Tehran admits downing Ukrainian Boeing, exposes regime weakness

Nora Bendary

A Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 crashed shortly after take-off in Iran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.

According to a tweet from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, the victims were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians (including the nine crew members), 10 passengers from Sweden, four Afghans, and three each from Germany and the United Kingdom.

The US, UK and Canada on Thursday said all evidence pointed to a catastrophic error by Tehran’s air defense batteries downing the aircraft.

Iran first claimed it is “certain” that a Ukrainian airliner which crashed outside Tehran this week was not hit by a missile, calling on the US and others to hand over information proving otherwise.

Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s national ’s aviation department, said in a press conference on Friday that assessments by Western intelligence that an Iranian defense system brought down Ukranian Airlines Flight 752, killing all 176 people onboard, were wrong.

Shorty after, however, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted on Saturday that Tehran accidentally downed the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane, killing all 176 people on board on Wednesday, shortly after launching missiles at bases hosting US forces in Iraq.

Fearful of the sanctions that will be imposed on Tehran because of this “mistake”, Iranian officials have justified this catastrophe by saying that this error occurred because of what Tehran called “a state of war with Washington.”

“Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted. “Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.

Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh has said at a press conference in Tehran that after he told senior IRGC members that a missile had downed the Ukrainian passenger plane, the general staff of the Armed Forces formed its own investigative team, from which he was excluded.

Hassan Rezaeifar, the head of Iran’s investigation team into the crash, told the press conference that the black box analysis will be done in a laboratory in Iran and that it will take up to two months to extract its data and that the entire investigation into the crash could take more than one year.

Hajizadeh partially blamed the US for the downing of the plane, saying Iran was already on high alert following the US’s warning that it could target 52 sites in Iran, and amid rising tensions with the country.

He said the plane was shot down by a short-range missile and was misidentified as a cruise missile by an air defense operator.

The operator identified the plane as a cruise missile but was unable to contact the central air defense command to confirm it. So he had to choose between shooting it down or not, and he choose to do it, Hajizadeh said. The operator had 10 seconds to make a decision.

President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded Saturday that Iran punish those responsible for the downing of a Ukrainian airliner, pay compensation and apologise.

“We expect Iran… to bring the guilty to the courts,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on Facebook, calling also for the “payment of compensation” and the return of remains.

Journalist Osama al-Hitaimi, an expert on Iranian affairs, told The Reference in an interview that  the fact that Tehran achknoleged responsibility and apologized means it could not hide the truth  amid an international determination to reveal it.

He further added that Iran is currently in a tough spot that will force it to direct all its diplomatic power in an attempt to reduce its international repercussions, pointing out that Washington will take advantage of this accident, according to Tehran, as an incident committed by a terrorist state that would not hesitate to target a civilian plane.

On the legal level, Ukraine, as well as other countries whose nationals were on board, will stress the continuation of the investigation to uncover the circumstances behind the accident, and then to ensure that those responsible for launching the missile are brought to trial, and to hold them accountable for what they did, which is a path that will certainly drive many Iranian leaders to prisons.

With regard to financial compensation, the political expert indicated that the International Civil Aviation Organization and international institutions will compel Iran to pay tens of millions of dollars in financial compensation to the families of the victims, whether Iranians or other nationalities.