DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister were found dead Monday hours after their helicopter crashed in fog, leaving the Islamic Republic without two key leaders as extraordinary tensions grip the wider Middle East.
On his social media account, Kansas U.S. Senator Roger Marshall wrote, "Reminder: Raisi, the President of the Iranian terrorist regime was pure evil. He has the blood of innocent people on his hands. No sympathy from me."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker and insisted the government was in control, but the deaths marked yet another blow to a country beset by pressures at home and abroad.
Iran has offered no cause for the crash nor suggested sabotage brought down the helicopter, which fell in mountainous terrain in a sudden, intense fog.
In Tehran, Iran’s capital, businesses were open and children attended school Monday. However, there was a noticeable presence of both uniformed and plainclothes security forces.
Later in the day, hundreds of mourners crowded into downtown Vali-e-Asr square holding posters of Raisi and waving Palestinian flags. Some men clutched prayer beads and were visibly crying. Women wearing black chadors gathered together holding photos of the dead leader.
“We were shocked that we lost such a character, a character that made Iran proud, and humiliated the enemies,” said Mohammad Beheshti, 36.
The crash comes as the Israel-Hamas war roils the region. Iran-backed Hamas led the attack that started the conflict, and Hezbollah, also supported by Tehran, has fired rockets at Israel. Last month, Iran launched its own unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel.
A hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, Raisi, 63, was viewed as a protege of Khamenei. During his tenure, relations continued to deteriorate with the West as Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
His government has also faced years of mass protests over the ailing economy and women’s rights.
The crash killed all eight people aboard a Bell 212 helicopter that Iran purchased in the early 2000s, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Among the dead were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official and three crew members, IRNA said.
Iran has flown Bell helicopters extensively since the shah’s era. But aircraft in Iran face a shortage of parts because of Western sanctions, and often fly without safety checks. Against that backdrop, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame the United States for the crash.
“One of the main culprits of yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, which ... embargoed the sale of aircraft and aviation parts to Iran and does not allow the people of Iran to enjoy good aviation facilities,” Zarif told The Associated Press.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director with the International Crisis Group, said that while U.S. sanctions have deprived Iran of the ability to renew and repair its fleet for decades, "one can’t overlook human error and the weather’s role in this particular accident.’’
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst and consultant, said Iran likely is tapping the black market for parts, but questioned whether Iran has the maintenance skills to keep older helicopters flying safely.
“Black-market parts and whatever local maintenance capabilities they’ve got — that’s not a good combination,” he said.
There are 15 Bell 212 helicopters with an average age of 35 years currently registered in Iran that could be in active use or in storage, according to aviation data firm Cirium.
State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Footage released by IRNA showed the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. continues to monitor the situation surrounding the “very unfortunate helicopter crash” but has no insight into the cause. “I don’t necessarily see any broader regional security impacts at this point in time,” he said.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Raisi's death is not expected to have any substantive impact on difficult U.S.-Iran relations, or Iran’s support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Yemen-based Houthi rebels.
“We have to assume that the supreme leader is the one who makes these decisions and the supreme leader, as he did in the last so-called election, made sure to stack the deck with only candidates that met his mandates,” Kirby said.
He called the accusation that U.S. sanctions contributed to the crash “baseless,” adding: “Every country, no matter who they are has a responsibility, their own responsibility to ensure the safety and reliability of its equipment.”
For now, Khamenei has named the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as caretaker, in line with the constitution. The election for a successor is to be held on June 28, IRNA said. Raisi’s funeral will take place Thursday in Mashhad, the city where he was born, with other funerals to be held on Tuesday, state TV said.
It said Ali Bagheri Kani, a nuclear negotiator for Iran, will serve as the country’s acting foreign minister.
Condolences poured in from allies after Iran confirmed there were no survivors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on the social media platform X that his country “stands with Iran in this time of sorrow." Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a statement released by the Kremlin, described Raisi “as a true friend of Russia.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar Assad also offered condolences. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said he and his government were “deeply shocked.” Raisi was returning Sunday from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where he had inaugurated a dam with Aliyev, when the crash happened.
