Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi Died in Helicopter Crash

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border. Supreme Leader declares a 5-day mourning period. VP Mokhber is interim president until the June 28 election.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Abdollahian were killed Sunday when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed in a mountainous region in northwestern Iran near the border with Azerbaijan.

The accident happened shortly after Raisi, who is 63 years old, had a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to commission some dams. The state media initially stated that the helicopter had crash-landed due to poor visibility and later confirmed that they had crashed.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree ordering five days of mourning for Raisi and conveying his condolences to “the dear people of Iran” about Raisi’s death. The current Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has been assigned as the interim president until the elections to choose a new president on June 28th.

Raisi was a hard-line cleric who had been elected as the president of Iran in 2021 and had ensured conservative supremacy in the country. The government said that his death was not going to affect the functioning of his government.

Pakistan, India, Turkey, Russia, and China offered their condolences and the United States said Raisi has a lot of blood on his hands for human rights violations and for supporting terrorist networks in the area. Hamas and Hezbollah lauded Raisi for backing the groups.

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Following this, the search operations ceased Monday and the remains of Raisi along with other bodies were retrieved and will be taken to Tabriz on Tuesday for the funeral.