IRAN: Remembering Iran Air 665 and the Vincennes

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Iranians on Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary a U.S. missile attack on an Iranian civilian passenger plane that killed 290 people over the Persian Gulf toward end of the Iran-Iraq war.

The guided-missile cruiser Vincennes shot down Iran Air 665 shortly after it took off from the airport in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

U.S. officials later described the shooting as a mistake but refused to apologize.

The incident took place on July 3, 1988, but its 20-year anniversary falls on July 2, 2008, in the Iranian calendar.

Iranians released pigeons into the sky and threw flowers into the Persian Gulf to commemorate the tragedy, according to the Associated Press.

Mourners chanted “Death to America.”

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, called the attack a ‘crime’ rooted in an ‘ideology which allows them to commit any crime in order to attain their goals.’

Iran said it received $130 million in compensation for the crash in a settlement eight years later but remains bitter because the ship’s commander, retired Capt. William C. Rogers III of San Diego, was never prosecuted.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Top, Iranians release pigeons to commemorate the shoot-down of Iran Air flight 665 in a U.S. missile attack 20 years ago. All 290 passengers and crew died. Credit: Abdolhossein Rezvani / Fars News Agency.

Bottom, an Iranian stamp commemorating the tragedy. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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