Iran President Raisi dies in helicopter crash

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has died after his helicopter crashed amid heavy fog in northern Iran.

According to source on Monday morning, they found the helicopter that was carrying the Iranian president, as well as the country’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other senior officials, after it crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran.

Minutes after the Red Crescent Society announced its team had reached the site of the crash, state TV reported that there were “no signs of life” and an official said the helicopter had been “completely burned”.

The state-run Mehr news agency then announced that the president and foreign minister had been “martyred”.

Earlier officials said the aircraft appeared to have undergone a “rough landing” near Jolfa, the Iranian city on the border of Azerbaijani exclave Nakhchivan, around 600km northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran.

Turkish authorities said drone footage showed a fire some 20km south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.