The president of Iran dies in a helicopter crash


The Up First Show: Iranian President Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz

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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials, Iranian state media reported. No immediate cause for the crash was provided. The helicopter the group was in crashed in a mountainous area in the northwest of the country due to foggy conditions. Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, will serve as acting president.

Israel’s leadership is in turmoil, even though Iran’s government is in transition. The prime minister’s war cabinet accuses him of not having a strategy to replace Hamas as the ruler of Gaza. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s three-man war cabinet, said he would quit the government in three weeks if it didn’t adopt a new plan for the war.

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The mother of 5 year-old twins, Ali Lapetina, spoke to mothers at the care center about why they need this support. Look at photos of what the future of postpartum care could look like.

Source: Iran’s president dies in helicopter crash; Michael Cohen’s cross-examination wraps up

The Iran Shiite Regime After the 1976 Iran Helium Dropout: A Mass Demonstration for a Restoration of the Rule of State

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The mourning public began gathering in black Tuesday for days of funerals and processions for the Iranian president, foreign minister and others who died in a helicopter crash.

Mass demonstrations have been important for Iran’s Shiite theocracy since millions of people thronged the streets of Tehran in 1979 to welcome Grand Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Grand Commander of the Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. An estimated 1 million people turned out for processions in 2020 to honor the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Alex Vatanka wrote that Raisi’s death came at a moment when the regime was consolidated. There isn’t going to be a power vacuum in Tehran, but post-Khamenei it is not as predictable as it used to be.

A procession Tuesday morning led by a semitruck carrying the caskets of the dead slowly moved through the narrow streets of downtown Tabriz, the closest major city near the site of the crash Sunday. Thousands of black-clad people walked by the coffins and some threw flowers up to them.

The bodies will travel on to the holy Shiite seminary city of Qom, before arriving in Tehran later Tuesday. On Wednesday a funeral presided over by Khamenei will turn into a procession. The funeral of Raisi will take place in his hometown of Birjand, followed by a burial in the holy city of Mashhad, one of the holiest spots in the Shiite religion.

Millions of pilgrims visit that shrine each year. Over the centuries, its grounds have served as the final burial site for heroes in Persian history. It’s an extremely high honor and a very rare occurrence in the faith. Iranian President Mohammad-Ali Rajai, the only other president to die in office when he was killed in a 1981 bombing, was buried in Tehran.

Iran’s theocracy decided to encourage people to attend public mourning sessions on five days of mourning. Typically, government employees and schoolchildren attend such events en masse, while others take part out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historic events.

Across Iran, its rural population often more closely embraces the Shiite faith and the government. Mass protests have roiled the capital for years, but Tehran has always held a different view of Raisi and his government.

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The death of a woman in handcuffs over her headscarf was the most recent. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained. In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.

On Sunday night, as news of the helicopter crash circulated, some offered anti-government chants in the night. fireworks can be seen in some parts of the capital, though Sunday marked a remembrance for the late Imam Reza, which can cause them to set off as well. Critical messages and dark jokes about the crash were circulating online.

Iran’s top prosecutor has already issued an order demanding cases be filed against those “publishing false content, lies and insults” against Raisi and others killed in the crash, according to the semiofficial ISNA news agency.

Meanwhile Tuesday, Iran’s new Assembly of Experts opened its first session after an election that decided the new assembly, a panel of which both Raisi and the late Tabriz Friday leader Mohammad Ali Ale-Heshem were members. The 88 member panel is tasked with selecting the country’s next supreme leader and they would have occupied the seats that the flowers sat on.