Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi, others killed in helicopter crash
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash on Monday after an hours-long search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported.
Details were contradictory at first, as media and government officials referred to it as a "hard landing" or an "incident."
Raisi had been at the inauguration of a dam on the border with Azerbaijan.
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Raisi was 63.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi attends a military parade alongside high-ranking officials and commanders during a ceremony marking the country's annual army day in Tehran on April 17, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) (Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via G
The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi, under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month.
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State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
Among the dead was Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60. The helicopter also carried the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, three crew members and a Revolutionary Guard official, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. IRNA said the crash killed eight people in all, including three crew members, aboard the Bell helicopter, which Iran purchased in the early 2000s.
A screen grab captured from a video shows from Akinci Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which participated in search and rescue operations for the helicopter carrying the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his delegation in Iran on May 20, 2024. (Photo by An
Khamenei announced Monday that Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, would serve as the country’s acting president until elections are held.
The U.S. has yet to comment publicly on Raisi's death. Ali Bagheri Kani, a nuclear negotiator for Iran, will serve as the country's acting foreign minister, state TV said.
Who was Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president?
Iran ultimately is run by its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Raisi was long seen as his protégé.
The two launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched the attack on Israel. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The monthslong security crackdown, which Raisi supported, that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part for his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
This story was reported from Detroit. The Associated Press contributed.