TEHRAN, May 20, 2024 (Net): President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi was declared dead on Monday after rescue teams found his crashed helicopter in a fog-shrouded western mountain region, sparking mourn-ing in the Islamic republic.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to assume interim duties ahead of elec-tions within 50 days.
Earlier on Monday, state TV announced that “the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom” and broadcast pictures from Raisi’s life as a voice recited the Koran.
The ultraconservative Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021, during a time that has seen Iran rocked by mass protests, economic crisis deepened by US sanctions, and armed exchanges with arch enemy Israel.
Condolences came in from Palestinian militant group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and from Syria, all members of the so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel and its allies, at a time of high Middle East tensions over the Gaza war.
Khamenei had urged Iranians Sunday, as the search was still ongoing, to “not worry” about the leader-ship of the Islamic republic, saying “there will be no disruption in the country’s work”.
Killed alongside Raisi were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, known for his fierce anti-Israel sentiment and scepticism of the West, and seven others, including the pilot, bodyguards and political and religious officials.
Iranian authorities first raised the alarm on Sunday afternoon when they lost contact with Raisi’s helicop-ter as it flew through a fog-shrouded mountain area of the Jolfa region of East Azerbaijan province.
Raisi had earlier met Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on their common border to inaugurate a dam project.
On the return trip, only two of the three helicopters in his convoy landed in the city of 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”.
Army personnel, Revolutionary Guard and police officers joined the search as Red Crescent teams walked up a hill in the fog and rain as rows of emergency services vehicles waited nearby.
Muslim faithful across the majority Shiite nation started to pray for those missing, including in mosques in Raisi’s hometown, the Shiite shrine city of Mashhad.
As the sun rose on Monday, rescue crews said they had located the destroyed aircraft with nine people on board.
State television channel IRIB reported online that the helicopter had “hit a mountain and disintegrated” on impact.
Iran’s Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Koolivand confirmed that its staff were “transferring the bodies of the martyrs to Tabriz” and that “the search operations have come to an end”.
