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Syria Crisis: Tensions rise after Turkey says it shot down Syrian warplane
Syria Crisis: Tensions rise after Turkey shoots down Syrian warplane
(about 4 hours later)
Turkish fighter jets shot down a Syrian warplane after it violated Turkey's airspace Sunday, Turkey's prime minister said, in a move likely to ramp up tensions between the two countries already deeply at odds over Syria's civil war.
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 against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
A spokesman for Syria's military confirmed the incident, saying the plane was downed in Syrian airspace while attacking rebels. The unnamed spokesman quoted on Syrian state TV called the act a "blatant aggression," and said the pilot safely ejected from the aircraft.
“A Syrian plane violated our air space,” the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told an election rally of his supporters in the north-west of the country.
Turkey, once an ally of Syria, has emerged over the past three years as one of the main backers of Syrian opposition fighters trying to remove President Bashar Assad from power.
“Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? Because if you violate my air space, our slap after this will be hard.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a rally in northwestern Turkey ahead of local elections on March 30, congratulated the Turkish military for protecting the border.
The rebels have been fighting for control of the Kasab crossing in the border region since Friday when they launched an offensive that, according to Syrian authorities, was backed by Turkey’s military.
"If you violate our border, our slap will be hard," he said.
Syria said that Turkish air defences shot down the jet while it was attacking rebel forces inside Syrian territory and called the move “blatant aggression”.
According to Turkish news reports, the jet went down in a buffer zone along the border near an area where fighting has spiked in recent days. Syrian government troops are trying to retake a border crossing point with Turkey near the town of Kassab that rebels captured Friday.
State television quoted a military source as saying that the pilot managed to eject from the aircraft.
This is not the first time that the Turkish military has downed a Syrian aircraft near the border.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist monitoring group, said that initial reports from the area said the plane came down on the Syrian side of the border.
In September, a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Syrian military helicopter after it entered Turkish airspace. The helicopter strayed 2 kilometers (more than 1 mile) into Turkish airspace, but crashed inside Syria after being hit by missiles fired from the jet, Turkish officials said at the time.
Al Manar, the television station of Assad’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah, reported that two rockets had been fired from Turkish territory at the Syrian jet.
Turkey changed its rules of engagement in 2012 after Syria shot down a Turkish military plane, declaring that any Syrian military element approaching the Turkish border would be treated as a legitimate target.
