Persian → English transcript

People had all armed themselves too.

We were sitting inside our house when suddenly we saw these fighter

jets making a strange sound coming in, when they come,

they come from over there toward Tehran, Isfahan, wherever in Iran they want to go,

they come in with a strange sound outside.

We look, you see some of them at a very high altitude,

and some of them we cannot see at all. Suddenly we heard the sound…

- Yeah, only the sound comes, yeah.- The sound came, it was very close,

we went outside,

I saw two helicopters coming from the other side of the village, going,

and two fighter jets were on top of them.

One fighter went toward Lordegan, turned around and came this way,

they came into a steep slope area around our village,

the fighter came very low, lower than the helicopter, banked up like this,

went up like this. I had loaded my guns.

I had loaded them to shoot,

to shoot the plane when it banked up like this.

Also, I will tell you this, that I…

I was in the war zone of the Iran– Iraq war for about thirty months.- Mashallah.

Mashallah. Then my wife said," Don’t shoot,

these are our own, don’t do this."

I quickly contacted the Monj Basij base, Monj district, Captain Jalil,

and I said there is this situation. He said," They are the enemy, shoot, open fire.

They will pass, on the way back, on the way back, they cleared the route,

they came back, one of them came up to a high altitude,

the fighter jets were right on their tails.

When one of them came up into my line, I fired two shots at that one.

I saw one of them coming out of the valley,

it was coming out of the valley at very low altitude,

I left that one alone until this other one came.

Then I fired a couple of shots at its windows, where the pilot was visible,

I fired two shots at its windows,

and two shots I fired to blow up its fuel tanks, toward the tanks I shot at it.

I fired four shots at this one.- Had they seen you? Actually, in

my family I I said to my kids, I told them,“ Do not come out,

I will go and move away from the house, if they shoot, let them shoot only me.”

I have to shoot at them. I swear to God these are my kids,

I swear on his life, I said,“ Do not come out.”

All of a sudden, after we fired three or four shots, I see he is

shouting,“ Dad, shoot!” He was cursing at him!“ Shoot!”

“ Shoot, he did not come down,

shoot!”- Have you been watching the news these last few days?- Yes.- And

your feeling, how have you felt?

Why do you think he was the enemy?

Did he absolutely have to be shot?- He is a child killer.

- Did they show you from behind in the footage?- No,

they showed just some bits of it.

The part where he swerves up and comes down, he says,“ Dad, shoot!”- Yeah,

the video was not complete.

- The part where you were hiding behind the pillar and…

- Yeah, this is the continuation of that,

when the helicopter twisted around from behind the pillar as it turned,

I fired twice at it from between the middle of the pillar,

from this side of the pillar,

and then when it twisted around to this side… I fired two more at it.

The last one I hit its windows with,

it cocked its head a bit toward me, then moved off again. Yeah, I mean

everyone there was staring at it, like a hundred people,

it turned just a fraction toward me, then started moving off again. - It wanted to

see who was shooting.- I don’t know, it panicked, it got hit, God knows,

but it swerved away really fast. I’ve shot sparrows

with this gun, everyone in the village knows.

I mean, I can hit a sparrow in midair, I swear on my kids’ lives.

From a sparrow to a helicopter.

Yeah, a helicopter is kind of like a Nissan.- Yes.- No, they mean the targeting.

I hit it really easily. I fired about four to five rounds at them without

using the sight.

I fired the last one at it with the 700 sight.- Explain the sight too.- You

mean the sight? The sight, yes.

When you figure out how far it is, sir,

this one is at five hundred meters,

you have to aim it at three hundred, four hundred.

This one goes up to two thousand for aircraft.- The graduated scale on the gun.

This goes up to two thousand for the plane that when it

comes and goes.