Iran admits to attacking commercial airliner, alleging human error

The government of Iran admitted on Jan. 11 that its military
was responsible for shooting down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752,
killing all 176 people abroad on Jan. 8. The official reason offered was the
plane’s “sharp, unexpected turn towards a sensitive military base,” according
to a statement by the military, as reported by the nytimes.com news site. The
Iranian military’s statement said the plane “took the flying posture and
altitude of an enemy target” as it came close to an Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps base. It said that “under these circumstances, because of human
error,” the plane “came under fire.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tried to
place some of the blame on the United States, saying on Twitter that the
disaster was “caused by U.S. adverturism,” the nytimes.com news site said. The
military’s statement said there had been information suggesting the United
States was “preparing to aerially target sensitive defense and key sites and
multiple targets in our country, and this led to an even more sensitive defense
posture by our antiaircraft units.”

Iranian Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stated a missile operator in Bidganeh had
acted independently, having mistaken the plane for a U.S. cruise missile and had
shot it down, the BBC reported. Western experts had previously noted that
Flight 752 was flying near several sensitive Iranian ballistic missile
facilities, including the Shahid Modarres missile base at Bidganeh near Malard,
which the Iranians could have believed would be targets of U.S. retaliation for
the Iranian ballistic attacks a few hours earlier, the washingtonpost.com news
site said.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization disputed the
timeline, arguing the plane was on its correct course exclusively, with no
proven flight deviation of the plane, as reported by the Reuters news agency.
That conclusion was backed by Ukrainian airline officials, who said the
evidence points to Flight 752 flying its standard designated route, without any
adjustments.

Ukrainian President Zelensky requested completing the
investigation, the identification and return of bodies, as well as compensation
for victims’ families in a Jan. 11 phone conversation with Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani. In a nationally televised address that evening, he said the
Prosecutor General’s Office had filed criminal charges against those
responsible for the attack. “We agreed upon full legal and technical
coordination, including issues of compensation. We agreed that no one will
sneak away,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: Yet again,
we have another Ukrainian tragedy with more questions than answers. It’s
unclear how a departing Boeing passenger jet can be misperceived as an incoming
missile. That’s particularly the case considering about two dozen planes with
similar flight routes – which departed after the launch of Iranian missile
strikes on U.S. military bases in Iraq – evaded being targeted before the
Ukrainian plane was shot down. Iran could only suffer enormous political losses
from the attack (without any gains), but Zelensky’s opponents are spinning
Russian conspiracy theories.

Zelensky has done what’s expected of him in
demanding prosecution of those responsible and compensation for the victims.
Yet he hasn’t directly questioned the dubious official explanation, which would
have demonstrated a more assertive position. At minimum, the claims of a
deviant flight route deserve direct criticism. Given this lingering
uncertainty, Ukraine’s reputation as a pliable, vulnerable actor on the global
arena is merely reinforced by this incident. Zelensky’s image as an
accommodator to stronger foreign powers was also reinforced by this incident,
also considering how he was reportedly deliberately late in implicating Iran’s
military (about a day after Western leaders, particularly the Canadian prime
minister, had done so).