Iranian President Raisi’s Helicopter Crashes: Search Underway

A massive search is underway for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after his helicopter crashed on Sunday. Middle Eastern expert, Dr. Qanta Ahmed, joins LiveNOW from FOX to break down the latest.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister, and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash Monday after an hourslong search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported.

Details were contradictory at first, as media and government officials referred to it as a hard landing or an incident.

Raisi had been at the inauguration of a dam on the border with Azerbaijan.

The Crash and Its Context

The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month.

Under Raisi, Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, further escalating tensions with the West as Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and armed militia groups across the region.

State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Among the dead was Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, 60. The country’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, is set to become president.

Understanding Ebrahim Raisi

Iran ultimately is run by its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Raisi was long seen as his protégé. The two launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

Iran’s Current State

Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched the attack on Israel. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The monthslong security crackdown, which Raisi supported, that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. 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.

This story was reported from Detroit. The Associated Press contributed.

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