Having lost its “land bridge” through Syria to resupply its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon—a “land bridge” that included Syrian airspace—it appears that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force has found an alternate route over Turkey.
The Middle East Forum, a think tank founded in 1994 to promote American interests in the Middle East, examined open-source flight monitoring and found that between Dec. 13, 2024, and the end of the year, Iran’s Mahan Air flew 11 flights between Tehran and Beirut over Turkish airspace.
Iran has employed Mahan Air with its fleet of Airbus A340s and an Airbus A300B4-622R to transport weapons to Hezbollah before. It used the fleet during the recent conflict to ferry Iranian-made weapons, including anti-tank missiles and various attack drones, the Middle East Forum reported.
Although it may appear contradictory for Turkey, which assisted Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the Sunni Islamist group that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, an ally of Iran, to then allow Iran to resupply its proxy in Lebanon, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan has made no secret of his enmity toward Israel.