U.S. Intercept of Iran Plane Over Syria Is Latest in Countries’ History of Air Disasters
By Tom O’Connor On 7/24/20 at 2:07 PM EDT
The U.S. military’s interception of an Iranian passenger plane over Syria comes at a critical juncture for the two foes and follows a tragic, deadly history of aerial mishaps between them.
After Iranian media reports Thursday of passenger injuries because the Mahan Air Flight IRM1153 had to unexpectedly maneuver away from foreign fighter jets, U.S. Central Command confirmed to Newsweek that a U.S. F-15 was in fact behind the “professional intercept” that a spokesperson said was conducted safely “in accordance with international standards” over a southeastern Syrian territory that a U.S.-led coalition has claimed control over. Iranian officials, however, have opened an investigation into the incident and decried it as an example of dangerous military activity over unwelcome territory.
“U.S. illegally occupies territory of another State and then harasses a scheduled civil airliner—endangering innocent civilian passengers—ostensibly to protect its occupation forces,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Friday.
I don’t know if Newsweek has a certain slant, maybe but the story is out there from multiple sources, a bit of a confrontation in the air between one of our planes and one of their passenger jets.
We got close to them to inspect it closer per one story I read.
Pretty big story, what’s up with this?
More coverage:
Etc.
On Twitter, Heshmat Alavi is a pretty decent account that is anti-regime. It’s also suppose to be an account for the Iranian opposition living in exile. But it’s been pretty helpful in the past, they have quite a lot on all of this.