Headline

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Azerbaijan Offer Help To Search President Raisi’s Helicopter

Published

1 year ago

May 19, 2024

Iranian search and rescue teams were scouring a fog-shrouded mountainside after a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi went missing in an “accident” on Sunday, state media said.

Fears grew for the 63-year-old ultraconservative after contact was lost with the helicopter carrying him as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in East Azerbaijan province, reports said.

“An accident happened to the helicopter carrying the president” in the Jolfa region of the western province, state television said, while some officials described the incident as a “hard landing”.

“The harsh weather conditions and heavy fog have made it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the accident site,” said one state broadcaster.

More than 40 rescue teams using search dogs and drones were sent to the site, reported the IRNA news agency.

Raisi was visiting the province where he inaugurated a dam project together with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, on the border between the two countries.

Raisi’s convoy included three helicopters, and the other two had “reached their destination safely,” according to Tasnim news agency.

Foreign countries were closely following the search effort at a time of high regional tensions over the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas since October 7 that has drawn in other armed groups in the Middle East.

A US State Department spokesman said: “We are closely following reports of a possible hard landing of a helicopter in Iran carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister.

“We have no further comment at this time.”

An Iranian Red Crescent team was seen walking up a slope in thick fog and drizzling rain, while other live footage showed worshippers reciting prayers in the holy city of Mashhad, Raisi’s hometown.

In neighbouring Iraq, Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani “instructed the interior ministry and the Iraqi Red Crescent and other relevant authorities to offer available resources… to aid in the search”.

Azeri President Aliyev said in a post on X that “we were profoundly troubled by the news of a helicopter carrying the top delegation crash-landing in Iran”.

“Our prayers to Allah Almighty are with President Ebrahim Raisi and the accompanying delegation,” he said, noting that his country “stands ready to offer any assistance needed”.

The accident happened in the mountainous protected forest area of Dizmar near the town of Varzaghan, said the official IRNA news agency.

Military personnel along with the Revolutionary Guards and police had also deployed teams to the area, said army chief-of-staff Mohammad Bagheri.

Iran’s Health Minister Bahram Eynollahi said medical resources had been dispatched.

The reformist Shargh daily also reported that “the helicopter carrying the president crashed” while two other helicopters had landed safely.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said one of the helicopters “made a hard landing due to bad weather conditions” and that it was “difficult to establish communication” with the aircraft.

Raisi has been president of the Islamic Republic since 2021 when he succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, for a term during which Iran has faced crisis and conflict.

He took the reins of a country in the grip of a deep social crisis and an economy strained by US sanctions against Tehran over its contested nuclear programme.

Iran saw a wave of mass protests triggered by the death in custody of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after her arrest for allegedly flouting dress rules for women.

In March 2023, regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a surprise deal that restored diplomatic relations.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday voiced “great concern” after Sunday incident, offering to help with the response.

“We affirm that the Kingdom stands by the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran in these difficult circumstances and its readiness to provide any assistance that the Iranian agencies need,” the foreign ministry of the Gulf kingdom, a longtime rival of Iran, said in a statement.

The war in Gaza that broke out on October 7 sent regional tensions soaring again and a series of tit-for-tat escalations led to Tehran launching hundreds of missiles and rockets directly at Israel in April 2024.

In a speech following Sunday’s dam inauguration, Raisi emphasised Iran’s support for Palestinians, a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“We believe that Palestine is the first issue of the Muslim world, and we are convinced that the people of Iran and Azerbaijan always support the people of Palestine and Gaza and hate the Zionist regime,” said Raisi.

Raisi, born in 1960 in northeast Iran’s holy city of Mashhad, served as Tehran’s prosecutor-general from 1989 to 1994, deputy chief of the Judicial Authority for a decade from 2004, and then national prosecutor-general in 2014.

His black turban signifies direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed, and state media has referred to him by the senior title of ayatollah in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.

Headline

Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

Published

12 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

Headline

Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

Published

12 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

“These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

REAS ALSO:What To Know About Albania’s AI Minister, Diella

“Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

Headline

Russia Arrests Woman For Detonating Bomb On Railway

Published

12 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of detonating explosives in a bid to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the countries’ conflict.

“In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said.

“She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.”

The statement did not name the suspect but said she was born in 1974 and carried out the alleged attack in eastern Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region.

The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.

Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had, the FSB said, established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation”.

He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions”, according to the same source cited by TASS.

He was jailed by a military tribunal.

AFP