{"id":66581,"date":"2026-08-15T09:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/iran-claims-three-air-force-pilots-held-in-qatar-following-march-mission\/66581\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:08:13","slug":"iran-claims-three-air-force-pilots-held-in-qatar-following-march-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/iran-claims-three-air-force-pilots-held-in-qatar-following-march-mission\/66581\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Claims Three Air Force Pilots Held in Qatar Following March Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Three Iranian Air Force pilots<\/strong> are reportedly being held in <strong>Qatari custody<\/strong> following a combat mission against a <strong>U.S. military base<\/strong> in March 2026.<\/li>\n<li>The pilots\u2014identified as <strong>Javad Salehi<\/strong>, <strong>Abdolmajid Dashtian<\/strong>, and <strong>Omran Behraveshian<\/strong>\u2014were flying <strong>Su-24 fighter-bombers<\/strong> when they were shot down by air defenses.<\/li>\n<li>Iran has formally appealed to the <strong>International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)<\/strong>, alleging that Qatar is violating the <strong>Geneva Conventions<\/strong> by denying the prisoners contact with their families.<\/li>\n<li>This disclosure marks a significant shift in the narrative, as the pilots were previously listed as missing following the <strong>March 2, 2026<\/strong> operation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Iranian military officials<\/strong> announced on Saturday that three air force personnel, missing since a mission against a <strong>U.S. base<\/strong> earlier this year, are alive and being detained in <strong>Qatar<\/strong>. The announcement, published by the <strong>Fars News Agency<\/strong>, identifies the three men as pilots who ejected from their aircraft during a strike on the <strong>Al Udeid Air Base<\/strong>\u2014the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>According to <strong>Brigadier General Mohammad Bagherzadeh<\/strong>, head of the Missing Persons Search Committee of the <strong>Iranian Armed Forces<\/strong>, the personnel were part of a four-man crew operating two <strong>Su-24<\/strong> jets. While one pilot, <strong>Brigadier General Majid Kazemi<\/strong>, was confirmed killed and his remains returned to Iran in July, the fate of the other three had remained unconfirmed until now.<\/p>\n<p>Iran is now accusing the <strong>Qatari government<\/strong> of committing &quot;war crimes&quot; by holding the pilots incommunicado for six months. In a letter to the <strong>ICRC<\/strong>, <strong>Bagherzadeh<\/strong> claimed that <strong>Doha<\/strong> has disregarded international laws by preventing the pilots from meeting with diplomatic representatives or communicating with their families.<\/p>\n<p>The incident stems from a broader regional conflict that intensified in early 2026. Qatar previously acknowledged shooting down two <strong>Iranian Su-24<\/strong> aircraft in March after they entered Qatari airspace, subsequently declaring several Iranian military attach\u00e9s <em>persona non grata<\/em>. While a ceasefire was signed in June, the status of these prisoners remains a major point of diplomatic friction between the two nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Three Iranian Air Force pilots are reportedly being held in Qatari custody following a combat mission against a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5012],"tags":[4664,5017,6848,6932,9106,17511,21657,21658],"class_list":["post-66581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-iran","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-qatar","tag-icrc","tag-us-military","tag-al-udeid-air-base","tag-su-24","tag-international-committee-of-the-red-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}