Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says attempted plane hijacking foiled
Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said authorities foiled a hijacking attempt on a passenger plane in a flight on Thursday night, without giving further details, Al Jazeera reported.
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 published on its website on Friday.
The IRGC announcement did not identify the hijacker, saying only 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 countries which have fraught relations with Iran.
The elite force said that the Iran Air flight made an emergency landing in the central city of Isfahan, and no one was injured in the incident. It was not immediately clear if the purported hijacker was armed or faced prior criminal charges.