Who was Ebrahim Raisi? 10 points on chopper crash, Iran president

Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi has died in a helicopter crash. The country's Mehr news agency said all passengers travelling in the chopper "were martyred". Among the dead are the country's foreign minister and other officials.

Here are 10 key facts about the chopper crash and Ebrahim Raisi:

1. Ebrahim Raisi had been travelling in Iran's East Azerbaijan province, when his chopper underwent a "hard landing" near Jofla city, which borders Azerbaijan.
2. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials were travelling in the helicopter with Ebrahim Raisi. The crash took place across a steep valley in a green mountain range. A Bell 212 helicopter was carrying Raisi.
3. Ebrahim Raisi was 63 years old. He was considered to be an ultraconservative cleric. During his tenure, Iran witnessed mass civil protests.
4. Ebrahim Raisi became Iran's eighth president since the 1979 Islamic revolution He won the elections in 2021. It was expected that he would succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
5. After winning the presidency, Raisi had pledged that he would end efforts to build and improve trade ties with the West and focus on developing bilateral relations with China and Russia -- two greatest rivals of Iran's nemesis, the United States.
6. Ebrahim Raisi was born in Mashhad, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam. He was married to Jamileh Alamolhoda, the daughter of an ultraconservative cleric.
7. Raisi's tenure was marred with economic problems, including the fall of the country's currency against dollar and crippling inflation, brought about by the United States' economic sanctions.
8. In 2019, the United States accused Ebrahim Raisi of being involved in human rights violations and sanctioned him.
9. American non-profit Amnesty International also accused him of being involved in a clandestine outfit which allegedly executed political dissidents in the late 1980s.
10. His death comes weeks after Iran attacked its arch nemesis, Israel, for the first time.