Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has died after a helicopter crash at the age of 63.
Reall a helicopter carrying him and other officials crashed in a mountainous and forested area of the country in poor weather on Sunday.
However, rescuers found the crash site on Monday morning after the president and his foreign minister had been missing for more than 12 hours.
A senior Iranian official speaking to Reuters after the helicopter wreckage was found said; “President Raisi, the foreign minister, and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash.
Iran’s Mehr news agency reported “all passengers of the helicopter carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister were martyred”.
State TV said images showed it had smashed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
The helicopter crashed weeks after Iran launched a drone-and-missile attack on Israel in response to a deadly strike on its diplomatic compound in Damascus.
Hardliner Raisi became president in a historically uncompetitive election in 2021. Previously the chief justice, he oversaw a period of intensified repression of dissent in a nation convulsed by youth-led protests against clerical rule.
Raisi was the second-most powerful person in the Islamic Republic’s political structure after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.
The Iranian Constitution mandates that, in the case of the president’s death, the first vice president assumes office with the approval of the Supreme Leader.
A council consisting of the first vice president, the speaker of parliament and the head of the judiciary must arrange an election for a new president within a maximum period of 50 days.
