🇮🇷🇶🇦 Iran says Qatar has held three of its pilots since March, and Doha says it never had them -General Seyed Mohammad Bagherzadeh, who runs Iran's missing persons search committee, wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross naming Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian as prisoners taken on March 2 -He says their Su-24 bombers were hit by enemy defenses days into the war, that all three ejected and survived, and that a fourth pilot named Majid Kazemi died -He asked the Red Cross to meet the men and push for their release, claiming Qatar has blocked any contact with their families -Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al Ansari categorically denied it, saying Doha is "surprised by these misleading statements at this particular time" given ongoing efforts to lower regional tensions -Qatar announced in early March that its Air Force had downed two Iranian Su-24 bombers, and al Ansari says contact was established with the pilots after they violated Qatari airspace, with defensive measures taken once repeated attempts to reach them went unanswered -Qatari search and rescue teams looked for remains, recovered one pilot and handed him back to Iran -Doha also invited an Iranian team in APRIL to be briefed on the search and rescue operation, and says Tehran has still not responded -Until this letter, Iranian authorities had said the fate of the three men was simply unknown The detail worth chewing on is that unanswered invitation. Qatar offered Iran a walkthrough of the search four months ago, and nobody came, which sits oddly beside a government now telling the Red Cross its men are being held in Qatari custody... Source: NYT / Writer: Daniel