Iranian pilots captured in Qatar: Tehran demands their release, Doha denies

Did Qatar capture three Iranian fighter pilots, ultra-sensitive wartime “loot”? This is what Tehran says, demanding the release of its three soldiers who, according to the Islamic Republic, were taken during an attack targeting an American base in Qatar in March. Except that Doha denies it.

General Mohammad Bagherzadeh, head of the Committee for the Search for Missing Persons of the country's armed forces, sent a letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), calling on it to "meet the Iranian pilots as soon as possible, inquire about their state of health and facilitate their release."

A request not to the taste of the spokesperson for Qatari diplomacy, Majed Al Ansari: “We categorically deny the allegations circulating about the detention of Iranian pilots and we are surprised by these misleading statements […] while diplomatic efforts and initiatives continue to defuse tensions in the region. »

The Qatari Air Force announced on March 2 that it had shot down two Sukhoi Su-24 bombers coming from Iran - the first announcement of this type - after Iranian shots on gas installations in the emirate, without details on the fate of the pilots.

At the end of July, the Iranian army announced that it had recovered the body of a pilot, Majid Kazemi, killed during an attack in early March targeting the American air base of Al-Udeid, in Qatar, the most important in the region. Tehran had indicated that three other pilots were missing since this attack, without saying that they had been captured.

Qatar's search and rescue teams “fully fulfilled their mission in searching for the remains of the pilots” concerned, added Majed Al Ansari, noting “the delivery of the remains” of one of them to Tehran.

“Qatar also invited an Iranian team […] to be briefed in detail on the search and rescue operations in April, but the Iranian side has not yet responded to this invitation,” he added.