President Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister, others 'martyred', state media confirms

Iranian state press and officials on May 20 confirmed that President Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of his delegation were killed in the helicopter crash.

Iran’s Vice President Mohsen Mansouri confirmed to state-run that all those who were aboard the Bell 212 were 'martyred'.

According to local media, the aircraft slammed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.

The incident happened in the Dizmar forest, nestled between the cities of Varzaqan and Jolfa in East Azerbaijan province.

The officials were able to find the crash site with the help of Turkey's high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle named Akinji. It detected a hot spot believed to be the place where the helicopter crashed.

Raisi, 63, a hard-liner who formerly led the country's judiciary, is viewed as a protégé of Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after Khamenei's death or resignation.

Raisi had been on the border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan's Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan's diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran's Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.

Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. IRNA published images it described as Raisi taking off in what resembled a Bell helicopter, with a blue-and-white paint scheme previously seen in published photographs.

Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

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