Gholamhossein Esmaili, the late Iranian president’s chief of staff reported that weather was not a factor in the death of President Ebrahim Raisi.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
An explosive beeper similar to those that injured and killed Hezbollah terrorists last week might have played a role in the helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in May.
European-based Iranian journalist posted on X that Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said Raisi may have had one of the explosive-laden beepers when he was in a helicopter shortly before his death.
Iranian media claimed that the crash that killed Raisi was caused by foul weather when the helicopter collided with a fog-covered mountain.
However, Gholamhossein Esmaili, the late Iranian president’s chief of staff, told state television that weather was not a factor in the death of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Esmaili was traveling in one of the two other helicopters in the air entourage that was making its way back from a ceremony inaugurating a dam on the border with Azerbaijan.
“The weather was clear, and completely bright and fine” when the flight began, he said.
About half an hour into their trip, Raisi’s pilot ordered the three to rise above clouds that were on their level, but after about “30 seconds, [my] pilot noticed that the main helicopter was not with us,” he said.
An offensive last week involved spontaneous explosion of thousands of beepers used by Hezbollah terrorists, wounding thousands and killing at least 37.
Additional injuries and deaths occurred on Wednesday in Lebanon and in Syria, where 19 IRGC terrorists were killed and 150 were injured.
A former commander of British military forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, praised the beeper offensive against Hezbollah as “precise and discriminatory” and effective at weakening the morale and capacity of the Lebanese terror group.
Israel’s outsmarting them with this terror attack has led to Hezbollah’s “demoralization.”
Kemp also praised the mission because it effectively targeted only terrorists and limited civilian casualties.