https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-69035051?src_origin=BBCS_BBC
Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, considered a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the border with Azerbaijan. The charred wreckage of the helicopter that crashed on Sunday, carrying Raisi and Iranian Foreign Minister and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, was found early Monday morning after a 10-hour search complicated by weather conditions.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all passengers on the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters. Raisi's death was later confirmed by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri on the social network X, and state television also reported on it.
Footage from the crash site shows that the helicopter crashed into a mountain peak; there has not yet been official information about the cause of the crash. State news agency IRNA said Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter.
First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber will serve as Iran's acting president.
Earlier, rescuers who arrived at the crash site 10 hours after the helicopter crash said that no one survived. The head of the Iranian Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, also said on television that rescuers found no signs of life at the crash site. The passengers of the helicopter were the President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Governor of the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, Malik Rahmeti, and the Ayatollah of Tabriz Province, Ali Hashim.
The helicopter crashed on Sunday in the mountains of northwestern Iran, near the borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Raisi was returning from the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, on the border with Azerbaijan, where he and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev participated in the commissioning ceremony of a dam on the border Araks River.
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