24 november 2015
The Guardian – Nato-member Turkey has shot down a Russian warplane in the first time the alliance and Moscow have come to blows directly over the crisis in Syria.
Ankara and Moscow gave conflicting accounts of the incident, which appears to have occurred in an area near the Turkish-Syrian border straddling Iskenderun and Latakia.
The Turkish military said it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets after a plane penetrated Turkish airspace in the province of Hatay at 9.20am on Tuesday morning, warning it to leave 10 times in five minutes before it was shot down.
It was unclear if the plane was shot down by the fighter jets or by ground-based defence systems.
Russia’s defence ministry, in a series of tweets, confirmed a Russian SU-24 had been shot down, but insisted the plane had never left Syrian airspace.
“At all times, the SU-24 was exclusively over the territory of Syria,” the defence ministry said. “The SU-24 was at 6000 metres and preliminary information suggests it was brought down by fire from the ground. The circumstances are being investigated.”
The ministry said preliminary information suggested that the pilots managed to successfully eject from the plane. The Turkish network CNN Turk said that one of the pilots had been captured by local Turkmen tribesmen in the area.
The area near where the plane was shot down is the site of ongoing clashes between forces loyal to the embattled Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and rebels fighting to overthrow him. Russia launched a military intervention in October aimed at protecting the areas in western Syria still under control by the regime after nearly five years of civil war. The northern Latakia countryside has seen repeated aerial assaults by both the Russian and Syrian air forces.
Shortly after the Russian intervention, Turkey warned the Kremlin that it would not tolerate violations of its airspace, after two incidents that prompted consultations with Nato.
The latest incident highlights the grave risks of clashes of arms between the various international forces that have intervened in Syria. A coalition led by the US is conducting an ongoing campaign against Isis in the country, and American and Russian officials have worked on ensuring there are no clashes between their forces as they pursue their separate campaigns.
But the shooting down of the Russian plane is an escalation that leaves open the possibility of an open clash between a Nato member state and Russia, whose intervention shows an increasing assertiveness in international affairs.
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/
