Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has died after the helicopter carrying him crashed and other officials crashed in a mountainous and forested area of the country due to bad weather, according to a report released by Iranian state television.
The final report of the Supreme Council of the General Staff of the Armed Forces stated that the main cause of the helicopter crash was the difficult weather conditions in the region in spring.
Besides, The report also cited the sudden appearance of a thick mass of dense fog rising when the helicopter collided with the mountain.. Furthermore, no evidence of sabotage was found on parts and systems.
Raisi was killed along with seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60, in the crash in a remote mountainous area in northwestern Iran.
The helicopter was also carrying the governor of East Azerbaijan province, along with other officials and bodyguards, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported at the time of the crash.
Turkish authorities released a drone video showing a heat signature at a desert location they “suspect to be the remains of a helicopter.” The coordinates shown place the fire about 19 kilometers south of the Azerbaijan-Iran border, on the side of a steep, forested mountain.
Raisi, a hardliner, had been seen as a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and some analysts believed he could even replace the octogenarian supreme leader when the ayatollah dies or resigns.
He was the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days following the revolution.
Raisi assumed the presidency in 2021 amid low voter turnout and widespread disqualification of reformist and moderate candidates, and appeared to have secured a firm basis for re-election.
Like other senior Iranian officials, his harshest rhetoric was reserved for Israel and the United States, followed by his Western allies.
Raisi has made numerous speeches since the start of the Gaza war in October to condemn the “genocide” and “massacres” committed by Israel against the Palestinians, and called on the international community to intervene.
He vowed revenge against Israel after it demolished Tehran’s consulate building in Syria and killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals.
And he welcomed Iran’s response, which was to launch hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were shot down by a coalition of Israeli allies, but left Iran claiming overall success.
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