Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian Die In Helicopter Crash
State media reported that Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have died in a helicopter crash in the northwestern province of East Azarbaijan.
After a night long search, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has said that that survivors have been found at the site where the helicopter in which Raisi and Amirabdollahian along with the East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, representative of the Iranian supreme leader to East Azerbaijan were onboard crashed in northwest Iran.
“No trace of survivors has been seen after the discovery of the site of the crashed helicopter,” said Pir-Hossein Kolivand early on Monday in an interview with the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The 63-year-old conservative figure in Iranian politics, who was president for nearly three years, seemed poised to run for re-election next year.
A former chief justice, Raisi was considered a potential successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader of Iran. Born in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a religious center for Shia Muslims, Raisi pursued religious studies at the seminary in Qom, learning from prominent scholars, including Khamenei.
Like the supreme leader, Raisi wore a black turban, indicating his status as a sayyid—a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, significant among Twelver Shia Muslims. He gained experience as a prosecutor in various jurisdictions before moving to Tehran in 1985, where human rights organizations allege he was involved in overseeing executions of political prisoners.
Raisi served on the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for selecting the supreme leader”s successor. Appointed attorney general in 2014, he later led the Astan Quds Razavi, a vast charitable trust with significant assets, managing the shrine of Imam Reza.
After an unsuccessful presidential bid in 2017, Raisi was appointed head of the judiciary in 2019, portraying himself as a corruption fighter and justice defender. He became president in 2021 amid low voter turnout and the disqualification of reformist candidates, appearing to secure a strong position for re-election.
Raisi was known for his harsh rhetoric against Israel and the United States. Following the war on Gaza in October, he condemned Israel”s actions as “genocide” and promised revenge after an attack on Tehran’s consulate in Syria killed IRGC members. Iran”s retaliatory strikes on Israel, though largely intercepted, were declared a success by Raisi.
Hawkish on the 2015 nuclear deal, Raisi supported Khamenei”s “resistance” policy against severe sanctions. A close IRGC ally, he backed the “axis of resistance” groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and strongly supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his prolonged conflict against the opposition.
