Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Iranian President dies following helicopter crash
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during a commemoration for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque, January 3, 2024, in Tehran, Iran

IRANIAN President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were found dead today after their helicopter crashed in a foggy mountain region.

The deaths come amid tensions in the wider Middle East, with Iran and Israel exchanging drone and missile attacks.

All eight people aboard the helicopter died in the crash including the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official and three crew members.

The group were heading to Tabriz, a city in the north-west of Iran, after returning from a dam opening ceremony on the Azerbaijan border.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly replaced Mr Raisi with the country’s vice-president as caretaker and insisted that the government was in control.

An election for a new president is due to take place in the next 50 days.

No explanation was immediately offered for the cause of the crash and Iran did not comment on the possibility of sabotage.

The helicopter was purchased by Iran in the early 2000s, with spare parts in short supply due to Western sanctions.

Mr Raisi was viewed as a protege of the ayatollah in a government which has faced years of mass protests over the degrading of the country’s economy and women’s rights.

The latest mass protests ignited last year following the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in custody after being detained for not wearing a headscarf properly.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar Assad were among those to offer condolences.

Protesters from the National Council of Resistance of Iran gathered outside the Iranian embassy in Berlin following the announcement of Mr Raisi’s death, holding placards showing his face crossed out in red.

New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran described Mr Raisi’s presidency as seeing “a stunning escalation of state repression and violence against peaceful dissent in Iran.”

“Raisi presided over a country suffocated by a regime that fears its own people,” said executive director Hadi Ghaemi.

“He was merely one boot on the necks of the Iranian people; others can easily take his place.”

Following the end of Iran’s war with Iraq in 1988, Mr Raisi served on “death commissions,” which handed down death sentences for political prisoners, militants and others.

As many as 5,000 people were executed, according to estimates.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
People take part in a demonstration at Trafalgar Square in London in support of Palestine Action,  June 23, 2025
Britain / 23 June 2025
23 June 2025

Home Secretary Cooper confirms plans to ban the group and claims its peaceful activists ‘meet the legal threshold under the Terrorism Act 2000’

Similar stories
World / 19 January 2025
19 January 2025
Kurdish women in Beirut, Lebanon, protest over the death of
Features / 13 September 2024
13 September 2024
Iran’s women’s rights movement now joins widespread unrest, as pensioners, steelworkers and students unite against corruption, repression and economic mismanagement by the theocratic regime, writes STEVE BISHOP
In this photo released by an official website of the office
World / 28 July 2024
28 July 2024