Turkey shoots down Syrian fighter jet
The government of Turkey has confirmed that it shot down a Syrian fighter jet that strayed over its border with Syria.
Let's go to the videotape.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
unapologetic.
"A Syrian plane violated our airspace," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan told an election rally of his supporters in northwest Turkey.
"Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? Because if you violate my
airspace, our slap after this will be hard," Erdogan said.
The rebels have been fighting for control of the Kasab crossing, the
border region, since Friday, when they launched an offensive which
Syrian authorities say was backed by Turkey's military.
Syria said Turkish air defenses shot down the jet while it was attacking
rebel forces inside Syrian territory, calling the move a "blatant
aggression.”
State television quoted a military source as saying the pilot managed to
eject from the plane. The 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.
The Turkish action may be more connected to
next week's local Turkish elections than to any real violation of Turkish airspace.
According to Turkey's Sunday Zaman, the shooting down of the jet may
be a government effort to gain political scores ahead of a local vote
that is scheduled to take place on March 30.
Citing Turkish officials, NTV reported that Turkish air defense
system shot down a Syrian warplane after its incursion to the Turkish
territory.
The incident came as Turkish government was mulling options to
briefly intervene in Syria to protect the tomb of Süleyman Şah, the
grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, whose security is
provided by the Turkish troops as part of an agreement with the Syrian
authorities.
Concerns over a possible Turkish military intervention in Syria have
been floated following news of clashes between an al-Qaeda splinter
group and other Syrian opposition groups in the area.
In response to
these reports, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey will
retaliate in the event of an attack on the tomb of Süleyman Şah
irrespective of where the attack comes from.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main Turkish opposition party, the
Republican People's Party (CHP), warned against any Turkish military
incursion to Syria ahead of elections. According to the CHP leader,
Erdoğan aims to divert public attention from a sweeping graft scandal
that implicated the Erdoğan family.
Faster, faster....
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Syrian air space, Syrian uprising, Turkey, Turkish elections
Here we go again: Report claims IAF hits Syrian base in Latakia
Reports coming out of Lebanon claim that the
IAF bombed a Syrian military base in the port city of Latakia on Monday morning.
The Israel Air Force bombed a Syrian base in the Latakia airport in
the north of the country, Lebanese journalists reported Monday morning.
There are currently no other confirmations of this report.
Senior
Israeli officials have clarified on several occasions that Israel will
not allow the transfer of advanced weapons from Syria to Hezbollah,
which they fear will bolster the militant Shi'ite group's ability to
attack Israeli targets.
Two
weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that Israel is
operating to thwart the transfer of weapons, even if such reports are
not made public. He was relating specifically to the threat posed by
Hezbollah to Israeli naval ships by precise missiles.
According
to various reports in foreign media, Israel attacked weapons depots in
the Latakia area in the past, though Israel has not confirmed such
reports. Last November, U.S. sources reported that Israel was behind an attack on Russian SA-8 surface-to-air missiles near Latakia.
Heh.
Labels: arms shipments, Hezbullah, Hezbullah weapons, IAF, Latakia, Syrian air space, weapons shipment
Syrian media publishes target list for Israel, Cyprus and... Turkey
Syrian media has published a
list of targets that Syria plans to hit in the event that the United States attacks Syria. The targets are in Israel, Cyprus and Turkey. There's just one small problem: Syria's air force is reported to be
on its last legs, and a US attack could be the end of it. This is from the first link.
Aerial photos of the purported targets were released by state
media, including strategic military positions in Israel, Turkey and
Cyprus, such as airports and chemical weapons factories.
Syrian officials have repeatedly threatened to target Israel in the event of a western strike.
Specific targets labeled as "legitimate" for Syrian missile strikes
included Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, petrochemical production plants
in Haifa, Hazor military airbase, the Palmachim, Zala'im and
Tzrifin military bases, Kalandia airport, and military and intelligence
facilities in Turkey and Cyprus.
Kalandia Airport (also known as Atarot) hasn't functioned since 2000, when 'Palestinian' rioters destroyed it.
But there may not be
much left of the Syrian air force with which to hit these targets.
