Iran holds funeral procession for late president Raisi after crash death

Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered Tuesday to mourn president Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest. 

Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi was headed when his helicopter crashed on Sunday.

They walked behind a lorry carrying the coffins of Raisi and his seven aides.

The helicopter lost communication while it was on its way back to Tabriz after Raisi attended a joint inauguration of a dam with his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, on their common border.

A massive search and rescue operation started Sunday afternoon when two other helicopters in Raisi's convoy lost contact with his aircraft amid harsh weather conditions in the mountainous region.

State TV early Monday broke the news of his death, saying "the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom", showing pictures of him as a voice recited the Koran.

Killed alongside the Iranian president were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, members of the provincial authorities of East Azerbaijan and his security team.

Iran's armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash as Iranians in cities nationwide gathered to mourn Raisi and his entourage.

Following the confirmation of Raisi's death, international condolences poured in while people in cities across the Islamic republic gathered to mourn the late president and his companions.

Tens of thousands of mourners holding portraits of Raisi gathered Monday at central Valiasr Square in the capital Tehran.

National mourning

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to assume interim duties ahead of elections.

State media later announced the presidential election would be held on June 28.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri, who served as deputy to Amir-Abdollahian, was tapped to serve as the acting foreign minister.

After leaving Tabriz, Raisi's body will arrive in Iran's Shiite clerical centre of Qom Tuesday before being moved to Tehran.

Processions will be held in in the capital on Wednesday morning before Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.

Raisi's body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.

The ultraconservative Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021, a time during which Iran was rocked by mass protests, an economic crisis deepened by US sanctions, and armed exchanges with arch-enemy Israel.

Raisi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, at a time when the economy was battered by US sanctions over Iran's contested nuclear programme.

Condolences flooded in from Palestinian militant group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Syria, all members of the so-called "axis of resistance" against Israel and its allies, at a time of high Middle East tensions over the Gaza war.

The war in the Palestinian territory sent tensions soaring and a series of escalations led to Tehran launching hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in April.

It came in response to an earlier air strike widely blamed on Israel that levelled Tehran's Damascus consulate and killed two Revolutionary Guards generals.

In a speech hours before his death, Raisi emphasised Iran's support for the Palestinians, a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Palestinian flags were raised along with the Iranian flags in ceremonies for Raisi across the Islamic republic on Monday.