U.S. Citizens Arrested After Alleged Coup Attempt In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo: Here’s What We Know So FarIranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed the country’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as the acting president before a new election followingin a helicopter crash—elevating a longtime ally of Iranian hardliners who once ran the country’s state-related investment firm and oversaw a weapons sale to Russia.
From 2007 until his ascension to the vice presidency, Mokhber was the head of the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, also known as EIKO or Setad, an investment firm originally founded as a conglomerate to hold private properties seized after the 1979 revolution, which wasclaimed was “confiscating land and property from opponents of the regime, including political opponents, religious minorities, and exiled Iranians” and creating a “resistance economy.
Mokhber was also personally sanctioned by the European Union in 2010 over concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but these sanctions were lifted two years later. In 2022, Mokhber traveled to Russia to oversee the sale of Iranian-manufactured Shahed drones and ballistic missiles to the Russian military,Raisi and Iran’s foreign minister were confirmed dead Monday morning after their helicopter crashed in northwestern Iran, following an hours-long search, state media reported., Mokhber will now have 50 days to call for a new election to replace Raisi.