Babak Taghvaee reveals how Iran, aided by the Syrian Arab Air Force, has used airliners to fly weapons into Syria to help arm terrorist groups fighting Israel.
Since 2011, Iranian military and civilian cargo and passenger aircraft, together with the Syrian Arab Air Force’s (SyAAF) Ilyushin Il-76T from the 585th Transport Squadron, have airlifted thousands of tons of weapons from Iran to Syria. While the Syrian military aircraft usually transfer weapons and ammunition for the Syrian Armed Forces, the Iranian aircraft mostly carry weapons at the request of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) for delivery to Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region.
With the start of the Israel-Gaza war and the launch of Operation Swords of Iron by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Hamas and Hezbollah on October 7, the IRGC-QF stopped using its military aircraft to airlift weapons to Syria but continued using Airbus A310-304 and A340-313 passenger aircraft from Mahan Air. (IRGC owns the majority of Mahan Air shares.)
