the first thing I though was "does Iran use the 727?". according to Wikipedia they do. Iran goes to great lengths to obtain military aircraft parts. does anyone know if commercial airline parts are also embargoed?
Civil aircraft parts are subject to US embargo. There are however, third party suppliers in Russia that can supply parts to Iran. Iran also has domestic parts productions capability.
The US Government sometimes allows limited parts supplies as part of ongoing negotiations.
I think they would just buy the parts on the black market rather than steal entire planes. As a lot of these old airliners are used throughout the third-world, I'm sure there is a brisk trade in parts. The story itself says they raided another crashed plane for the parts, and that the only thing worth anything on the plane was the engines.
Personally I vote for insurance fraud as (1), then theft for parts as (2). Either case doesn't need a 'proper' landing (ie, one where the plane has to take off again). I'm sure there are plenty of places where you could put a plane down if you didn't need to get it back up again, and then strip it for parts. I'm sure the fuselage will turn up somewhere, someday.
