Today July 3 is the 21st anniversary of the cowardly attack by the American ship Vincennes on an Iranian Air bus passenger plane. The attack took place when the plane was on its way from the port city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai across the Persian Gulf with 275 passengers and 15 crews on board.

While it was still in Iranian airspace, exactly 8 minutes after departure from Bandar Abbas, the Commander of USS Vincennes, Captain Will Rogers, ordered the firing of two missiles at the Iranian passenger. The plane immediately exploded in mid air, and crashed into the waters of the Persian Gulf. There were no survivors. All 290 passengers went to a watery grave. Among the victims of the American crime against humanity, were 66 children under the age of 12; 52 women and 46 non-Iranians who were nationals of Italy, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Kuwait. This sorrowful incident shocked millions of freeborn people all over the world and plunged Islamic Iran into mourning. It was a grave tragedy. The US navy’s measure was a blatant crime, more so, since Washington had directly entered the imposed war against the Islamic Republic on behalf of its surrogate, Saddam of the Ba’th minority regime of Iraq in order to try to save him from impending defeat.