Why Are Chinese Cargo Planes Flying into Iran, and What Are They Carrying.
Russia has warned the United States not to assist Israel in its strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or ballistic missile launchers. Because if there’s anything Vladimir Putin hates to see, it’s military aggression crossing international borders, right?
However, Russia has also made clear it’s not willing to do much to help Iran beyond issue statements. (Hey, how about those Russian-made air defense systems deployed by Iran, huh? You can probably find better stuff on Temu.)
A day after Israel attacked Iran on Friday, a cargo plane took off from China. The next day, a second plane departed from a coastal city. Then on Monday, yet another departed, this time from Shanghai – three flights in three days.
Data showed that on each flight, the plane flew westward along northern China, crossing into Kazakhstan, then south into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – and then falling off the radar as it neared Iran.
To add to the mystery, flight plans indicated a final destination of Luxembourg, but the aircraft appeared to have never flown near European skies.
…Aviation experts have noted that the type of plane used, Boeing 747 freighters, are commonly used for transporting military equipment and weapons, and hired to fly government contract orders.
I hope those pilots asked for a raise before departing; you figure there’s a lot of missiles and drones flying around Iranian airspace these days, and you figure most airfields in Iran aren’t in as good a shape as they were two weeks ago.
But what does China have that could be so important to Iran that it’s worth making a flight under these dangerous circumstances? And (at least) three flights in three days?
UPDATE: Tuvia Gering of the Atlantic Council writes that an aviation expert tells him that these flights are not actually landing in Iran but in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, near the Iranian border, and that the tracking signal is erroneously making it appear that the planes are flying into Iranian airspace. The expert adds, “A major European cargo company is highly unlikely to be the channel through which China transfers its super-advanced, top-secret strategic weapons to Iran.”
So maybe these flights are nothing unusual, just routine refueling before continuing on to European destinations. Of course, once cargo is in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, it’s easy to get it to Iran.