Iraq Finds No Weapons on Iran-Syria Flights

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Baghdad has not found any military equipment on Syria-bound Iranian flights crossing through the country’s airspace.
Zebari said that Iraq has been conducting random checks on Iranian planes bound for Syria since September.

The Iraqi foreign minister added that these checks had only found “non-lethal aid like medicines and food”, press tv reported.

Under pressure from the US, Iraq has searched several Syria-bound Iranian planes.

In April, Baghdad checked Iranian aircrafts for three consecutive days. The searches, however, found nothing but humanitarian aid and commercial goods.

In October 2012, Iraq forced a Damascus-bound Iran Air cargo plane from Tehran to land and searched it for weapons, but allowed it to continue as no prohibited items were found on board.

“We did not see anything contrary to the instructions banning the transport of weapons between the Syrian and Iranian sides, so we therefore allowed it to continue its trip,” said Nasser Bandar, the head of Iraq’s civil aviation authority.

The foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria has taken its toll on the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, since March 2011.

Western powers and their regional allies including the Israeli regime, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supporting the anti-Syria militant groups, including al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, to overthrow the Syrian government.

Meanwhile, several international human rights organizations say the militants operating in Syria have committed war crimes.