The death also stunned Iranians, and Khamenei declared five days of public mourning. But many have been ground down by the collapse of the country’s rial currency and worries about regional conflicts spinning out of control with Israel or Pakistan, which Iran exchanged fire with this year.
“He tried to carry out his duties well, but I don’t think he was as successful as he should have been,” said Mahrooz Mohammadi Zadeh, 53, a resident of Tehran.
Khamenei stressed the business of Iran’s government would continue no matter what — but Raisi’s death raised the specter of what will happen after the 85-year-old supreme leader either resigns or dies. The final say in all matters of state rests with his office and only two men have held the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Raisi had been discussed as a contender. The only other person suggested was Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, concerns have been raised over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.
An emergency meeting of Iran’s Cabinet issued a statement pledging it would follow Raisi’s path and that “with the help of God and the people, there will be no problem with management of the country.”
Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, in a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman detained over her allegedly loose headscarf, or hijab. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the country’s Islamic Revolution.
Here's a look at what comes next.
HOW DOES IRAN'S GOVERNMENT WORK?
Iran holds regular elections for president and parliament with universal suffrage.
But the supreme leader has final say on all major policies, serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and controls the powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The supreme leader also appoints half of the 12-member Guardian Council, a clerical body that vets candidates for president, parliament and the Assembly of Experts, an elected body of jurists in charge of choosing the supreme leader.
In theory, the clerics oversee the republic to ensure it complies with Islamic law. In practice, the supreme leader carefully manages the ruling system to balance competing interests, advance his own priorities and ensure that no one challenges the Islamic Republic or his role atop it.
Raisi, a hard-liner who was seen as a protege of Khamenei, was elected president in 2021 after the Guardian Council blocked any other well-known candidate from running against him, and turnout was the lowest in the history of the Islamic Republic. He succeeded Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who had served as president for the past eight years and defeated Raisi in 2017.
After Raisi's death, in accordance with Iran's constitution, Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, a relative unknown, became caretaker president, with elections mandated within 50 days. That vote will likely be carefully managed to produce a president who maintains the status quo.
That means Iran will continue to impose some degree of Islamic rule and crack down on dissent. It will enrich uranium, support armed groups across the Middle East and view the West with deep suspicion.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SUCCESSION?
Presidents come and go, some more moderate than others, but each operates under the structure of the ruling system.
If any major change occurs in Iran, it is likely to come after the passing of Khamenei, when a new supreme leader will be chosen for only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Khamenei succeeded the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.
The next supreme leader will be chosen by the 88-seat Assembly of Experts, who are elected every eight years from candidates vetted by the Guardian Council. In the most recent election, in March, Rouhani was barred from running, while Raisi won a seat.
Any discussion of the succession, or machinations related to it, occur far from the public eye, making it hard to know who may be in the running. But the two people seen by analysts as most likely to succeed Khamenei were Raisi and the supreme leader's own son, Mojtaba, 55, a Shiite cleric who has never held government office.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE SUPREME LEADER'S SON SUCCEEDS HIM?
Leaders of the Islamic Republic going back to the 1979 revolution have portrayed their system as superior, not only to the democracies of a decadent West, but to the military dictatorships and monarchies that prevail across the Middle East.
The transfer of power from the supreme leader to his son could spark anger, not only among Iranians who are already critical of clerical rule, but supporters of the system who might see it as un-Islamic.
Western sanctions linked to the nuclear program have devastated Iran's economy. And the enforcement of Islamic rule, which grew more severe under Raisi, has further alienated women and young people.
The Islamic Republic has faced several waves of popular protests in recent years, most recently after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly not covering her hair in public. More than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 were detained in a violent crackdown.
Raisi's death may make the transition to a new supreme leader trickier, and it could spark more unrest.