Iran sending Afghan militants to Syria, Iraq with rented plane: sources

Iran is using an Ariyana Airlines company plane to transfer militants to Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan news sources reported on Wednesday, August 5th.
Afghan MP Gheis Hassan, chair of the Transportation and Communications Commission in the Afghan Parliament raised strong criticism against Iran illegally dispatching forces to Iraq and Syria. He said he has obtained documents showing Iran is using a plane belonging to the Ariyana company – owned by the Afghan government – to transfer suspicious individuals, while most of them had masks covering their faces.
“This plane has been rented by an Iranian company by the name of Mahan Sepahr and has flown to Iraq many times during the past month, transferring individuals under tight security conditions. According to documents published by this commission the plane has been flying to Iraq every day for the past month or so,” Hassan said.
“The Kabul-Mashhad route and return flights takes around two hours and forty minutes. But this airplane returned to Kabul after eight hours,” he added.
Omid Mastour, administrative officer of the Ariyana Airlines confirmed this report and said, “Ariyana planes rented by the Mahan Sepahr company for flights between Iran and Afghanistan have gone to Iraq many times outside of its official flight route.”
It is worth noting the Ariyana Airlines company receives $10,000 for each flight under this contract.