Ebrahim Raisi, 63, a hard-line spiritual cleric, was elected president of Iran in 2021. In his tenure as president, he has overseen a method to develop his nation’s regional affect — backing militant proxies throughout the Center East, expediting the nation’s nuclear program and bringing the nation to the brink of conflict with Israel.

However in the identical interval, Iran skilled a few of its largest antigovernment protests in many years and a extreme financial downturn pushed by worldwide sanctions and excessive unemployment.

Mr. Raisi has been seen as a doable successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme chief, the best political and non secular place within the Islamic republic.

Mr. Raisi, born within the japanese metropolis of Mashhad in 1960 to a devoutly spiritual household, was swept up within the fervor of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which toppled the nation’s monarchy in 1979.

As a spiritual scholar in Iran’s theocratic authorities and a protégé of Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr. Raisi climbed the ranks of the judiciary, serving as a prosecutor in a number of cities.

After being named Iran’s prime choose, he’s believed to have been a part of a small committee that ordered the executions of 1000’s of political dissidents in 1988.

Accused of many years of human rights violations, Mr. Raisi is the topic of punishing sanctions by the USA.

Throughout Mr. Raisi’s presidency, Iran confronted giant antigovernment protests after the demise of a younger Kurdish girl, Mahsa Amini, in police custody. The authorities responded with a brutal crackdown that included killings and executions.

Tehran has additionally continued its uranium-enrichment program and gone ahead with its ballistic missile program.
A yearslong shadow conflict with Israel burst into the open final month after Iran launched a salvo of a whole lot of missiles and drones at Israel. That assault resulted from escalating tensions between the 2 international locations after Hamas, an Iranian-backed militant group, raided Israel on Oct. 7.


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