Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is shown placing his hand over his heart in respect to the crowd during a funeral ceremony for the victims of the bombing in the city of Kerman, Iran on January 5, 2024.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is shown placing his hand over his heart in respect to the crowd during a funeral ceremony for the victims of the bombing in the city of Kerman, Iran on January 5, 2024.
Wahid Salemi/AP
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, were declared dead in a helicopter crash on Monday, Iranian state media reported.
There were other senior officials on board the helicopter, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, although no survivors had been found at the crash site as of 8 a.m. local time.
Earlier, IRNA reported that the president of the Iranian Red Crescent Society confirmed that rescue and search teams had identified Raisi’s crashed helicopter. The plane carrying Raisi, Amir Abdullahian and other senior officials crashed in a mountainous part of northwestern Iran as they were returning from an event on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan.
On Sunday, Iran’s interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, confirmed the “hard landing” of the presidential helicopter and said search and rescue operations were ongoing. According to IRNA,
“Various rescue teams are moving towards the site, but due to fog and bad weather, it may take time to reach the area. The work is under control,” Wahidi said.
“Contact has been established with (the president’s) companions, but given that the area is mountainous and it is difficult to establish contact, we hope that rescue teams will reach the site soon and give us more information,” he said.
iRNA informed of Two passengers on board the plane talked to rescue workers.
In this photo provided by Moz news agency, rescue teams are seen near the site of the crash of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan, northwestern Iran on Sunday.
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In this photo provided by Moz news agency, rescue teams are seen near the site of the crash of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan, northwestern Iran on Sunday.
Azeen Haghighi/AP
The rescue team searched extensively for the helicopter.
Twenty rescue teams, including drones and dogs, were dispatched to the scene, and the Iranian military also deployed troops to assist in the rescue effort, IRNA. couple,
Fars News Agency posted what it said video footage Rescue teams were dispatched to the area of ​​the helicopter’s “hard landing”.
Earlier in the day, the Iranian government’s posted an image Raisi sat next to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev at the inauguration of a dam on the border between the two countries.
A post on Raisi’s Instagram page asked supporters to pray for his health and that of his fellow passengers.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Said In a post on X: “We hope that Almighty God will return the venerable, respected President and his entourage to the arms of the nation.”
Khamene couple The government will continue to work amid the current situation.
Raisi was elected in 2021 and is relatively radical
A former cleric and judge, Raisi was elected president in 2021.
When he came into office, Raisi said that Iran would continue to honor its nuclear deal with the US, despite former President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the deal in 2018.
Nevertheless, Raisi is seen as more hardline than his predecessor, former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Last month, Raisi celebrated Iran’s attack on Israel after an airstrike in Damascus that killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran blamed Israel for the bombing, but Israel never claimed responsibility. Israel said it intercepted 99% of the missiles and drones fired by Iran during the retaliatory strike.
The President of Iran is the head of government, but the country is ruled by its supreme leader Khamenei.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Iran’s Supreme Leader sets national policies and oversees their implementation and also controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and police force.
Iran’s constitution dictates that if the president dies while in office, the first vice president takes over with the approval of the country’s supreme leader, Reuters reports. Then new elections should be held within 50 days.
