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The helicopter crash comes after Iran under Rais and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel last month.
The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "forced landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without giving details. Some began asking the public to pray for Rais and others on board as rescue crews raced through a foggy, rural forest where his helicopter was believed to have crashed.
The helicopter crash comes after Iran under Rais and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Meanwhile, Iran has faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women's rights — making the moment all the more sensitive for Tehran and the country's future as the Israel-Hamas war roils the East. the wider Middle.
Raisi was traveling in Iran's East Azerbaijan province. State television said the incident occurred near Jolfa, a town on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, about 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. State television later broadcast it further east near the village of Uzi, but details remained conflicting.
Traveling with Rais were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, state news agency IRNA reported. A local government official used the word "crash" to describe the incident, but he admitted to an Iranian newspaper that he had not yet reached the site.
Neither IRNA nor state television provided any information on Raisi's condition in the hours that followed. However, the extremists asked the public to pray for him. State television later broadcast images of worshipers praying at the Imam Reza shrine in the city of Mashhad, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, as well as in Qom and other places around the country.
Iran flies a variety of helicopters domestically, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely predates the Islamic Revolution of 1979. IRNA released images it described as Raisi taking off in what resembled a Bell 412 helicopter, with a blue-and-white paint scheme previously seen in photographs of published.
Who is Raisi?
Raisi, 63, is a hardliner who previously led the country's judiciary. He is seen as Khamenei's protégé and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or resignation.
Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history. Raisi has been sanctioned by the US in part for his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium to near-weapons-grade levels and thwarts international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war against Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It has also continued to arm proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have been raging for years. The most recent involved the death in 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been arrested earlier for allegedly not wearing a hijab or headscarf, as the authorities wanted. The months-long security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 arrested.
In March, a United Nations panel of inquiry found that Iran was responsible for the "physical violence" that led to Amini's death.
In a reaction to the case, the US State Department said it was "closely following reports of a possible landing of a helicopter in Iran carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister. We have no further comment at this time."
It is also learned that President Biden has returned to the White House and organized an emergency meeting after the news of the downing of the Iranian president's plane./ Pamphlet
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