Iran helicopter crash LIVE: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi killed alongside country’s foreign minister killed after aircraft plummets into mountain range – latest updates

MailOnline reporter Chris Jewers takes a look at Iran’s acting president Mohammad Mokhber who is tasked with organising new presidential elections in the next 50 days.

Like Raisi, Mokhber is seen as close to Khamenei who has the last say in all matters of state

New photographs have now emerged of rescuers at the site of a fatal helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

A former Iranian foreign minister has claimed the United States is partly responsible for Ebrahim Raisi’s death as he blamed sanctions on aviation parts for the helicopter involved in the crash.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, who served in Hassan Rouhani’s government for eight years until 2021, said the sanctions hampered Iran’s capabilities to upgrade its aircraft.

Speaking to state TV, Zarif said:

One of the culprits behind yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, because of its sanctions that bar Iran from procuring essential aviation parts.

The Bell 212 helicopter that crashed on Sunday with Raisi on board was developed for the Canadian military in the late 1960s and introduced to the country’s military and the US in 1970s.

New photographs have emerged of floral tributes left outside the Iranian embassy in Moscow, while some countries are flying flags at half mast to pay their respects to Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president who was killed in a helicopter crash.

Lebanon, Pakistan and Syria have all declared days of mourning.

The crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East.

That’s because Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories that allow it to project power and potentially deter attacks from the United States or Israel, the sworn enemies of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tensions have never been higher than they were last month, when Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that killed two Iranian generals and five officers.

Israel, with the help of the US, Britain, Jordan and others, intercepted nearly all the projectiles.

In response, Israel apparently launched its own strike against an air defense radar system in the Iranian city of Isfahan, causing no casualties but sending an unmistakable message.

The sides have waged a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, but the exchange of fire in April was their first direct military confrontation.

MailOnline reporter Chris Jewers has reported how Raisi earned himself the nickname the ‘Butcher of Tehran’.

The now dead president oversaw the massacre of thousands in Iran, imposed a brutal hijab crackdown and moved his country towards building nuclear weapons.

Iran’s President and Foreign Minister were killed after they boarded a Bell 212 helicopter at the Azerbaijan border to take them to Tabriz, a city in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.

Here’s what we know about the helicopters

• Bell Helicopter (now Bell Textron, a division of Textron Inc ) developed the aircraft for the Canadian military in the late 1960s as an upgrade of the original UH-1 Iroquois.
• The helicopter was introduced in 1971 and quickly adopted by both the United States and Canada, according to U.S. military training documents.

• As a utility helicopter – the UH in its military designation represents those words – the Bell 212 is meant to be adaptable to all sorts of situations, including carrying people, deploying aerial firefighting gear, ferrying cargo and mounting weapons.
• The Iranian model that crashed on Sunday was configured to carry government passengers.
• Bell Helicopter advertises the latest version, the Subaru Bell 412, for police use, medical transport, troop transport, the energy industry and firefighting. According to its type certification documents with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, it can carry 15 people, including the crew.

• The most recent fatal crash of a Bell 212 was in September 2023, when a privately operated aircraft crashed off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit focusing on aviation safety.
• The most recent Iranian crash of the type was in 2018, killing four people, according to the organisation’s database.

It has been reported that Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral will take place tomorrow in Tabriz, the city he was travelling to when he was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday.

According to the Tasnim news agency, affiliated to the country’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, funerals for all other officials will also take place in the East Azerbaijan province.

Iranians are about to enter a period of national mourning after President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash.

Confirmation of Raisi’s death came earlier today after the aircraft plummeted into a mountainous area on Sunday as it transported the 63-year-old to Tabriz from the Azerbaijan border.

These photographs show how Iran has reacted to Raisi’s death which is on the front page of newspapers across the country.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani (pictured) has been appointed the acting foreign minister, following the death of Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, according to Reuters news agency.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber to assume interim duties after the death of president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash a day earlier.

“In accordance with Article 131 of the constitution, Mokhber is in charge of leading the executive branch,” said Khamenei in a statement, adding that Mokhber will be required to work with the heads of legislative and judicial to prepare for presidential elections “within a maximum period of 50 days”.

Footage released by Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) showed what they described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.

Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.” Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text said: “There is no sign of life from people on board.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured) has declared the country will observe five days of mourning following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi.

In comments reported by the Fars News Agency, the Ayatollah also announced vice president Mohammad Mokhber will assume the presidency and make arrangements with the head of the legislative and judicial branches to elect a new president within 50 days.

Much of the focus has been on the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi but Iran is mourning the loss of another senior political figure – the Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (pictured).

Let’s take a look at Amir-Abdollahian’s life and career and what his death means for Iran going forward:

• Amir-Abdollahian was born in the city of Damghan, east of Tehran, in 1964. He had earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Tehran in 1991, later completing a master’s degree and a doctorate in the same field.
• As a diplomat in the Iranian foreign service, his postings included Iraq, from 1997 to 2001, and Bahrain, from 2007 to 2010.
• A career diplomat and conservative figure with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, Amir-Abdollahian took office following Raisi’s 2021 election win.
• Amir-Abdollahian’s tenure as Iran’s top diplomat was marked by intense diplomatic efforts aiming to end Iran’s isolation and offset the impact of crippling US sanctions over Iran’s contested nuclear programme.
• He particularly sought to forge relations with the Islamic republic’s Arab neighbours including the region’s Sunni Muslim powerhouse Saudi Arabia.

He was married and had two children.

Russian President Vladimir Putin send his condolences to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday over the death of Ebrahim Raisi and said that he had been a true friend of Russia.

Putin and Raisi were pictured meeting one another in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September 2022.

Please accept my deep condolences in connection with the great tragedy that befell the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Seyed Ebrahim Raisi was an outstanding politician whose entire life was devoted to serving the Motherland.

As a true friend of Russia, he made an invaluable personal contribution to the development of good neighborly relations between our countries and made great efforts to bring them to the level of strategic partnership.

Israel is yet to comment on Ebrahim Raisi’s death but an official has told the Reuters news agency that the country was not involved in the fatal helicopter crash which also killed Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian.

“It wasn’t us,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

The cause of the helicopter crash is not yet known but it is understood the aircraft got into difficulty during bad weather as blizzards hampered the search and rescue effort.

Iran and Israel are longtime enemies, with the latter strongly opposing Tehran’s developing nuclear programme,

Iran has backed, funded and trained several proxy group across the Middle East including Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as factions in Iraq and Syria.

China has become the latest country to show support to Iran after Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, expressed condolences in the wake of Ebrahim Raisi’s death.

We can also bring you more reaction from fellow world leaders:

• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Raisi was a ‘valuable colleague and brother’ who he will remember with ‘respect and gratitude’.
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he will always remember Raisi’s visit to Syria in May last year as an ‘important milestone’ for relations between the two countries
• Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said Iran had lost an ‘outstanding statesman’ who served ‘elflessly and faithfully all his life’.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group and proscribed terrorist organisation, has mourned the death of President Raisi (pictured) whom they said had shown support during its war with Israel.

In a statement released following the deaths of Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a Hamas spokesperson said:

These leaders supported the legitimate struggle of our people against the Zionist entity, provided valued support to the Palestinian resistance, and made tireless efforts in solidarity and support in all forums and fields for our people in the steadfast Gaza Strip during the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood.

They also made significant political and diplomatic efforts to stop the Zionist aggression against our Palestinian people.

World leaders have expressed their condolences to Iran following the death of the country’s President Ebrahim Raisi.

Here are statements from the leaders of India, Pakistan and Venezuela.

Footage showing President Raisi on board the helicopter that crashed and killed him has emerged.

Raisi was seen staring out of the window of the aircraft, which was traveling in the East Azerbaijan province near Jolfa, around 375 miles northwest of Tehran when it crashed.

Here’s a map which shows where the helicopter carrying President Raisi crashed killing him and his officials.

The aircraft was taking Raisi from the Azerbaijan border to Tabriz, the capital of the East Azerbaijan Province, when it got into difficulties and plummeted into a mountainous area on Sunday.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed when a helicopter he was travelling in crashed into a mountainous region in north-west Iran on Sunday.

The aircraft got into difficulties in heavy fog as it transported Mr Raisi and his officials to the city of Tabriz.

Here are some photographs of the helicopter crash and the search and rescue effort.

Under the Iranian constitution, Iran´s vice first president takes over if the president dies with Ayatollah Khamenei´s ascent, and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days.

Iranian state media has already reported Mohammad Mokhber, 68 has assumed the role of interim president and has already had begun receiving calls from officials and foreign governments.

Mokhber will lead a temporary government alongside the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i.

Qalibaf, who campaigned for the Iranian presidency as early as 2005, is expected to be one of the candidates pushing hard to succeed Raisi.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was a hardline cleric who rose from hardline prosecutor to uncompromising president and was tipped one day to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the country’s Supreme Leader.

Here’s a brief rundown of his life and political career:

• Raisi was born in 1960 to a religious family in Iran’s holy Shi’ite Muslim city of Mashhad. When he was five, he lost his father but followed him in his footsteps to become a cleric.
• As a young student at a religious seminary in the holy city of Qom, Raisi took part in protests against the Western-backed Shah in the 1979 revolution. Later, his contacts with religious leaders in Qom made him a trusted figure in the judiciary.
• Raisi was elected president in a closely controlled vote in 2021, in which he adopted a tough stance in nuclear negotiations.
• His victory brought all branches of power in Iran under the control of hardliners loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thereby bolstering his chances of succeeding him.
• Raisi has overseen a crackdown on protests at home with his hardline position evident a year into his presidency when he ordered tighter enforcement of Iran’s ‘hijab and chastity law’ restricting women’s dress and behaviour.

If you’re just waking up, here’s everything you need to know this morning:

• Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been confirmed dead after rescuers found a helicopter carrying him and other officials that crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday
• Raisi, 63, was among nine people to be declared dead alongside Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian
• Rescuers fought through blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in the early hours of Monday after a search effort backed by Russia was hampered because of bad weather
• The Iranian government held an ‘urgent meeting’ on Monday, with Raisi’s chair left vacant and covered in a black sash – state broadcasters are airing Islamic prayers in between news broadcasts
• Mohammad Mokhber, 68, Iran’s first vice president, will assume role of interim president and has already taken calls from foreign leaders offering their condolences, state media reported

We will bring you further developments as and when we get them.

Mr Raisi was one of nine people killed when a helicopter crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday.

The 63-year-old was travelling to the city of Tabriz, in the north-west of Iran, after he attended an opening ceremony for a new dam along the country’s border with Azerbaijan.

We will be providing live updates today following confirmation that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (pictured) has been killed in a helicopter crash.

Mr Raisi was on board an aircraft alongside the Iranain foreign minster Hossein Amir-Abdollahian when it crashed into a mountain range on Sunday.

We will bring you the latest news, reaction and analysis to this breaking news story.