-Analysis-
Suspicions of foul play in the recent helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are increasingly turning into a headache — and maybe eventually something far worse — for the Iranian regime. The hardline 63-year-old Raisi, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew, died after the aging chopper flying them toward Tabriz in northern Iran crashed into fog-ridden mountains on May 19.
Perhaps most notable doubts included footage on May 25, which were shared on social media, that showed Raisi’s mother weeping but also, apparently, crying out for justice with the words “(God) kills whoever killed you other than God.”
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Also last week, Hisamuddin Ashna, former adviser to Raisi’s predecessor as president, Hassan Rouhani, reportedly “begged” officials not to rule out any possibility when investigating the exact causes of the crash. The task has been given to a technical team from the Armed Forces Joint Headquarters.
Ashna is a former intelligence official and son-in-law of a former Intelligence minister (Qurban Ali Dorri-Najafabadi), is considered a regime inside. Another former intelligence officer, Ali Rabii, has said in turn that “technical issues and contradictory reports” around the crash have made a close inquiry necessary.
The website Rouydad24 (“Event 24”) cited on May 25 the head of the parliamentary national security committee, Fadahussein Maliki, as saying that the technical team was the only one able to quell public rumors about an “operation” to eliminate Raisi. It should clarify why Raisi was flying in such an old craft.
Broadly, those who suspect Raisi might have been killed are two groups, respectively blaming Israel or a power clique inside the regime, each of which would have had their own potential motives. Right now, the skeptics will pounce on any word, like those of Raisi’s mother, as evidence of a plot.
Skeptics and blame
Brazen accusations would of course land one in jail or worse in Iran, so politicians will always, in this and similar cases, make murky suggestions which are as complex as they are deniable of any direct beliefs or even questions. The result is political hieroglyphics.
The technical team’s preliminary assessment of the incident raised more questions than it answered.
One legislator, (a religious conservative and former minister of culture) Mustafa Mirsalim, has said for example that Raisi had “taken a case of secrets” with him to the afterworld. Another conservative, Hussein Allahkaram — an academic also notorious for once heading a thuggish militia — told the paper Etemaad that “certain people may have wanted to take Raisi onto a minefield for being an asset to the revolution” and were probably “rejoicing” at his death.
Separately, a legislator and former governor of the Eastern Azerbaijan province where the chopper crashed, Ahmad Alirezabeigi, told the website Dideban-e Iran, “we don’t have mobile signal problems” in the area. That was an allusion to statements that signal failures had impeded the chopper’s geolocation devices. He described the incident as “dubious,” wondering why the president had traveled the short distance from his meeting on the frontier to the city of Tabriz in a helicopter. The website later removed his comments.
The Joint Headquarters team certainly has the technical know-how to clarify the incident, but would likely never publish anything not approved by the highest authorities. It appears the technical team will seek to present a technical glitch or pilot error as the cause of the crash. Its preliminary assessment of the incident, issued on May 23, raised more questions than it answered, as it failed to explain for example why the president had flown in a chopper in the middle of fog. It did state that it had seen “no sign” of a projectile strike on any part of the craft.
Pressure on relatives?
Still, the official line will likely not stop the speculation. Unofficial sources have said that after the crash, security agents prevented Raisi’s father-in-law, Ahmad Alamulhuda, a senior cleric in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, from holding his theology class, suggesting a rift between Alamulhuda and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over the state’s refusal to properly clarify the incident.
Raisi’s partisans are calling for justice.
The reports cannot be confirmed, though Alamulhuda’s absence was noted at a funeral service in Khamenei’s compound in Tehran. One of the country’s veteran revolutionary papers, Jomhouri-e Islami, urged officials not to overlook details, as the crash site’s proximity with the frontier of the Republic of Azerbaijan — a somewhat murky partner of the West and of Israel — made sabotage a possibility.
Iran’s Supreme leader may have to step in himself to conclude the affair and nip its political fallout in the bud. Raisi’s partisans are calling for justice, while supporters in Eastern Azerbaijan of the two figures who died with him, Muhammad Al-i Hashim, the senior mullah of Tabriz, and the provincial governor Malik Rahmati, want, well clarification.
