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Turkey shoots down Syrian plane as rebels, Assad forces battle near border Turkey shoots down Syrian plane as rebels, Assad forces battle near border
(about 3 hours later)
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s armed forces shot down a Syrian plane on Sunday after it crossed into Turkish airspace in a border region where Syrian rebels have been battling forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. BEIRUT — Turkey’s military shot down a Syrian jet on Sunday after it allegedly strayed into Turkish airspace during fierce fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces for control of a border region.
“A Syrian plane violated our airspace. Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? Because if you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard,” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said an election rally, according to Reuters. The shooting threatened to escalate tensions between Turkey and Syria just as Turks go to the polls to vote in municipal elections in the first test of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s popularity since anti-government riots engulfed Istanbul last summer.
A Syrian military spokesman called the act a “blatant aggression.” Erdogan announced the shooting at a campaign rally Sunday afternoon, telling a huge crowd of supporters that Turkish F-16s had downed the Syrian plane.
The unnamed spokesman was quoted by Syrian state TV as saying the plane was downed Sunday in Syrian airspace as it was attacking rebels who have been on the offensive in the coastal province of Latakia. The spokesman said the pilot ejected from the aircraft. “Why?” he asked the crowd. “Because if you violate our airspace, from now on our slap will be hard.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said initial reports from the area said the plane came down on the Syrian side of the border. Syria condemned the shooting as “unprecedented and unjustifiable,” according to comments from an unnamed Foreign Ministry official quoted by the official news agency SANA.
Al Manar, the television station of Assad’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah, said two rockets had been fired from Turkish territory at the Syrian jet. But there was no indication that Syria planned to retaliate for the attack, which marked the first time Turkey has shot down a plane since Erdogan threw his government’s support behind Syria’s rebels nearly three years ago.
The downing of the plane comes as Syrian government troops and rebels have been fighting for control of a border crossing near the town of Kasab since Friday, when they launched an offensive which Syrian authorities say was backed by Turkey’s military. It is not, however, the first time that tensions have soared between the two countries. Syria shot down a Turkish jet in 2012, and Turkey downed a Syrian helicopter in September last year. Turkey has also fired mortars into Syria on several occasions, hitting both rebel and government positions.
Turkey has been a major backer of the Syrian rebels in the three-year-old conflict. Syrian state TV said the rebels who attacked the Kasab crossing came over from Turkey. Turkish news reports said the plane crashed into a buffer zone between the two borders and that the pilot had ejected safely, though there was no confirmation of that from Syria.
Syria focused its criticisms on Erdogan, saying the incident reflected his “failure to handle the needs of the Turkish people” and reiterating long-standing complaints about the logistical support he has offered to the rebels battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
Erdogan is closely associated with Turkey’s support for the rebels against Assad, with whom he once enjoyed a close relationship. But he has toned down his anti-Assad rhetoric over the past year amid signs that the rebels are unlikely to succeed in toppling him and that Turks are skeptical about a policy that has brought hundreds of thousands of Syrians flooding into their country and empowered Islamic extremists along Turkey’s borders.
Syria has made little secret of its hopes that Turks will oust Erdogan in a series of polls due over the coming year, starting with next weekend’s municipal elections. The Syrian statement referred to the corruption allegations against him and to the widespread anti-government demonstrations that erupted last year.
Yet most polls show that Erdogan’s AKP party will retain the support of a plurality of voters, despite unease with his growing authoritarianism, illustrated by an attempt on Friday to ban Twitter.
The Syrian jet had apparently been supporting troops battling rebels who have been trying to win control of one of the last Syrian government controlled border crossings into Turkey, at Kasab in the province of Latakia.
Rebels claimed they controlled the post on Friday, but government forces have been fighting back. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the post is still contested and fierce battles continued Sunday.