DUBAI: An Iranian state TV presenter has drawn severe criticism after shooting at a United Arab Emirates flag during a live television segment promoting firearms training.
The broadcast, which aired on Iran’s state-run Ofogh channel this week, featured a masked member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) demonstrating the use of an assault rifle resembling an AK-47.
Near the end of the segment, presenter Hossein Hosseini pointed the rifle at a UAE flag placed inside the studio and fired at it, before discharging another round into the ceiling.
UAE authorities had not publicly responded to the incident at the time of reporting.
The broadcast has attracted attention of social media users in the Gulf who viewed the incident as a symbolic attack on another country and incitement to hatred towards the UAE.
“The entire scene seemed as if it came from a state angry at the success of others more than its anger at its enemies,” write Ebtisam Al-Kitbi, head of the Emirates Policy Center.
The incident is “a reckless act from Iran that stirs global uproar,” wrote Mohammed Al-Ghamdi, head of the Saudi Producers and Distributors Association.
The act “is demonizing a Gulf state, normalizing the language of weapons before the public, and turning the media from a news platform into a tool for mobilization and enmity,” Faisal Alshammeri, a political analyst and columnist at Makkah Newspaper, has written.
Another commentator from Kuwait wrote the segment “embodies the depth of hatred from the evil faces in Tehran and the ugliness, injustice, and misguidance [they carry] toward all Arab Gulf countries”
The incident seemed contradictory to a recent statement by Iran’s official foreign ministry spokesperson, who said Tehran has no enmity with any countries in the region, including the UAE.
