The bad weather was complicating rescue efforts, the state news agency IRNA reported. The chief of staff of Iran’s army ordered all the resources of the army and the elite Revolutionary Guard to be put to use in the search and rescue operations.
State TV stopped all its regular programming to show prayers being held for Raisi across the country and, in a corner of the screen, live coverage of rescue teams deployed on foot in the mountainous area in heavy fog.
“That contrast for us is a win all day long, every day of the week. Whether it’s the economy that is crushing the bank accounts of working families, the porous border, whether it’s chaos abroad—all of these ways Biden is weak and failing,” said a senior Trump adviser, Brian Hughes.
The rescue teams were expected to reach the site of the crash later on Sunday evening, state TV reported.
Raisi, 63, was elected president in 2021, and since taking office has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.