Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president and a top contender to succeed the nation’s supreme leader, was killed on Sunday in a helicopter crash.
A conservative Shiite Muslim cleric who had a hand in some of the most brutal crackdowns on opponents of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Raisi was a protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a devoted upholder of religious rule in the country.
Mr. Raisi’s presidency was shaped by two major events: the 2022 nationwide uprising, led by women and girls, demanding the end to the Islamic Republic’s rule and the government’s brutal crushing of that movement; and the current Middle East war with Israel, with which it had a long history of clandestine attacks.
As the president under Iran’s political system, Mr. Raisi did not set the country’s nuclear or regional policy.
But he inherited a government that was steadily expanding its regional influence through a network of proxy militia groups and a nuclear program that was rapidly advancing to weapons-grade uranium enrichment levels following the United States’ exit from a nuclear deal.
Persons:
Ebrahim Raisi, Raisi, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raisi’s
Locations:
Islamic Republic, Israel, States