Iranian President, Foreign Minister Killed in Helicopter Crash
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announces successors as condolences stream in and some inside Iran celebrate
By Laurence Norman, Sune Engel Rasmussen, Benoit Faucon, Aresu Eqbali
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, depriving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of a longtime ally as Tehran angles for regional dominance through armed militias that are fighting the U.S. and Israel.
Raisi’s death was announced early Monday, after state television reported that a helicopter carrying him and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had made a “difficult landing” in northwestern Iran. The military said the cause of the crash was under investigation. Iranian state news media said it resulted from a “technical failure.”
Khamenei announced five days of national mourning and appointed Mohammad Mokhber, first vice president, as the new interim head of the executive branch.
Ali Bagheri-Kani, who has close family ties with Khamenei and previously led Iran’s delegation in nuclear talks with the West, was appointed acting foreign minister.
Under Iran’s constitution, new presidential elections are required to take place within 50 days, and an Iranian official said Monday that the new president would get a full four-year term, rather than serving out the remainder of Raisi’s mandate, which was due to end in 2025. Authorities on Monday said elections would be held on June 28.
The deaths of Raisi, 63, and Amir-Abdollahian, 60, are unlikely to result in any significant change in the country’s foreign policy, including Tehran’s support for Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, which is fighting Israeli forces in Gaza, or in its development of its nuclear program.
But a leadership transition amid the current turmoil in the Mideast is an additional challenge for Iran to navigate.
Last week, senior U.S. and Iranian officials held talks in Oman about regional tensions and Iran’s nuclear program, according to people familiar with the meetings. It came after Iran directly attacked Israel for the first time, launching some 300 missiles and drones at the country. Most were intercepted by a U.S. and Israeli coalition in the region.
The helicopter crash did have some immediate impact on Iran’s diplomatic activity. Bagheri-Kani, who held indirect talks with U.S. officials last week mediated by Omani officials, canceled a meeting set to take place in Geneva on Wednesday with Enrique Mora, the European Union official who had chaired nuclear talks, according to a person familiar with the plans.
Iran’s neighbors and allies sent condolences to Tehran, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan declared periods of mourning. Pro-Iranian militias were quick to weigh in on the deaths, with Iran’s most powerful regional proxy, Hezbollah, praising Raisi in religious terms, calling him “a big brother, a strong supporter and a staunch defender of our issues and the nation’s issues.”
Hamas, which has received money and weapons from Iran, praised Raisi and the other officials for their support, which included Iranian praise of the terrorist group’s attack on Israel in October, which Israel said claimed nearly 1,200 lives.
“We express our shared feelings of sadness and pain with the brotherly Iranian people, and our complete solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in this painful and gravely afflicted incident, which claimed the lives of a group of the best Iranian leaders,” the group said.
Israel didn’t comment on the deaths. Iran had blamed Israel for the 2019 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the father of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. Israel neither confirmed nor denied the allegation.
The U.S., the EU, NATO and France’s Foreign Ministry all sent condolences to the victims of the crash and their families. During a nuclear conference, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, held a moment of silence for what he called the “tragic news.”
“The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. “As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Other Western officials took a different stance.
“President Raisi’s regime has murdered thousands at home, and targeted people here in Britain and across Europe,” said Britain’s Security Minister Tom Tugendhat. “I will not mourn him.”
Mohammad Mokhber, who was appointed as the new head of the executive branch, speaks during a cabinet meeting in Tehran.
Some Iranians expressed grief at the death of the president.
At Valiasr Square in Tehran, several thousand Islamists and government supporters voiced determination to remain loyal to the system and said they weren’t concerned about the country’s fate with Khamenei still at the helm. Some were in tears.
“Raisi was the people’s humble servant,” said a 57-year-old teacher in Tehran. “He was a president whose car’s windows were not tinted. He frequently traveled to remote areas of the country and listened to people’s complaints and grievances.”
Others appeared jubilant, honking horns in cars with upbeat music in reaction to the news. Some of them exchanged V for victory signs with their hands, smiles on their faces. Other people appeared indifferent to the news as they went about their daily routines.
The grief that was expressed, however, paled in comparison to the response that followed a U.S. airstrike in January 2021 that killed Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s shadow wars and military expansion in the Middle East. At that time, hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned out across the country to mark his funeral. So large were the crowds that in his hometown of Kerman, more than 50 people were killed in a stampede.
In all, nine men were killed in Sunday’s helicopter crash deep in northwestern Iran, near its border with Azerbaijan. Raisi had traveled to the shared border on Sunday to inaugurate a new dam with Azerbaijan’s leader, Ilham Aliyev, and was en route to Tabriz, the largest city in northwestern Iran, at the time of the crash.
Because of the remote location of the crash site, and heavy fog that enveloped the mountainous area, search-and-rescue teams had to work through the night with drones and dogs to locate the helicopter.
A conservative cleric and for decades a confidant of Khamenei, Raisi became Iran’s eighth president in August 2021, leading a significantly harder-line government than his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani. There had been speculation that he could be a contender to become the country’s supreme leader when Khamenei, who is 85, dies.
Iran’s relations with the West soured under Raisi, who was elected with the lowest turnout in years after a raft of other contenders were excluded. His election marked the consolidation of anti-Western hard-liners in the Islamic Republic.
Under Raisi, ties with China and Russia grew much closer through Tehran’s “Look East” strategy, including the supply of weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Raisi also helped steer Iran toward a more confrontational stance with Israel.
At Home, Raisi oversaw the country’s worsening relationship with the West, as well as a harsh crackdown on civil rights at home amid the fiercest protests in decades after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022.
Decades earlier, Raisi was known for his role in a 1988 commission that condemned thousands of political prisoners to death. Later, as judiciary chief, he presided over the mass imprisonment of journalists, political activists and dual citizens, including Iranian Americans.
He had enjoyed a close relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which for more than a decade has expanded Iran’s military footprint abroad, including by propping up militias near Israel’s borders.
On the nuclear front, the Biden administration had come close to reaching a deal to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement before Raisi’s election, but the new government put talks on hold for months and then returned to the negotiating table with new demands.
Talks collapsed in 2022, ending the possibility of broad Western sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for tight but temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work.
While Khamenei has the final word on decisions over nuclear policy, Iran’s nuclear work advanced significantly after Raisi took office. Iran has now produced enough fissile material for around three nuclear weapons, experts said. Iran denies working on nuclear weapons, and U.S. officials said there is no current evidence that they are trying to build a weapon.
Few analysts expect dramatic changes to Iran’s policies on the global stage, including the nuclear issue and the war in Gaza.
Yoel Guzansky, an expert on Iran and the Arab Gulf countries at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Raisi’s death will likely have little direct impact on Iranian policy toward Israel but could embolden opposition to the regime.
“It has the potential of weakening Iran more and prompting inside and outside actors to help Iran to fail,” he said. Among the Iranian diaspora, there was largely jubilation at the death of Raisi, who had long been the nemesis of some opposition groups.
Many of the victims of the 1988 killings were linked to Mujahedin-e Khalq, an exiled Iranian opposition group. The group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, said in a statement that Raisi’s death was a “monumental and irreparable blow” to the regime.
“The curse of mothers and those seeking justice for the executed, along with the damnation of the Iranian people and history, mark the legacy of Ebrahim Raisi,” she said.
Dov Lieber and Shayndi Raice contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-president-raisi-helicopter-crash-d51329d7
