DUBAI (Reuters) -Hopes are fading that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister have survived a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain and icy weather, an Iranian official said on Monday after search teams located the wreckage. "President Raisi's helicopter was completely burned in the crash ... unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead," the official told Reuters. Rescue teams fought blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province in the early hours of Monday.

(Reuters) -Hopes are fading that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister have survived a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain and icy weather, an Iranian official said on Monday after search teams located the wreckage. “President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash … unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” the official told Reuters.

    • lad@programming.devEnglish
      5·
      6 months ago

      If they think themselves to be prepared for it they can report Israel did this even if it was truly a maintenance issue

    • WamGams@lemmy.ca
      2·
      6 months ago

      Didn’t you know that Israel is responsible for every helicopter that crashed because a pilot decided to fly in unsafe conditions?

      • juicy@lemmy.today
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, it’s not like Israel just assassinated some Iranian generals a few weeks ago, or that they routinely operate on the ground in Iran:

        Unlikely as it may sound, it’s not the first time Mossad has claimed to have undertaken such an operation. In fact, this is the third such case in the last eighteen months. In April 2022, Israeli media reported on an alleged Mossad operation on Iranian territory. Israeli intelligence agents had reportedly detained and questioned Mansour Rasouly, a fifty-two-year-old IRGC agent, in his residence in Iran, where he had confessed to a plan to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in France. The Israeli media published an audio file of Rasouly’s confession without revealing their source.

        Months later, in July 2022, London-based diaspora satellite channel Iran International claimed that Mossad had interrogated another IRGC official, Yadollah Khedmati, in Iran, publishing the footage of his confessions about the transfer of weaponry to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

        • WamGams@lemmy.ca
          2·
          6 months ago

          Let’s wait until we have evidence before we jump to conclusions. Just because a thought aligns with our biases doesn’t make it true.

          • juicy@lemmy.today
            1·
            6 months ago

            Oh, sure. I’m just saying that it’s reasonable to raise it as a possibility.