Syrian military airports controlled by Iran: defected pilot

Translation by Yusra Ahmed

(Zaman Al Wasl Leaks)- Defected officers in the air forces of Syrian regime revealed that Iranian inspectors and experts had permeated the Syrian air forces and airports since August 2011, only 6 months following the start of the Syrian revolution. 

A defected pilot, colonel in air forces told Zaman al-Wasl that a group of 12 Iranian experts entered al-Sho’aerat military airport in Homs countryside in August 2011, where they were allocated special accommodation isolated from other workers in the airport,all Syrian technicians and engineers and pilots were prevented from entering their accommodation, except the airport security manager. 

The Colonel confirmed that the same thing took place in other military airports like al-sin, T4, Domair, Mezzeh and Hama. 

Colonel (N.M) mentioned that the Iranian group had been provided with 3 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle as well as control station provided with listening devices targeting workers in the airport.

In regard to methods used in listening to airport’s staff, the colonel reported that a first lieutenant worked in signals department had warned him to take off the battery of his mobile if he wanted to speak in anything serious or secretly, because he was aware that Iranian experts had devices can catch conversation done next to a mobile even it was turned off, as long as the battery was alive. He added that the first lieutenant was arrested later because the security manger noticed that most workers in the airport began to take their mobiles’ battery off.

In regard to the list Zaman al-Wasl published about names of pilots and crimes they committed, the defected colonel confirmed it was correct 100%. He revealed that a group of 4 pilots (Abdullah Solaiman, Ahmed Mansoor, Derboli and Dibo) were very keen to go on a mission to bomb Syria people, even their missions were done without any permission of the Commander of air forces. 

According to the defected Colonel, some pilots spent missions for 15 hours flights some days, and this information was confirmed by a relative to an accountant worked in T4, he mentioned that salary of some military pilot reached to 250 thousand Syrian pound because of number of air-missions. 

Activist Abo Amr al-Homsi confirmed that high salary of pilots was one reason prevented them from defection, as well as the fact that most of them (80%) were from the Alawite sect.