(Bloomberg) – Teams search through the night for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose helicopter crashed while returning from a visit to northwestern Iran.
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State media said heavy fog in the area had made conditions difficult for search teams, but did not reveal the immediate cause of Sunday's incident. Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadri Jahromi told TVX late in the evening that there was “no new information” and that the country was facing a “difficult and complex situation.”
In a statement aired on state television, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the people to pray for Raisi's health and said the incident “will not cause any disruption to national politics.”
Raisi is an ultra-conservative cleric in his 60s who won Iran's 2021 presidential election and is seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's supreme leader.
The incident came amid turmoil in the Middle East over the war in Gaza between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. This brought Iran and Israel to the brink of full-scale conflict and led to other Tehran-backed groups, including Yemen's Houthis and Iraq's Shiite militias, attacking U.S. military bases and commercial ships in the Red Sea. .
Raisi's air fleet consisted of three helicopters carrying senior officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. Mr Amirabdollahian is believed to have been on Mr Raisi's plane at the time.
A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. is closely monitoring coverage of the incident and had no further comment. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that intelligence agencies have told him there is no evidence of wrongdoing, NBC reported.
“Very difficult” searches
Pirhossein Krivand, head of Iran's emergency medical services, told state television that the search had been underway for about 10 hours and had been “extremely difficult” due to darkness, heavy fog and rain. Earlier, Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said finding the presidential helicopter was likely to take some time due to adverse conditions.
Turkey's National Disaster Management Agency AFAD announced that Iran has requested the deployment of search and rescue helicopters with night vision capabilities. About 32 rescue and research personnel and six vehicles were also sent to Iran, AFAD said in a post on X.
Turkey's Ministry of Defense announced that it had dispatched the Akinci drone in response to a request from Iran. He also said the Cougar helicopter was on alert to be dispatched depending on weather conditions.
The European Union has launched a rapid response mapping service following a request for assistance from Iran, EU crisis management chief Janez Lenarčić said in a post on X.
Iranian television showed live footage of scores of ambulances amid heavy rain and fog. A reporter stationed near the rescue team cited difficulties in reaching the crash site, citing the muddy roads and the remoteness of the site.
The broadcast also showed pilgrims praying for Raisi at a holy site in Mashhad, the northeastern city where he was born.
According to Iranian media, Raisi's helicopter was also believed to include representatives of the governor of East Azerbaijan and the supreme leader of Tabriz city.
Both Raisi and Amirabdollahian oversaw the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia through a China-brokered agreement announced in March 2023. However, this was also a time when negotiations with world powers to revive the Iran nuclear deal and lift economic sanctions were stalled. .
Read more: Understanding the dangerous Israel-Iran conflict: QuickTake
Early Sunday morning, Raisi met with Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev and held a ceremony to inaugurate a jointly developed dam on the border between the two countries. The incident occurred while Raisi was returning from Iran's East Azerbaijan province.
Raisi's appointment comes after eight years under the government of Hassan Rouhani, a relatively moderate figure who was a key figure in the nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from in 2018.
Read more: Iran elects hardliner as nuclear talks enter critical phase
The US withdrawal from the nuclear deal empowered Iranian hardliners, who had always been critical of the deal. Raisi was sanctioned in 2019 by the Trump administration, which cited his role in a deadly crackdown on protesters claiming voter fraud a decade ago.
He has also been accused by human rights groups of involvement in mass executions of thousands of political dissidents in the late 1980s. In 2018, London-based Amnesty International announced that he was presiding over a “death commission” and called on the United Nations to investigate him for crimes against humanity.
Raisi's first vice president is Mohammad Mokber, who has represented Iran on a number of recent trips abroad and, like many Iranian officials, is subject to U.S. sanctions.
–With assistance from Omar Tamo, Dana Khraiche, Golnar Motevalli, Alex Newman, and Onur Ant.
(Updates with comment from Chuck Schumer in 7th paragraph)
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