‘Money is an incentive but nationalistic sentiments are there’ – researcher on rewards offered for pilot capturepublished at 19:41 BST
Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian
While we still don’t know exactly where the jet was downed, two provinces have been mentioned frequently in Iran’s state media so far – Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad, and Khuzestan.
The two provinces are diverse, and home to people from a number of different ethnic groups – including nomads.
Khuzestan is a core centre of Iran’s economy and a powerhouse for oil, while Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad is one of Iran’s less industrialised provinces.
Since the war began, strikes have targeted there – Khuzestan’s major steel company has been shut down as a result of strikes, and the province has been targeted today as well.
State-affiliated Iranian channels have been urging people to try and “capture the pilot alive”. Iranian authorities have also offered rewards, and other groups have put up bounties as well.
In one widely shared example, Iranian media reported that local traders are offering a reward of about £50,000 ($66,100) – much higher than the country’s estimated monthly salary range of £150 to £230.
Support for the Islamic Republic among locals in the provinces is not uniform.
The reward could have been a trigger for some to start looking for the pilot, but Sina Azodi, from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, tells the BBC the same search operation would have happened anywhere else in the country anyway.
He says: “The bounty could motivate some people, but the footage I’m seeing from Iran shows locals using their old rifles to attack and also some cheering.
“It doesn’t matter where they are, if the jet had been shot down in Isfahan or Tehran, I think many would have been motivated there as well to do it and also to have extra money in their pockets.”
Azodi says “money is an incentive but nationalistic sentiments are there”.
“When you bomb people who are angry and have just lost their families, they have every reason to attack you or try to capture you, and the money is an additional incentive.”
