State media
Helicopter accident with Iran’s president on board
The rescue teams are using sniffer dogs and drones to search for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. photo
© Uncredited/Iranian Presidency Office/AP
He is considered an arch-conservative hardliner and has been President of Iran since 2021. Now a helicopter with Ebrahim Raisi on board had to make an emergency landing. Also there: Iran’s foreign minister.
A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim According to state media reports, Raisi on board had to make an emergency landing in the west of the country on Sunday. It was initially unclear whether Raisi was injured in the accident.
According to the information, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian was also on board. Some media report a “hard landing”, others a “crash”.
According to Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi, rescue workers do not have easy access to the crash site because of the weather. There is therefore no precise information about the situation on site. There were speculations on social media that something had happened to both President Raisi and Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian.
Meeting with the President of Azerbaijan
Raisi was previously in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. There he met with the President of neighboring Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Together they inaugurated a dam.
Iran’s air force is considered to be very outdated and its modernization is making little progress in the face of strict international sanctions. Many of the planes and helicopters date from before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when the country had close relations with the United States.
Raisi was sworn in as Iran’s new president in August 2021. The 63-year-old, ultra-conservative cleric officially became the successor to Hassan Ruhani, who was no longer allowed to run after two terms in office. As the leading candidate of the political hardliners and the preferred candidate and protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raisi won the presidential election in June with almost 62 percent of the vote.
Born in 1960 in Mashad in northeastern Iran, Raisi is considered very influential within the Islamic system. He also maintains a close relationship with Supreme Leader Khamenei. Raisi worked in the judiciary for over three decades and was appointed head of the judiciary in 2019. He is said to have been responsible for numerous arrests and executions of political dissidents in his previous role as a public prosecutor. According to the constitution, Raisi is only number two in the country because Khamenei is the actual head of state and also has the final say in all strategic matters.