Searches ongoing after Iranian President Raisi's helicopter involved in 'hard landing'

[Ghoti Ichthus]

Jerusalem Post confirms dead

Iranian president dead after helicopter crashes into mountain - report​

Amir-Abdollahian and Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist in East Azerbaijan and the Imam of Friday Prayer in Tabriz, were also killed, among others. ​

By TZVI JOFFRE, REUTERS, EYAL GREEN, SAM HALPERN MAY 19, 2024 15:53 Updated: MAY 20, 2024 08:05

Iranian president dead after helicopter crashes into mountain - report

Amir-Abdollahian and Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist in East Azerbaijan and the Imam of Friday Prayer in Tabriz, were also killed, among others.

www.jpost.com

 

[Kaatje]

Dear brothers and sisters,
I merged a couple of threads regarding the crash to make the conversation easier to follow and participate in.

 

[Tall Timbers]

So it's pretty much business as usual for Iran

Their top religious leader would need to go for there to be a possibility for change.

 

[mattfivefour]

Ebrahim Raisi was Supreme Leader Ali Khameini's hand-picked choice as president.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

Ebrahim Raisi was Supreme Leader Ali Khameini's hand-picked choice as president.

and Ali Khameini was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's successor.

444 days . . . . . . some of us have loooooooooooooooooooong memories and will never forget

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

The Persians are living in "interesting times"

Iran’s president has died in office. Here’s what happens next​

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN
Updated 12:23 PM EDT, Mon May 20, 2024

CNN Once seen as a likely successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, President Ebrahim Raisi has died in office, leaving the Islamic Republic’s hardline establishment facing an uncertain future.
An ultraconservative president, 63-year-old Raisi was killed Sunday, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other high-ranking officials, in a helicopter crash in Iran’s remote northwest. Their death comes at a delicate time for a country that faces unprecedented challenges at home and from abroad.
The Islamic Republic’s economy remains crippled by American sanctions, its young population is becoming growingly restive, and the country faces increasingly belligerent adversaries in the Middle East and beyond.
Raisi’s death will “trigger elections at a time when the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) is at the nadir of its legitimacy and zenith of its exclusionary policies,” Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said on X.
Here’s what comes next.

Who steps in as president?​

Power has now been transferred to Mohammad Mokhber, who had served as Raisi’s vice president and was on Monday approved as acting president by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the final arbiter of domestic and foreign affairs in the Islamic Republic.
Not as well known as Raisi, Mokhber is “another administrator,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank in London, told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “He is close to the IRGC, close to the levers of power,” Vakil said, adding that he is likely to present a model of “business as usual” in the coming days.
But the country must, by law, hold elections within the next 50 days. Experts say that the elections are likely to be hastily organized, with poor voter participation. In March, Iran recorded its lowest electoral turnout since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979, despite government efforts to rally voters ahead of the ballot.
That vote — for seats in the parliament, or Majles, and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is tasked with picking the Supreme Leader — brought in mostly hardline politicians.
“The population has by and large lost faith in the idea that change can come through the ballot box,” Trita Parsi, co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC, wrote Sunday on X.

More

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/middleeast/ebrahim-raisi-dies-succession-what-is-next-explainer-mime-intl/index.html

Uh, oh . . . the Russians Soviets (and Syrians and Islamic State) are already openly boots-on-the-ground . . .

Fortunately, no U.S. Embassy there now, so no repeat of 1979 . . . unless they go after the Swiss Embassy to attack "The Great Satan" on their soil (would be a GINORMOUS mistake on the world political stage, but who knows if any intestinal fortitude to do anything about it if they do)

 

[Margery]

and Ali Khameini was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's successor.

444 days . . . . . . some of us have loooooooooooooooooooong memories and will never forget

I remember! God keeps score when we don't accept His offer of salvation. Unless these leaders of Iran repent, they will all join Khomeini and Raisi in eternal torment.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

I remember! God keeps score when we don't accept His offer of salvation. Unless these leaders of Iran repent, they will all join Khomeini and Raisi in eternal torment.

I was a young Soldier at Jump School, then the 82nd Airborne at the time . . .
. . . some habits will never change, some skills will never die . . .

RIP, Friend, see you soon . . .

 

[Margery]

I was a young Soldier at Jump School, then the 82nd Airborne at the time . . .

I was expecting our first. George and I had been talking about a good job offer out in Iran- they were paying very good money for people in his line of tech for a couple of years of overseas work. We were just starting to talk seriously about taking it up once our baby was born that December and then within a day or two the news hit and I always remembered that - things can turn on a dime over there. There is a reason they have to pay extra good money for people to take that risk. Looking back we were stupid, and God protected us and we learned. He never again considered an overseas job.

