New Delhi: Qatar has rejected an Iranian allegation that its forces secretly detained three military pilots after their aircraft were shot down during an operation over the Gulf state in March. Doha said no surviving Iranian aircrew were in its custody and described Tehran’s statements as misleading at a sensitive stage of regional diplomacy.
The spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed al-Ansari, said the aircraft had entered Qatari airspace without authorization and failed to respond to repeated attempts to establish contact. Qatari forces then engaged the aircraft, according to Reuters.
Al-Ansari said search-and-rescue teams subsequently recovered the remains of one pilot, identified as Majid Kazemi, and contacted Iran to arrange their repatriation under international humanitarian law. He added that Qatar had invited an Iranian delegation to examine details of the search operation in April, but Tehran had not responded.
The denial followed a letter from Brigadier General Mohammad Bagherzadeh, the head of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff’s committee for missing personnel, to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger. Bagherzadeh alleged that Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian had been captured alive and held by Qatar for six months.
The Iranian officer claimed that the three men had been denied contact with their families and Iranian authorities, and asked the humanitarian organization to establish their condition and whereabouts. Iran invoked provisions of the Third Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war and communication with their families, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Tehran said four aircrew had been aboard two aircraft sent to attack a military base in Qatar after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28. One crew member was killed, it said, while the other three ejected after the aircraft were hit and were subsequently taken into Qatari custody.
Qatar’s Defence Ministry said on March 2 that its forces had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 strike aircraft during the third day of the war. The Soviet-designed, twin-seat Su-24 is a variable-sweep-wing tactical bomber normally operated by a pilot and a navigator or weapons-systems officer, accounting for the four aircrew involved in the two-aircraft mission.
The Iranian aircraft were operating during attacks directed at targets in Qatar, including Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest American military installation in West Asia and a major hub for US Central Command operations. Doha said Iranian strikes also threatened civilian and strategic infrastructure, while Tehran maintained that its operations were retaliation for attacks launched from US facilities in the Gulf.
Iran had previously announced that one pilot had been killed and others were missing, but had not publicly alleged that Qatar was holding the surviving crew. The latest accusation therefore marks a significant change in Tehran’s account of an incident that occurred nearly six months earlier.
No independent evidence establishing the fate of the three missing aircrew has been made public, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has not confirmed that it has gained access to them. The conflicting accounts leave unresolved whether the pilots died after ejecting, remain missing or survived and were captured, as Iran now claims.
The dispute risks adding friction to an already difficult relationship at a time when Qatar remains involved in efforts to reduce regional tensions and facilitate negotiations. Doha said the timing of the allegation was particularly damaging because diplomatic initiatives to contain the wider conflict were continuing, according to Al Jazeera.