The commander said the Guards had requested commercial flights be halted but he said the requests were not acted upon. He said also said he had been informed about the missile strike on the Ukrainian passenger plane on Wednesday. As recently as Friday, Iranian officials had rigorously denied accusations by Canada, the United States and others that Iran shot the plane down albeit by mistake. The Guards commander defended those Iranian officials, saying they were only commenting based on information they were given. On the other hand everybody is again in shock about why such a thing should happen,” Saeidpour said.

Source: National Post January 11, 2020 14:24 UTC