helped Russia with its war in Ukraine. It has also kept arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
At the same time, there have been large-scale protests in the country for years. The most recent case was the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. She had been detained earlier because she wasn’t wearing a hijab (headscarf) the way the police thought she should. After the protests, there was a months-long crackdown on security that killed more than 500 people and jailed over 22,000 others.
In March, an investigation panel from the UN said that Iran was to blame for the “physical violence” that killed Amini.
Raisi is the second president of Iran to die while in office. When things were really crazy after the revolution in 1981, a bomb killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai.
