Iranians rushed to Tehran’s city squares to mourn the death of their President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday who died after his helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountain. His death has kicked off a period of political uncertainty in Iran as well as in West Asia.
Raisi, 63, his foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and seven others died when the aircraft went down on Sunday in a remote area of northwestern Iran. The wreckage of the aircraft was only found on Monday morning.
During Raisi’s tenure, which began in 2021, Iran was rocked by mass protests, an economic crisis deepened by US sanctions engulfed the West Asian nation, and the nation had armed exchanges with arch enemy Israel.
He was very close to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran and was an ultraconservative. Khameni declared five days of mourning and said vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, would assume interim presidential duties until elections are held within 50 days.
The Iranian state media said that fresh elections will be held on June 28.
The Iranian government appointed Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri as acting foreign minister.
“The Iranian nation has lost a sincere and valuable servant,” said 85-year-old Khamenei, whom Raisi had been expected to one day succeed by many observers.
Iran’s military chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered a probe into the cause of a helicopter crash that killed the president and his entourage.
Thousands of mourners massed in central Tehran’s Valiasr Square to pay their respects to Raisi as well as to Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Raisi’s body will be first taken to Tabriz, in East Azerbaijan province, to the city of Mashhad, where he was born. A funeral procession will be held in Tehran.
Iran’s military chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered “a high-ranking committee to launch an investigation into the cause of the president’s helicopter crash”.
Global allies Russia and China and regional powers voiced their condolences, as did NATO, while the UN Security Council observed a minute of silence. India also extended its condolences and announced a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect.
Condolences also came from Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and from Syria, all members of the so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel and its allies, amid high tensions over the Gaza war.
The US also sent its condolences early Monday (local time) in a statement released by the US state department. Washington had placed Raisi, a former head of the judiciary, on its sanctions blacklist for complicity in “serious human rights violations”.
Search And Rescue Mission
Iranian authorities first raised the alarm on Sunday afternoon when they lost contact with Raisi’s helicopter as it returned from a border meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate a dam.
Only two of the convoy’s three helicopters landed in Tabriz, setting off a massive search and rescue effort, with multiple foreign governments soon offering help.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi at first spoke of a “hard landing” and urged citizens to ignore hostile foreign media channels and get their information “only from state television”.
Guards, army and police personnel joined the search as Red Crescent teams trudged up a steep hillside in the rain while rows of emergency services vehicles waited nearby.
As the sun rose Monday, rescue crews said they had located the destroyed Bell 212 helicopter, with no survivors.
State TV reported that the aircraft had “hit a mountain and disintegrated” on impact, and the Red Crescent soon confirmed that “the search operations have come to an end”.
(with inputs from AFP)
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