New questions rise as Iran says it downed plane

United Arab Emirates (AP):

Iran’s acknowledgement that it shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 people, raised new questions yesterday about transparency in the Islamic Republic and what led to the downing of the commercial flight.

While its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard took responsibility, a commander also claimed it warned Tehran to close off its airspace amid fears of United States (US) retaliation over Iran launching ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing US forces.

The same Guard commander also said he raised the possibility to his superiors that his forces shot down the airplane as early as Wednesday morning. However, Iranian air-crash investigators, government officials and diplomats all denied for days afterwards that a missile downed the Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines out of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

“There has been no missile launched in that area at that time,” said Hamid Baeidinejad, Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom, in an interview Friday with Sky News, calling further questions on the allegation “absolutely unacceptable”.

Then the story changed early Saturday morning, with Iran’s general staff of its armed forces saying the flight had been “targeted unintentionally due to human error”.

Baeidinejad later apologised on Twitter.

“In my statement yesterday to the UK media, I conveyed the official findings of responsible authorities in my country that missile could not be fired and hit the Ukrainian plane at that period of time,” he wrote. “I ... regret for conveying such wrong findings.”

But even in acknowledging the shootdown, an army statement and the Guard later claimed the attack raised the question of who knew of the attack and at what time. General Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Guard’s aerospace programme said he told his superior on Wednesday that “the simultaneous occurrence of the launch and crash was suspicious”.

Hajizadeh’s immediate superior would be the Guard’s top commander, General Hossein Salami. Ultimately, the Guard answers solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who only Saturday acknowledged the missile strike, citing a report by Iran’s conventional armed forces.

Yet even the army statement itself raises questions, as it said the flight moved “very close to a sensitive military spot” belonging to the Guard.

“The altitude and the direction of the flight’s movement were like an enemy target, so the aircraft was targeted unintentionally due to human error,” the statement read.

Yet flight data for every Ukrainian International Airlines flight out of Tehran since early November show Wednesday’s flight followed a similar altitude and flight path, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. Planes leaving Imam Khomeini airport routinely take off going west as the Ukrainian flight did.