Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Houssein Amir-Abdollahian, among other officials, were confirmed dead earlier today after a helicopter crash was reported yesterday.
According to Fox:
The death of Raisi, nicknamed the "Butcher of Tehran" for his oversight of mass executions of political prisoners in 1988, forced Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to install interim leadership for Iran's executive branch. An Israeli official denied to Reuters the country had any involvement in the deadly crash, saying, bluntly, "it wasn't us."
Iran for years has backed the terror group Hamas, currently engaged in its monthslong war with Israel.
An analysis from the Washington Institute last year found that Hamas wouldn't have been able to carry out an operation like October 7 without years of Iranian training, weapons, and hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian funding.
Iranian State TV said earlier Monday that there was "no sign of life" at the crash site of the helicopter that was carrying 63-year-old Raisi, 60-year-old Abdollahian and other officials after it made a "hard landing" on Sunday. The crash site was across a steep valley, according to state media, which gave no immediate cause for the crash.
Hamas reacted by offering its “deepest condolences and solidarity to Khamenei, the government and the Iranian people for this immense loss,” which tells you everything you need to know about the kind of person Raisi was. Hamas also praised him for "supporting our Palestinian cause [and] backing our people's legitimate struggle."
Despite obvious concerns about Raisi’s death impacting an already fragile middle east, international markets haven’t reacted much to the news, with stocks mostly flat as of writing.
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