An Israeli official has gone on the record to deny their country was behind the helicopter crash which claimed the lives of Iran’s president, foreign minister, and others Sunday.
President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and the six other passengers on board the chopper that went down in poor weather conditions were all confirmed dead Monday by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An anonymous Israeli official told Reuters that Israel was not responsible for the incident, simply saying: “It wasn’t us.”
The wreckage of the crash was found early Monday in a mountainous area following a massive search and rescue operation that ran through the night. Reports had emerged a day earlier that the helicopter had suffered a “hard landing” as Raisi was traveling from the Iran-Azerbaijan border—where he’d been inaugurating a dam—on the way to the Iranian city of Tabriz.
