"I wish I could die and not witness such an accident," the head of the Guards' aerospace division, Amirali Hajizadeh, said on state television. The commander said the Guards had requested commercial flights be halted but he said the requests were not acted upon. He 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.

Source: bd News24 January 11, 2020 14:03 UTC