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20-05-2024
TEHRAN/ TABRIZ: Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has been martyred in a helicopter crash, state media confirmed.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was also martyred in Sunday’s crash, along with several others.
The helicopter, one of three travelling in a convoy crashed in heavy fog in the north of the country.
Raisi was heading to the city of Tabriz, in the north-west of Iran, after returning from a dam opening ceremony on the Azerbaijan border.
The President was a hardline cleric close to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
An election for a new president is due to take place in the next 50 days.
Raisi’s death is a loss to ‘entire Islamic world’; Houthi group said.
Earlier, we brought you reaction from two of Iran’s proxies in the region, Hamas, in Gaza, and Hezbollah, which operates in southern Lebanon.
We’ve also been hearing from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam writes in a post on X that President Raisi’s death is “a loss not only for Iran but also for the entire Islamic world and Palestine and Gaza,” media reported.
He added that Palestinians are “in dire need of the presence of such a president who continued to defend” their right to freedom.
The Houthi rebel group considers Israel its enemy and has attacked cargo ships in the Red Sea in recent months in response to the war in Gaza.
Media has confirmed the location of the helicopter crash site to a point in the mountains 2km (1.2 miles) south west of the village of Uzi, in north-west Iran.
An image of the downed helicopter, shared by Iranian news outlet Khabar Fouri on its Telegram channel, has been geo-located by analyst Nathan Ruser of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and checked by media.
The same image has also been shared by the Tasnim news agency, which is closely affiliated to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
It’s possible to match the exact location on the hillside by contrasting the pattern of trees and the topography in the photo to satellite imagery from Google Earth (as shown in the image above).
The helicopter can be seen in the trees on an eastern slope at an elevation of about 2200m (7218ft).
As details slowly begin to emerge, Iranian state media is reporting that the helicopter that carried the president and foreign minister was a Bell 212.
It’s unclear how old the helicopter was, but this model was developed for the Canadian military in the 1960s.
(As a reminder, decades of US and international sanctions began after the Iranian revolution in 1979).
The helicopters were made by the US Company Bell Helicopter and used widely by government operators, including American law enforcement agencies and Thailand’s national police.
Iran’s navy and air force have a total of 10, according to FlightGlobal’s 2024 World Air Forces directory, but it’s unclear how many the Iranian government operates.
They can be fitted for all sorts of purposes, including carrying people and cargo, and can be fitted with weapons for combat.
State-run IRNA news agency says the helicopter carrying the president could carry six passengers and two crew. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
