Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says airplane hijacking disrupted
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Friday said authorities disrupted an attempted hijacking of a passenger plane in flight the previous night, though it offered few details on what happened. Media outlets close to the forces later said the hijacker had used a fake gun and explosives belt to stage the attempt.
The purported hijacking targeted an Iran Air Fokker 100 regional commercial jet heading from the southwestern city of Ahvaz to the northwestern city of Mashhad, the Guard said on its website.
The Guard’s announcement did not identify the suspect and only said the hijacker sought to divert the flight to the “southern shores of the Persian Gulf.” That description would include the countries of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three nations long suspicious of Iran’s intentions in the wider region.
