Helicopter crash that killed Iranian president and others could have repercussions across the Middle East

JERUSALEM (AP) — The helicopter crash in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials were killed is likely to reverberate across the Middle East, where influence of Iran is wide and deep.

Indeed, Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups and militants in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, allowing it to project power and potentially deter attacks. the United States or Israel, the sworn enemies of his 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tensions have never been higher than they were last month, when the Iran of Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed two Iranian generals and five officers.

Israel, with help from the United States, Britain, Jordan and others, intercepted almost all of the projectiles. In response, Israel apparently launched its own strike against an air defense radar system in the Iranian city of Isfahan, causing no casualties but sending an unequivocal message.

The two sides have been waging a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, but the April firefight was their first direct military confrontation.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has attracted other Iranian allies, with each attack and counterattack threatening to spark a wider war.

It is a combustible mixture that could ignite in the event of unexpected events, such as Sunday’s fatal accident.

A BITTER RIVALRY WITH ISRAEL

Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, ballistic missiles and support for armed groups that have vowed to destroy Israel.

Iran sees itself as the main patron of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule, and senior officials have for years called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Raisi, who was a hardliner seen as a protégé and possible successor to Khamenei, rebuked Israel last month, saying “the Israeli Zionist regime has been committing oppression against the Palestinian people for 75 years.”

“First, we must expel the usurpers, second, we must make them pay the price for all the damage they have caused, and third, we must bring the oppressor and usurper to justice,” he said. he declared.

Israel has reportedly carried out numerous attacks over the years, targeting senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists.

There is no evidence that Israel was involved in Sunday’s helicopter crash, and Israeli officials have made no comment on the incident.

Arab countries in the Persian Gulf have also long viewed Iran with suspicion, a key factor in the decision of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, and of Saudi Arabia to consider such a move .

A PROXY WAR SPREADING FROM LEBANON TO YEMEN

Iran has provided financial and other support over the years to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war, and to the smaller but more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad , who took part. But there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the attack.

Since the start of the war, Iranian leaders have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. Their allies in the region have gone much further.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Iran’s most militarily advanced proxy, has fought a low-intensity conflict with Israel since the start of the Gaza war. The two sides have exchanged near-daily strikes along the Israeli-Lebanese border, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee.

However, so far the conflict has not escalated into a full-blown war that would be disastrous for both countries.

Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases in the early months of the war, but withdrew after U.S. strikes in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three American soldiers in January.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, another Iran ally, have repeatedly targeted international shipping in what they portray as a blockade of Israel. These strikes, which often target ships with no apparent connection to Israel, have also drawn retaliation from the United States.

BEYOND THE MIDDLE EAST

Iran’s influence extends beyond the Middle East and its rivalry with Israel.

Israel and Western countries have long suspected Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful nuclear program, which they see as a threat to non-proliferation around the world.

Then-President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from a historic nuclear pact between Iran and world powers in 2018, and his imposition of crushing sanctions, led Iran to gradually abandon all limits on its program by agreement.

Today, Iran enriches uranium to 60% purity, close to a military weapon’s level of 90%. Surveillance cameras installed by the UN nuclear agency have been disrupted and Iran has excluded some of the agency’s most experienced inspectors. Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program was for purely peaceful purposes, but the United States and others believe that it had an active nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Israel is widely considered the only nuclear power in the Middle East, but has never acknowledged having such weapons.

Iran also became a key ally of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and is widely accused of supplying explosive drones that have wreaked havoc in Ukrainian cities. Raisi himself denied the allegations last fall in an interview with The Associated Press, saying Iran had not supplied such weapons since hostilities began in February 2022.

Iranian officials have made conflicting comments about drones, while U.S. and European officials say the large number of drones used in Ukraine’s war shows the flow of such weapons has intensified since the war began.