Raisi chopper crash sparks conspiracy theories of laser beam from space, Khamenei son, Mossad role

“It wasn’t us,” an anonymous Israeli official told news agency Reuters, hours after it was confirmed that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a chopper crash.

Soon after initial reports of Raisi’s chopper crashing in Iran’s mountainous northwest came to light on Saturday, social media was abuzz with theories proposing foul play by one or other.

Among the social media chatter, many pointed fingers at Israel, as the usual suspect. Israel’s intelligence agency, #Mossad, is trending on X, and, perhaps, that explains it.

The stories of foul-play, however, did not stop there. The others were to do with a space-based laser weapon, and a game of succession involving Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son.

USUAL SUSPECT ISRAEL FIRST ONE TO BE BLAMED

Israel, a longstanding enemy of the Shia nation, naturally emerged as the prime suspect. Though the crash was caused by bad weather and involved an old helicopter, people still saw an Israeli plot given the Jewish nation’s friction with Iran.

Under President Raisi, Iran had for the first time launched a direct aerial attack on Israel.

“We cannot rule out Zionist sabotage, a full investigation will reveal the truth,” Jewish scientist Benjamin Rubinstein wrote on X, who calls himself anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist.

However, it was an expert on Iranian State Television who first hinted at foul-play in the accident that triggered a series of conspiracy theories online.

“When a helicopter faces an accident, it might be caused by a technical issue or maybe weather conditions – but there are other scenarios,” educator and expert Foad Izadi said on Iranian State Television.

Indicating the potential involvement of Israel and its intelligence agency Mossad, Forad added, “We have an issue in the republic of Azerbaijan and that is the presence of the Zionists and Mossad in that region. It will be investigated. We have respect for our neighbours, but we should not get targeted from their territories”.

RAISI’S PILOT WAS COMPROMISED, ALLEGE PEOPLE

A few social media users went on to say that the pilot operating the helicopter ferrying the Iranian President was compromised, while others raised questions about why two helicopters out of the three in the Presidential convoy escaped while one carrying the President and the Iranian Foreign Minister met an ill-fate.

Iran, on the other hand, has not called the chopper accident “an assassination”, so far. Although the Iranian authorities have not given the reason behind the crash, its state media reported “heavy fog and rain”, resulting in the hard-landing of the chopper.

Iran and Israel have long engaged in attacks on each other’s interests, targeting military installations, commercial assets on the high seas, critical infrastructures, and even an occasional nuclear scientist.

Iran has been on American and Israeli scanner for decades for secretly enriching uranium to manufacture nuclear weapons. Israel has been trying to sabotage the alleged Iranian military nuclear weapons programme.

Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was working on the country’s nuclear programme, was assassinated near Tehran in 2020. Fakhrizadeh was killed in a sophisticated attack involving a remote-controlled weapon, prompting Iran to swiftly accuse Israel of orchestrating the assassination.

The Israelis neither confirmed nor denied their involvement in the 2020 attack.

A cyberattack, reportedly emerging from Israel, disabled a majority of the gas pumps throughout Iran in 2023.

People believe these remote attacks show that Israel is capable of hitting targets from afar, something they link with Raisi’s chopper crash.

The United States, the traditional and ideological ally of Israel, has also been blamed by a few, for the crash of the chopper carrying Raisi and the top Iranian officials.

Former Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, blamed American sanctions on aviation parts for the crash of the chopper carrying Raisi. Iran still relies on outdated American copters.

“One of the culprits behind yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, because of its sanctions that bar Iran from procuring essential aviation parts,” Zarif told Iranian state television.

DIRECT ENERGY WEAPONS OR SPACE LASER?

Another chatter of X that immediately caught the eye are posts with, “If nobody else is going to say it then I will”. A handful of accounts on X carrying the sentence have linked the chopper crash to an attack using the ‘Direct Energy Weapons’.

“Direct Energy Weapons aren’t a conspiracy theory. Technology is already being used! If nobody else is going to say it, then I will. The president of Iran obviously had his helicopter shot out of the sky by a space laser!,” wrote an Indian user ‘LoLiticsIN’ on X.

“The President of Iran obviously had his helicopter shot out of the sky by a space laser!,” wrote another user named, GODFATHER.

The posts also had a couple of visuals saying how the ‘Direct Energy Weapons’ actually work.

However, there are no such reports that substantiate the allegations of a laser attack on the helicopter carrying the Iranian President.

A GAME OF SUCCESSION INVOLVING KHAMENEI’S SON?

The death of President Ebrahim Raisi, who was close to the Supreme Leader and was seen as an apparent successor to him, leaves the Shia nation in a political vacuum. Although the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah, is the one who calls the shots in Iran, Raisi, being the President, was second to Khamenei on the list of probable successors.

Following the accident, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, said the affairs of the Iranian government should continue “without the slightest disruption”, at a time of heightened tensions in West Asia.

The 85-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei, who is himself seeing his control slipping away, announced that First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber would serve as the acting president until elections are held within 50 days.

What happens after in the run-up to the election and beyond that is to be seen.

“If Raisi is indeed dead, the key takeaway is not really who succeeds him. It’s the fact that the next Supreme Leader is most likely Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei,” wrote Gabriel Noronha on X, the former advisor on Iran to the US state Department.

“Internal pundits had believed the competition to succeed Khamenei as Supreme Leader was down to Mojtaba and Raisi. If Raisi is dead, Mojtaba becomes heir apparent,” added Gabriel Noronha.

Supreme Leader Khamenei’s assurance, saying, “the Iranian people should not worry”, is also being read as trying to rule out internal foul-play.

As it is too early to conclude the reason for the fatal chopper accident and the scarcity of facts and evidence, what Imtiaz Mahmood, the England-based Pakistani ‘freethinker’ says, probably sums up the hasty theories being floated.

“Mossad planted a mountain in the flight path of the helicopter carrying Ebrahim Raisi. Mountain 1 – 0 Helicopter,” wrote Mahmood on X.

Till Iran puts out all facts, which it might not do at all, the conspiracy theories might get more life and travel around the world on the wings of the internet.