A helicopter crash that killed Iran's president and others could reverberate throughout the Middle East

politics

JERUSALEM (AP) — The helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials is more likely to reverberate throughout the Middle East, where Iran's influence runs wide and deep.

That's because Iran has supported armed groups and militants in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories for many years, allowing it to exert power and potentially face attacks from the United States or Israel, its sworn enemies to fend off the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Tensions have never been higher than last month Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles in Israel in response to An airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria Two Iranian generals and five officers were killed.

Israel, with the assistance of the United States, Britain, Jordan and other countries, intercepted almost all the projectiles. In response, Israel apparently launched its own attack against an air defense radar system within the Iranian city of Isfahan, however it caused no casualties send an unmistakable message.

The sides have waged a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, however the April shootout was their first direct military confrontation.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has drawn in other Iranian allies every attack and counterattack threatened to trigger a significant war.

It is a flammable mixture that could possibly be ignited by unexpected events akin to Sunday's fatal accident.

A bitter rivalry with Israel

Israel has long viewed Iran as its best threat due to Tehran's controversial nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and its support for armed groups vowing to destroy Israel.

Iran sees itself because the principal sponsor of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule, and senior officials have called for Israel to be wiped from the map for years.

Raisi, a hardliner who was considered Khamenei's protégé and possible successor, chastised Israel last monthHe said: “The Zionist Israeli regime has committed oppression against the Palestinian people.” for 75 years.”

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

Israel is believed to have carried out quite a few attacks against senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists through the years.

There isn’t any evidence that Israel was involved in Sunday's helicopter crash, and Israeli officials haven’t commented on the incident.

Arab countries within the Persian Gulf have also long viewed Iran with suspicion, a key think about the choice by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, in addition to Saudi Arabia to take into consideration such a step.

A proxy war stretching from Lebanon to Yemen

Iran has through the years provided financial and other support to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza warand the smaller but more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took part. However, there is no such thing as a evidence that Iran was directly involved within the attack.

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

The Lebanese Hezbollah group, Iran's most militarily advanced proxy, has been waging war a low intensity conflict with Israel because the starting of the Gaza war. There have been almost each day attacks by each side along the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing tens of hundreds of individuals on each side to flee.

However, thus far the conflict has not escalated right into a full-scale war catastrophic for each countries.

Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases within the early months of the war but then withdrew US retaliation for a drone attack killed three American soldiers in January.

Yemen's Houthi rebels, one other Iran ally, have done this repeatedly targeted international shipping in what they portray as a blockade of Israel. So have these attacks, which regularly goal ships that haven’t any obvious ties to Israel drew a US-led retaliation.

Beyond the Middle East

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

Israel and Western countries have long suspected that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful nuclear program, which they are saying poses a threat to nonproliferation in every single place.

Then-President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a landmark nuclear pact between Iran and world powers in 2018 and the imposition of crushing sanctions led Iran to progressively abandon all restrictions imposed by the deal on its program.

Today, Iran enriches uranium to a purity of as much as 60% – a near weapons-grade level of 90%. Surveillance cameras installed by the UN nuclear agency have been jammed and Iran has blocked a few of them most experienced inspectors. Iran has all the time insisted that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, however the United States and others consider it had an energetic nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Israel is widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, but has never admitted to having such weapons.

Iran has also emerged as a key ally of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and is widely accused of supplying exploding drones which have wreaked havoc in Ukraine's cities. Raisi himself denied the allegations in an interview with The Associated Press last fallIran has not supplied such weapons since hostilities broke out in February 2022.

Iranian officials have made conflicting comments in regards to the drones, while U.S. and European officials say the sheer variety of drones utilized in the war in Ukraine shows that the flow of such weapons has increased because the war began.