New Delhi: Ebrahim Raisi, the eighth president of Iran was declared dead Monday after his helicopter crashed in a mountainous region in the province of East Azerbaijan Sunday afternoon.
The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Governor of the province of East Azerbaijan Malek Rahmati, and the head of Raisi’s security team Mehdi Mousavi were on board the crashed helicopter as well, according to Iranian state media.
Raisi, Amirabdollahian and Rahmati were returning to Tabriz after the inauguration of the Qiz Qalasi dam at the border with Azerbaijan earlier Sunday morning. Raisi had met with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony.
According to local media reports, the three helicopters, including the one containing Raisi, were about half hour into the flight when the president’s helicopter lost contact with the other helicopters.
The loss of contact led to an hours-long search for the helicopter. Early Monday morning Turkish authorities released drone footage of what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness — highlighting that they believed this to be the crash site of the helicopter, according to the Associated Press.
Ayatollah Khamenei had Sunday promised that there will be no disruptions in the operation of the government in Iran, in the event of president Raisi’s death.
Everyone should pray for health of President & we hope God will return him to arms of the nation pic.twitter.com/9njYc4XQ3d
— Khamenei Media (@Khamenei_m) May 19, 2024
Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office, after a bomb blast killed Mohammad Ali Rajai in 1981.
Raisi, 64, was born in the city of Mashhad and was considered to be a protégé of the Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conservative hardliner, Raisi was elected to the presidency of Iran in 2021. He was sanctioned by the US due to his involvement in the mass executions of thousands of prisoners in 1988 at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, according to media reports.
His death comes a month after the Iranian government for the first time launched loitering munitions and missiles at Israel from their own territory, in response to an Israeli strike at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus.
The situation between Tehran and Tel Aviv remains tense as the conflict in Gaza continues — now in its eighth month. Raisi’s administration also has been aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine with loitering munitions. His administration also enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons grade standards, according to media reports.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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