Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials were confirmed dead on Monday after their helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of the country’s northwest, Iranian state media reported.

State TV said earlier on Monday that there was “no sign of life” at the crash site of the helicopter that was carrying 63-year-old Raisi, 60-year-old Abdollahian and other officials after it made a “hard landing” on Sunday.

The crash site was across a steep valley, according to state media, which gave no immediate cause for the crash.

As the sun rose on Monday, rescuers saw the helicopter from a distance of roughly 1.25 miles, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society Pir Hossein Kolivand told state media. The officials had been missing for more than 12 hours when the helicopter was observed.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT EXPERIENCES ‘HARD LANDING’ IN HELICOPTER: IRANIAN MEDIA

Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian were traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province when the helicopter made what state TV described as a “hard landing” near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, roughly 375 miles northwest of Tehran. State TV later said it crashed further east near the village of Uzi, although details remained contradictory.

The governor of the East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards were also aboard, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. One local government official described what happened as a “crash,” while others referred to it as a “hard landing” or an “incident.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (L) and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi (R) attend a bilateral agreement signing in Havana, Cuba, at the Revolution Palace on June 15, 2023. (YAMIL LAGE / AFP)

“The esteemed president and company were on their way back aboard some helicopters and one of the helicopters was forced to make a hard landing due to the bad weather and fog,” Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in comments aired on state TV.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE EVENT OF RAISI’S DEATH? AN IRAN EXPERT WEIGHS IN

Rescue teams are seen near the crash site of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran. (Azin Haghighi, Moj News Agency via AP)

The incident comes as Iran, under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack against Israel last month.

Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy in response to a struggling economy and attacks on women’s rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ahead of the European elections between 6 and 9 June, EU leaders and the European Union itself are increasingly finding themselves as the targets of misinformation campaigns.

Whether it’s an attempt to discredit political rivals or claims about EU regulations, social media is rife with false narratives.

One such example stems from the dramatic shooting of Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, which has prompted swathes of politically-motivated misinformation online.

Social media users are claiming that this picture shows Fico’s alleged attacker alongside Martin Šimečka, the father of the leader of the opposition party Progressive Slovakia.

Slovakian media has identified the alleged shooter as self-described writer Juraj Cintula.

However, the picture in the post doesn’t show Cintula and Šimečka together. In fact, the second man in the picture isn’t Šimečka at all, and the photo itself comes from one of Cintula’s book launches in 2019.

Facebook itself has now labelled the post as false information.

The attempted false association of the attack on Fico with his political rivals remains particularly dangerous ahead of the European elections.

Is Donald Tusk ashamed of his Polish identity?

Across the border in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been accused of attacking the notion of Polishness as an identity.

A picture posted on TikTok claims that Tusk called Polishness ‘an abnormality’ that comes to him ‘with painful persistence’. However, this is misleading.

The prime minister did state those words, but they come from an article he wrote over 40 years ago.

According to Polish fact-checkers, Tusk’s article critically discusses Poles’ attitudes to reality before confirming that he identifies with his own Polishness, at a time when Poland was a communist satellite of the Soviet Union.

“Despite its oppressive heritage it remains our common conscious choice,” he said.

As a strongly pro-EU prime minister who previously served as president of the European Council, Tusk is a crucial target for misinformation mere weeks before the elections.

Is the EU banning cash payments of over €100,000?

Often, it’s the EU itself that’s under attack from those spreading false narratives.

Some social media users say the bloc has prohibited all cash payments over €100,000.

This is partly true: the EU has approved rules limiting cash transactions to €100,000 as part of a raft of new anti-money laundering measures, but these restrictions don’t apply to all transactions.

Specifically, there’s a limit on professional traders barring them from accepting or paying cash over €100,000.

ADVERTISEMENT

Transfers between private individuals in a non-professional context are excluded.

Ahead of the European elections, it’s critical that news is shared accurately and fairly, so that the electorate can vote with the proper information at hand.