Here’s How Iranian Airlines Are Violating Sanctions
14th July 2016
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
Nearly two hundred flights have taken off from airfields in the Islamic Republic of Iran to land in Syria since the Iran nuclear deal was announced one year ago, according to publicly available flight-tracking data. These commercial aircraft have almost certainly been ferrying troops and arms that, in conjunction with Russian air strikes and the deployment of thousands of Iranian forces, have staved off defeat for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The planes belong to Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier, and Mahan Air, a private airline associated with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
In the context of these documented military operations with commercial aircraft, Boeing and Airbus recently announced multibillion-dollar plans to sell around two hundred planes to Iran. Here’s the problem: the Islamic Republic has used its commercial fleet to ferry weapons, supplies, and paramilitary operatives to its proxies and allies in the region since the creation of Lebanese Hezbollah by the IRGC in the early 1980s. The United States has repeatedly sanctioned Iran Air and Mahan Air for transporting military equipment to the Assad regime since then. A Western intelligence report leaked in 2012 fingered both Mahan and Iran Air for transporting everything from “communications equipment to light arms and advanced strategic weapons” to Syrian forces. And none of these activities appear to have stopped.