Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died after a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran, a number of information companies reported, citing Iranian state media.
Inside Minister Ahmed Vahidi instructed IRNA, Iran’s state-run information company, {that a} helicopter carrying Raisi and different senior Iranian officers was pressured to make a “laborious touchdown” on Sunday, with out offering additional particulars.
Heavy fog and dangerous climate — and finally night-time situations — prevented rescue personnel from instantly reaching the scene, which led to a number of hours of uncertainty in regards to the president’s standing. It stays unclear what brought about the crash.
Iran’s overseas minister, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, and different officers had been additionally on board the helicopter. The high-level Iranian delegation was getting back from a ceremony marking a dam opening close to Azerbaijan’s border. IRNA reported that two different helicopters carrying ministers and different officers who attended the ceremony reached their locations safely.
Iran’s vice chairman, Mohammad Mokhber, is subsequent in line for the presidency. In keeping with Al Jazeera, Mokhber will take over till new elections may be held.
Who was Ebrahim Raisi?
Iran elected Raisi, 63, in 2021 after an election that noticed the bottom voter turnout within the nation’s historical past, in response to the Related Press.
Raisi is taken into account a “hard-liner” and a “protégé” of Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the person who truly wields energy within the nation. Some analysts beforehand instructed Raisi may have changed Kahmenei after his loss of life or resignation, in response to the Related Press.
Raisi has led Iran by heightened tensions within the area, together with the battle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Iran is one in all Hamas’ major patron states, and has carried on a shadow conflict with Israel for years.
“Our coronary heart is with the Iranian nation as a good friend and brother,” Hamas mentioned in a press release on Sunday, in response to Iran’s state-run information company.
In April, Iran launched a barrage of missiles towards Israel in an unprecedented direct assault. Most of these assaults had been intercepted and in the end brought about little harm. It was a response to Israel’s assault on an Iranian consulate constructing in Damascus on April 1, which killed a number of high-level Iranian commanders.
The USA sanctioned Raisi in 2019 for human rights violations for his position within the “loss of life fee” that ordered the execution of hundreds of political prisoners within the late Nineteen Eighties.
Throughout this period, Iran subjected hundreds of political dissidents to detention services throughout the nation, executing lots of them after an order from the Supreme Chief of Iran, The USA Institute of Peace reported.
Raisi was reportedly one in all 4 members of the fee that subjected many of those prisoners to “torture and different merciless, inhuman or degrading remedy or punishment,” the report says.
Raisi has additionally supplied arms to Russia throughout its invasion of Ukraine. The Iranian-made “Shahed” drones utilized by Russian forces, as an example, have been used to hit civil and army targets in Ukraine, and have taken a toll on Ukraine’s antiaircraft protection programs.
