Foreign

Iran Loses President in Helicopter Crash

By Web News 232

Iranian state media says President Ebrahim Raisi died on Monday after his helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of the country.

Rescue teams had been scouring the area since Sunday afternoon after a helicopter carrying Raisi, the foreign minister and other officials had gone missing.

Copter in Iranian President’s Convoy Crashes

Early Monday, relief workers located the missing helicopter, with state TV saying the president had died.

“The servant of Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi has achieved the highest level of martyrdom whilst serving the people,” state television said Monday, with Mehr news agency also saying he was dead.

State television broadcast photos of Raisi, with the voice of a man reciting the Koran playing in the background.

Iran’s vice president for executive affairs, Mohsen Mansouri posted on X a Koranic verse used to express condolences.

ChannelsTV / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Foreign

Iran Vows Revenge after Colonel’s Assassination

By Web News 504

Iran’s President has promised to take revenge after a colonel in the powerful Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) was shot dead in Tehran on Sunday.

According to state media two gunmen on a motorbike opened fire at Sayad Khodai as he sat in a car outside his home, Col Khodai was a member of the elite Quds Force, the IRGC’s shadowy overseas operations arm.

President Ebrahim Raisi blamed “the hands of global arrogance” – a reference to the US and its allies.

“I call on security officials to seriously investigate the crime and I have no doubt that revenge on criminals for the pure blood of this honorable martyr is inevitable,” he said.

IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif said the “martyrdom” of Col Khodai would strengthen its determination to “defend security, independence and national interests and to confront the enemies of the Iranian nation”

According to reports no group or country has claimed it was behind the killing, which was the most high-profile in Iran since the top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot dead in an attack on his convoy outside Tehran in November 2020.

Iran blamed that assassination on Israel, however Israel neither confirmed nor denied involvement, although the former head of its Mossad intelligence agency said last year that Fakhrizadeh had been a target “for many years”.

Iran’s state news agency, Irna, reported that Col Khodai was shot with five bullets as he was getting out of his car in eastern Tehran.  

It published photos showing a man slumped in the driver’s seat of a Kia Pride. The front passenger side window appeared to have been shot out.

BBC/Adebukola Aluko/Adetutu Adetule