Lockerbie bombing may have been 'ordered by Iran, not Libya

The attack may have been carried out in retaliation for a US navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died

The Lockerbie bombing, which claimed 270 lives, was ordered by Iran and carried out by a Syrian-based terror group, a former Iranian intelligence officer has revealed.

The bombing is Britain's worst terror atrocity, in which 270 people died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Scotland in December 1988, has always been blamed on Libya.

According to express.co.uk, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was released from jail by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in 2012, is the only person to be convicted of the bombing.

Now a former Iranian intelligence officer Abolghassem Mesbahi has told an Al Jazeera documentary that the bombing was ordered by Tehran and carried out by the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the report said.

He added that the attack was carried out in retaliation for a US navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died.

The US ship apparently mistook the plane for an F-14 fighter jet.

Mesbahi revealed Iran decided to retaliate as soon as possible, and the decision was made by the whole system in Iran and confirmed by Ayatollah Khomeini, the report added.