A day before Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah's speech, an Iranian Mahan Air plane departed today on a flight from Tehran's Mehrabad Airport to Latakia Airport, whose military part is operated solely by the Russian Air Force.
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It was an Airbus A340-313 and, according to the testimony obtained by the author, was carrying about five tons of weapons. "Compared to previous IRGC shipments, this time the number of pallets loaded into the belly of the plane was smaller, about half," said an employee at Mehrabad Airport.
"The pallets reached the plane accompanied by members of the Guards and were loaded onto a ramp used by jumbo jets at the port," he said. One hypothesis is that the shipment included shoulder-fired missiles.
Plane. Five tons of weapons. "Small cargo compared to its predecessors", photo: Mahan Air
On October 21, according to foreign reports, Israel bombed the runways at the airports of Damascus and Aleppo in order to thwart further arms shipments by Mahan Air from Iran. However, the day after the bombing, Iran continued to fly its fighters to Syria – but this time to the airport in Latakia, whose military part is actually the Khmeimim base (the name of the base).
A Yazd Air Airbus A310-304 flew to Latakia on October 22, followed by flights on the 24th, 25th, 26th and 29th. The Russian Air and Space Force independently operates the Khmeimim base, and now appears to provide a safe harbor for the Revolutionary Guards, which support Hezbollah.
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