FLASH
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The sky can be dangerous, especially in times of great tension.
Intrigues, murders, attacks, mysterious episodes, conspiracy theories.
These are the latest stories from Iran, as another traumatic episode has been marked, the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, which was announced by Iranian state TV this morning.
FirE
In the summer of 1978, the country was in revolt against the Shah. A fire destroyed the Rex cinema in Abadan where almost 400 people lost their lives. Followers of Imam Khomeini, then still in exile in France, blamed the secret services, but later the blame shifted to Islamic extremists. The massacre had a very strong impact and is one of the first sparks of a very long crisis with endless consequences.
Cutting off the head
In June 1981, a bomb planted by opponents kills dozens of representative figures of the Islamic Republic, including Ayatollah Mohammed Behesti. At the end of August another blow: this time President Mohammed Rajai was killed. For the authorities, this is domestic terrorism, although the possibilities of conflict are not lacking. We are actually in a turbulent era, with political conflicts, with tests of power (such as the fall of President Bani Sadr), underground maneuvers, alliance games. The country is also under attack, it must defend its borders from the Western-backed Iraqi military offensive. There will be ban lists, mass elimination of dissidents, but also the subsequent purge of several key figures, including Khomeini's Parisian spokesman, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh: shot after admitting "treason".
sabotage
Beginning in the first half of the 2000s, the ayatollahs engaged in a duel with the Israelis and the Americans. External adversaries carry out sabotage to thwart the nuclear and missile programs, numerous scientists are ambushed and, in November 2020, the father of the atomic project Mohsen Fakrizadeh. A sophisticated operation, possibly carried out with the use of a "remotely guided" machine gun. Mossad, CIA and some European intelligence have "mole", use infiltrators recruited within the country, manage to infect centrifuges with a cyber virus. They use drones, devices hidden in furniture, fake technology, guerrillas belonging to factions hostile to Tehran. The climate is such that every accident - there are many - in factories and places we almost automatically think of a malicious event. The thesis of subversive action is constant, there is no lack of those from the nomenclature who "ride" the threat due to palace quarrels.
Skies in peril
The sky can be dangerous, especially in times of great tension. On July 3, 1988, an American ship accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf, mistaking it for a fighter: 290 casualties. January 2020, this time it is the Pasdaran who make the mistake: they destroy a Ukrainian plane with 176 people on board and at first, they try to "cover up" everything. Those were challenging days. Then an American drone took out General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Division (Pasdaran's special apparatus) and beacon of Shia militias in the Middle East, in Baghdad.
Safety
Under an embargo for a lifetime, the aeronautical sector has had to resort to receiving spare parts that are not always perfect. Parameters that are less than ideal for aircraft safety, with many experts warning about the quality of the "fleet". This was contested by two precedents involving leaders: in 1980 Banisadr survived the shooting down of his helicopter in a border region, an epilogue similar to the one that starred Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then head of state, in 2013, forced to landed the emergency in the mountains of Alborz.
Doubts
For official travel, VIPs have at their disposal a "Squadron" stationed in Mehrabad, near the capital, with a couple of Bell 412s and several Russian-designed Mils.
Some may wonder why a return trip was undertaken in such a terrible weather situation. There will be questions about the pilots and the surveillance around the aircraft during the official mission. Disasters, however, can still happen. Still others may allude to an enemy-inspired saboteur, a "hypocrite," "a corrupt person on earth." In the Middle East it is easy to find (or hypothesize) a "culprit". And this is even more so in a season of conflict. Let's wait and see what will emerge from the fog of Varzaghan./ Corriere della Sera
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