Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earlier this year. Mr. Mousavi said legal and political measures would be taken after Iran had investigated the interception of an Iranian plane.
Photo: Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua/Zuma PressAn American F-15 jet fighter flew within roughly 1,000 meters of an Iranian passenger plane in the vicinity of a U.S. air base in Syria on Thursday, a U.S. defense official said.
The jet performed a visual inspection of the Mahan Air passenger plane to ensure the safety of coalition personnel at the base in al-Tanf, said Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East.
“Once the F-15 pilot identified the aircraft as a Mahan Air passenger plane, the F-15 safely opened distance from the aircraft,” Capt. Urban said. “The professional intercept was conducted in accordance with international standards.”
Iranian state media reported that two jet fighters had intercepted an Iranian passenger plane over Syria, forcing the aircraft to descend abruptly before landing in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut and injuring several passengers on board. A U.S. defense official said a second F-15 fighter jet was in the vicinity as well but wasn’t close enough to make a visual inspection of the commercial airliner.
The incident comes after months of building acrimony, and a string of mysterious fires and explosions in the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.
Tensions have led to mistakes in the region’s contentious airspace. In January, as Iran launched missiles at a base in Iraq housing U.S. troops and its air defenses were on high alert for an American retaliatory attack, the Revolutionary Guard mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner as it took off from Tehran, killing 176 people on board.
On Thursday, Iranian broadcaster IRIB aired a video showing one man bleeding from his forehead, saying he had banged his head when the passenger plane quickly changed altitude, and another elderly man sprawled unconscious on the floor of the plane. In another video, the broadcaster showed passengers screaming.
The Iranian passenger plane was headed to Beirut from Tehran. Mahan Air is often used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. and Israel accuse of transporting arms and money to Iran-backed militias in the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran had told the United Nations and the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which handles Washington’s interests in the country, that Iran would hold the U.S. responsible if anything happened to the plane en route back to Tehran. Mr. Mousavi also said legal and political measures would be taken after Iran had investigated the incident.
Tensions have been building between Washington and Tehran since President Trump withdrew from an international nuclear accord with Iran in 2018 and imposed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic. They reached a peak in January, when a U.S. drone killed Iran’s most prominent military commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Iraq.
Recently, unexplained explosions and fires in Iran have hit a nuclear facility, a missile base and a port where seven ships erupted in fire. A fire in a clinic in Tehran killed 19 people.
Iran has said most of the incidents were accidents. An Iranian parliamentary commission this week visited the Natanz nuclear facility, where a centrifuge assembly workshop was destroyed earlier this month in a large explosion, and said the blast was most likely caused by sabotage, without elaborating. Foreign analysts have said the explosion was most likely carried out by Israeli or U.S. intelligence.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com and Sune Engel Rasmussen at sune.rasmussen@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"close" - Google News
July 24, 2020 at 08:07AM
https://ift.tt/2WMi9FK
U.S. Says Jet Fighter Came Close to Iranian Passenger Plane Over Syria - The Wall Street Journal
"close" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QTYm3D
https://ift.tt/3d2SYUY
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "U.S. Says Jet Fighter Came Close to Iranian Passenger Plane Over Syria - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment