Iranian Army: Three of our pilots are alive and held captive in Qatar
According to the army's statement, the pilots survived the crash of SU-24 aircraft during strike missions in March. At the same time, Tehran is criticizing Doha for not allowing them to make contact.
The Iranian army announced today, Saturday, that three Iranian pilots are alive and being held captive in Qatar. According to the report, the SU-24 fighter jets they were flying crashed during strike missions carried out last March.
Alongside the announcement regarding the pilots' status, Iran is directly criticizing Qatar's conduct. According to sources in Iran, the authorities in Doha are preventing the captive pilots from making any contact with their families or with official figures in Tehran.
Qatar's double game
According to a report in the Washington Post, Qatar maintained a secret channel of communication with Iran at the beginning of the war and offered to shut down the Ras Laffan facility on its own initiative — the largest gas facility in the world. The goal of the move was to shake the energy market and spike global prices, in order to exert heavy economic pressure on the USA and Israel that would force them to stop the fighting. In return, Doha demanded full immunity and an Iranian commitment not to attack its oil and gas infrastructure.
In practice, Qatar shut down the facility on the third day of the war under the official claim of security concerns, but satellite imagery confirmed that no damage had been caused to it at that time — which indicated a premeditated move.
Official sources in Doha denied the report entirely, claiming it was a false publication intended to harm their relations with Washington and their status as mediators, and emphasized that the steps were taken solely to protect workers and facilities.
The affair sheds light on Qatar's double game, as it hosts the central US Air Force base in the region (Al-Udeid) alongside the Hamas leadership and shares gas fields with Tehran. Although senior officials in the US administration and the CIA were aware of Qatar's attempts to promote an independent deal behind their backs, Washington preferred not to break ties with the emirate and even refrained from further attacks in Iran following appeals from Gulf leaders.
Ultimately, the Qatari attempt to buy quiet failed. In mid-March, Iran attacked the Ras Laffan facility with missiles and destroyed large parts of it, a move that caused long-term damage to the facility, shook the global energy market, and dragged Qatar directly into the regional conflict.
