A helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran and his international minister crashed on Sunday within the nation’s mountainous northwest, in line with state media, deepening the turmoil that has gripped the nation on each the worldwide and home fronts in latest months.
Mr. Raisi, 63, was touring from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a joint dam undertaking. The helicopter, carrying Mr. Raisi and Overseas Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, state media reported, crashed close to the town of Varzaghan round 1 p.m. native time, in dangerous climate and thick fog.
Search and rescue groups scoured an space of tall mountains and dense forest by rain and fog for greater than 10 hours. At one level the authorities known as off the aerial search due to the climate, dispatching on foot troopers, elite commandos of the Revolutionary Guards and 40 rescue groups to find the crash website.
Even nicely into the evening, state media had not but reported on casualties, or on the situation of the president or anybody else aboard. The reason for the crash was additionally unknown.
“There might be no disruption within the nation’s operation,” Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated in an tackle on state TV. “Senior officers are doing their work and I’ve suggested them on the required factors and all the nation’s operation will stick with it easily and orderly.”
Mr. Raisi, a conservative who violently crushed dissent, is extensively considered as a doable successor to the supreme chief. The uncertainty over his destiny comes throughout a very tumultuous interval for Iran.
Its lengthy shadow conflict with Israel burst into the open after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, setting off the conflict in Gaza and a cascade of strikes and counterstrikes throughout the area.
The hostilities turned much more pronounced after Israel performed airstrikes on a constructing within the Iranian Embassy advanced in Syria in April. Iran retaliated with its first direct assault on Israel after many years of enmity, launching greater than 300 drones and missiles towards the nation, lots of which had been shot down.
Domestically, Iran can also be going through widespread anger, with many residents calling for an finish to clerical rule. Corruption and sanctions have gutted the economic system, stoking frustrations.
Within the final two years, the nation has witnessed a home rebellion, the Iranian forex plunging to a file low, water shortages intensified by local weather change and the deadliest terrorist assault for the reason that 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic.
Supply: Iranian state and semiofficial information companies
By Charlie Good and Lauren Leatherby
If the president dies, the vice chairman takes over and elections have to be organized inside 50 days, stated Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the Worldwide Disaster Group, an unbiased battle prevention company.
That, he stated, could be “a significant problem for a rustic that’s within the midst of a extreme disaster of legitimacy at dwelling and daggers drawn with Israel and america within the area.”
Mr. Raisi is a hard-line non secular cleric who got here of age in the course of the nation’s Islamic revolution. Below Iran’s theocratic system, Mr. Raisi, as president, is the second strongest particular person in Iran’s political construction after the supreme chief, Mr. Khamenei.
After turning into president in 2021, Mr. Raisi consolidated energy and marginalized reformists who wished to defuse tensions with the West. He repeatedly stated that he pursued a coverage of “robust diplomacy,” forging nearer financial and safety ties with Russia and China.
Throughout Mr. Raisi’s tenure, Iran continued to increase its regional affect, backing proxies throughout the Center East which have performed strikes in opposition to Israel and america, in addition to advancing the nation’s nuclear program.
In the identical interval, Mr. Raisi oversaw a sweeping and lethal crackdown on home protesters, lots of them girls and younger folks, who had taken to the streets in opposition to the nation’s ruling clerics. Rights teams stated lots of of protesters had been killed by the nation’s safety forces.
Mr. Raisi has been considered as one of many front-runners to succeed Mr. Khamenei as supreme chief. One in every of his predominant rivals for that function is a son of Mr. Khamenei.
Regardless of the crash, some analysts stated they didn’t count on a significant change in Iran’s agenda overseas.
The nation’s supreme chief is answerable for setting all the nation’s insurance policies, analysts stated, whereas the president’s energy comes from enacting these selections.
“At one degree, the end result doesn’t portend a sea change in how Iran formulates and acts upon its pursuits overseas,” stated Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the Worldwide Disaster Group.
“It’s the supreme chief who makes strategic selections about international coverage, albeit knowledgeable by the views of different key stakeholders, together with the president.”
Mr. Abdollahian, the international minister, has been closely concerned in regional diplomacy with Arab nations. In latest months, he had additionally met in Qatar with leaders of the militant teams backed by Iran, together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the group that led the Oct. 7 assault in opposition to Israel.
He was additionally engaged in secret oblique talks with america, in February and in Might, in Oman to debate defusing tensions and relieving sanctions associated to Iran’s nuclear program.
Vivian Nereim contributed reporting.