TLTP
\nTEHRAN
\nThe US Air Force, not Israeli, fighter jets, were responsible for unsafely intercepting a plane of Mahan Air over Syria, which resulted in injuries to several passengers traveling to Beirut, Iranian media reported.
\nMahan Air Flight 1152 was en route from Tehran to Lebanon when it was intercepted by two F-15 fighters near the Syria-Jordan border. The approaching jets forced it to rapidly change course and altitude, resulting in several injuries among the passengers, the company said.
\nInitial reports from eyewitnesses on board spoke of Israeli planes, and were repeated by international media outlets. The captain of Flight 1152 later told an Iranian news agency that the pilots had identified themselves as US Air Force during the radio contact.
\nIran\u2019s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi had informed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the incident, and warned that \u201cthe Islamic Republic of Iran will take the United States responsible\u201d if any harm befalls the plane on the way back to Tehran, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi.
\nBy Thursday evening the plane had returned to Tehran safely, but at least three passengers on board were injured in the incident.
\nThe intercept took place in Syrian airspace over the At-Tanf border crossing with Iraq, according to Syria\u2019s SANA news agency. The US has established a military base in the area, which the government in Damascus considers a violation of Syrian sovereignty.
\nMahan Air is a privately owned Iranian civilian carrier. It was placed on the US sanctions list against \u201cproliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters\u201d in December 2019, when Washington accused it of transporting troops and equipment for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TLTP TEHRAN The US Air Force, not Israeli, fighter jets, were responsible for unsafely intercepting a plane of Mahan Air over Syria, which resulted in injuries to several passengers traveling to Beirut, Iranian media reported. Mahan Air Flight 1152 was en route from Tehran to Lebanon when it was intercepted by two F-15 fighters near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-134649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n