X/ShaykhSulaiman
New Delhi: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, 63, along with the country's foreign minister and other officials, were found dead on Monday following a helicopter crash in a foggy, mountainous region in northwest Iran, state media reported.
The crash occurs amidst ongoing instability in the Middle East, notably the Israel-Hamas conflict. Recently, under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's direction, Raisi had launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel. During his tenure, Iran enriched uranium closer to weapons-grade levels, escalating tensions with the West. Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and continued arming proxy groups in the region, such as Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
After an extensive search hampered by severe weather and heavy rainfall, the bodies were located and are now being transferred. The recovery video was shared on social media platform X by user Sulaiman Ahmed.
BREAKING: TRANSFERRING OF BODIES FROM HELICOPTER CRASH INVOLVING IRAN PRESIDENT RAISI pic.twitter.com/b8J78VC0S0
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) May 20, 2024
State TV did not provide an immediate cause for the crash, which happened in Iran's East Azerbaijan province. According to the Iranian Red Crescent, the bodies have been recovered from the crash site, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Among the deceased was Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60. The helicopter also carried the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province, other officials, and bodyguards, as reported by the state-run IRNA news agency.
Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities released drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness, suspected to be the helicopter wreckage. The coordinates in the footage placed the fire approximately 12 miles south of the Azerbaijan-Iran border on a steep mountainside.
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