TEHERAN (AP, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG) – An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander says his unit accepts “full responsibility” for the accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane.

In an address broadcast by state TV on Saturday (Jan 11), General Amir Ali Hajizadeh says that when he learnt about the downing of the plane, which killed all 176 passengers on board, “I wished I were dead”.

Iran’s armed forces say they mistook the passenger plane for a cruise missile in the tense aftermath of Iran’s ballistic missile attack on two military bases in Iraq housing US troops.

That attack was retaliation for the killing of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani in an American airstrike in Baghdad.

The Ukrainian plane was shot down by a short-range missile, said Gen Hajizadeh, commander of the Guards’ aerospace force.

Blaming a failure in communications, he said the operative who first mistakenly identified the plane as an incoming missile failed to get a second opinion due to a “disturbance” and had only 10 seconds to make a decision.

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