Jakarta: PonteSud – News Desk
The Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) has readied transport aircraft for the evacuation of Indonesian nationals from Iran and Israel amid the escalating conflict between the two Middle Eastern nations.
“We have prepared both C-130 Hercules and Boeing (for the evacuation mission),” TNI-AU spokesperson, First Marshall I Nyoman Suadnyana, informed in Jakarta on Friday.
As of Friday morning, the TNI-AU had yet to receive orders from the TNI Headquarters about the evacuation mission. Air force aircraft and personnel will remain ready for the mission, Suadnyana said.
For the evacuation mission, commander of the Indonesian Military (TNI), General Agus Subiyanto, has put 34 crisis response team personnel on standby in Jakarta.
“They are ready for deployment if needed,” head of the TNI Headquarters’ Information Center, Major General Kristomei Sianturi, said in a press statement issued on Thursday.
The Foreign Ministry has disclosed that 115 of 386 Indonesian nationals in Iran and 11 of 192 Indonesians in Israel are ready for evacuation, he added.
“The evacuees are mostly students who live in vulnerable areas of the Iran-Israel conflict,” he informed, adding that the evacuees in Iran were scheduled to depart for Baku, Azerbaijan, at 7 a.m. local time on Friday.
They will spend two nights in Baku before taking a commercial flight to Jakarta on Sunday (June 22, 2025). Meanwhile, Indonesian citizens in Israel will be evacuated by air to Indonesia through Amman, Jordan, he said.
The Iran-Israel war escalated after Tel Aviv launched surprise attacks on Tehran’s nuclear sites and military facilities on June 13.
In response to the attacks and killings of several Iranian top brass, Tehran launched retaliatory strikes on Israeli targets on Friday evening local time.
IRNA quoted a senior Iranian military official, General Ahmad Vahidi, as saying that the retaliatory strikes, known as Operation True Promise III, would “continue for as long as necessary.”
