Tehran: Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the aerospace commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), on Saturday said that the IRGC accepts responsibility for the crash of an Ukrainian plane over Iran's airspace. "We accept full responsibility for this act [shooting down the plane], and we will obey and carry out what decisions the authorities will make," Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

The Iranian commander said that since Iran was on "high alert" on Wednesday because of the US threats to 52 spots in the country, the operator of the missile launch site was concerned. He said he "wished" he "were dead" when he learned about the fate of the aircraft. The passenger plane was mistaken for a US cruise missile, Hajizadeh said, adding that the missile operator also encountered some communication problems and "he made a bad decision, triggered the missile and hit the plane."