Everything looked good. Nobody was expecting things to go sideways so fast, at least not in the Canadian media. It looked like a relatively safe bet.

Goes to show how fast things can change when prophetic events unfold. Iran had to change from an Israel loving Jewish supporting haven in the Middle East to form the regime that will someday try to invade with Russia, Turkey and others. Jimmy Carter had no clue what he was doing in the White House.

 

[Margery]

From that article above: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/midd...n-what-is-next-explainer-mime-intl/index.html

" What are the longer-term implications of Raisi’s death?​

Raisi’s death has raised questions about who will eventually succeed Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful man in the country.

The Iranian clerical establishment had invested heavily in Raisi during his presidency, seeing him as a potential successor to Khamenei. Observers say he had been groomed to be elevated to the Supreme Leader’s position.

Raisi’s death will create “a succession crisis in Iran,” Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on X.

The late president upheld some of the regime’s most hardline policies, quashing the 2022 mass protests that sought to challenge repressive laws, such as the compulsory hijab."

So this death removes a potential successor to the supreme leader. AND creates a problem for the presidency because they've picked over their crop of hardliners and eliminated people from the running in order to create the super hardliner leadership that the Supreme Leader wanted. Even Rouhani (never a moderate) didn't make the cut:

"According to the constitution, the 88-member Assembly of Experts picks the successor to the Supreme Leader after his death. Members of the Assembly itself are, however, pre-vetted by Iran’s Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member body charged with overseeing elections and legislation.

The Assembly of Experts has become increasingly hardline over the years. In the March vote, Raisi was re-elected to the assembly, and the Guardian Council barred Rouhani from contesting a seat.

While there are procedures to selecting the Supreme Leader, discussions about successions are always “very opaque,” Vakil said, adding that they take place “within a very close circle of individuals.”

Some have pointed to the incumbent Supreme Leader’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, a midlevel cleric, as a potential contender for the top post, but that would be a shift from the principles of the Islamic Republic, which overthrew a repressive monarchy in 1970 and has prided itself for shaking off hereditary rule.

Allowing Mojtaba to replace his father may, however, spur theories that Raisi’s death was not accidental, Sadjadpour said."

And that creates an interesting motive for the current son of the Supreme Leader in that it allows him to possibly succeed his father as Supreme Leader (Khamenei isn't in the best of health and is rapidly aging out of his best before date)

It's less important who gets to be President because whoever does has to obey the Supreme Leader, but if they are using the job of President to audition for the big guy's shoes when he shuffles off this mortal coil, then it's Very VERY interesting who gets the job.

We will see in about 50 days who lands the position and might be auditioning for the next Supreme Leader now that Raisi is gone for good.

 

[Spartan Sprinter]

Apparently a majority of Iranian women were celebrating his death, i hope for their sakes they don't get arrested or persecuted for doing this even though it is wrong to celebrate someone's death like that

 

[Tall Timbers]

Apparently a majority of Iranian women were celebrating his death, i hope for their sakes they don't get arrested or persecuted for doing this even though it is wrong to celebrate someone's death like that

For many Iranians, the death of the Butcher of Tehran is justice served.

 

[Growing in Grace]

And that creates an interesting motive for the current son of the Supreme Leader in that it allows him to possibly succeed his father as Supreme Leader (Khamenei isn't in the best of health and is rapidly aging out of his best before date)

And this may have been the motivation if something foul was afoot.

Honestly, and probably naive on my part, but I think that a helicopter in foggy conditions flying in that mountainous terrain is asking for a crash. I was trained in searches for downed small aircraft and part of the training dealt with what happens to airfoils near mountains. In addition, in thick fog pilots lose perception.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

And this may have been the motivation if something foul was afoot..

This was no accident

Domestic, foreign, or Divine intervention, this was no accident
I don't care what the official, unofficial, internal, international, or any other "investigation" says about it being an accident, this was not an accident, not pilot error, not faulty parts, not a maintenance issue or neglect, etc., etc., etc.

Praise God! for however this happened.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

For many Iranians, the death of the Butcher of Tehran is justice served.

and

(also for many Americans and others)

Apparently a majority of Iranian women were celebrating his death, i hope for their sakes they don't get arrested or persecuted for doing this even though it is wrong to celebrate someone's death like that

Celebrating evenly briefly the demise of one's oppressor can be cathartic and open a door to other possibilities, including receiving and accepting The Gospel.

I've lived in places that practice various forms and permutations of sharia, and it is a living hell for women and girls. Most don't even know anything better is possible, unless they have contact with an outsider (who must be female for cultural, religious, and safety reasons, and even then, it may be a one-time-in-a-lifetime-for-only-30-seconds occurrence).