While there has been widespread scepticism from military sources over
the effect of the suggested air strikes, former Syrian military
officers and some analysts believe even limited strikes might cause
significant damage.
The view was shared by a report last week from
the Rand Corporation thinktank, Options for Airpower in Syria. It
argued that neutralising Syria's air defences and severely damaging its
air force were likely to be much easier than some pessimists suggested.
Although
it argued that "negating Syrian air power would have only a marginal
direct effect on civilian casualties, which have mostly been caused by
ground forces", it said this "could significantly assist Syrian
opposition forces by denying air support and especially air mobility and
resupply to the Syrian army".
The report was far more sceptical
about the ability of US cruise missile strikes to knock out Bashar
al-Assad's chemical capability. "The practical options for doing so have
serious limitations, and attempting it could actually make things
worse. Locating all Syrian chemical weapon facilities and defining them
well enough to design effective conventional air strikes against them
would require very precise and detailed intelligence."
...
While the Syrian air force has been described as being on "its last
legs", with crews cannibalising aircraft to keep planes in the air,
other factors are likely to be problematic for the regime.
"They
have been moving people out of security compounds," the defector said,
repeating the claim made by others that prisoners and civilians had been
moved into the vacated bases.
"But there are other locations that they can't evacuate. They rely on holding the big bases like Mezze. They can't abandon them.
"They will have to keep their forces manning the main supply routes and that makes them vulnerable to attack.
"I
served at Mezze. The bunkers for personnel are not very good. We used
to nickname them the graves and talk about how – in a crisis – we'd
rather take our chances in the open than get buried in them."
He
said he did not believe that the shelters available for hiding aircraft
were well enough hardened to sustain a hit from a cruise missile. "There
are no underground bunkers. The hangars we have in the open are
reinforced but no match for modern weapons."
The detailed
depiction of Syrian military resilience painted a picture of largely
antiquated equipment, difficulties in moving supplies and a vulnerable
communications network.
...
"In addition the aircraft that the regime does have available are old.
Many of the newest operating are from the 1990s. There are places where
there should be six jets operating but they can only fly two. Our
sources tell us they have only 60 pilots available and 40 helicopter
crews. But because the opposition doesn't have aircraft that is still a
big advantage. Any damage to these aircraft would cause severe damage to
the regime's capability.
It sounds like Obama's going to get his chance to be a hero after all. But it's far more likely that he'll be out on the golf course when it happens.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, chemical weapons, Free Syrian Army, MiG-29, Syria, Syrian air space
It starts: Israel strikes convoy on Lebanon-Syria border
Israel is quite serious about keeping chemical weapons out of the hands of the al-Qaeda dominated Free Syrian Army and Hezbullah. JPost is reporting based on a 'western diplomat' and 'three regional security sources' that
Israel struck a convoy on the Lebanese-Syrian border overnight.
The sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the
issue, had no further information about what might have been hit or
where precisely the attack happened, but the news website Al-Monitor
quoted unnamed sources as saying that the target had been an arms convoy
in Syria, close to the Lebanon border.
A Western diplomat in the region who asked about the strike said "something has happened", without elaborating.
An
unnamed security source told AFP: "The Israeli air force blew up a
convoy which had just crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon."
An
activist in Syria who works with a network of opposition groups around
the country said that she had heard of a strike in southern Syria from
her colleagues but could not confirm.
The IDF has declined to
comment on reports of a strike on the Syrian-Lebanese border. "We do not
comment on reports of this kind," an IDF spokeswoman said.
Reports
of incursions into Lebanese air space and the alleged strike follow a
flurry of international visits by Israel's top brass.
YNet adds:
According to the
report, the jets flew over the En Nakura area for several hours, leaving
Lebanese airspace at around 2 am. The report, citing military sources,
said that the first incursion took place at around 4:30 pm, when two
jets flew over the village of Ramish,
leaving at 9:05 pm.
As the duo was leaving – according to the Lebanese report – two other
IAF jets entered Beirut's airspace, towards En Nakura, leaving at 2 am.
A Lebanese Army
statement said that "Four Israeli planes entered Lebanese air space at
4:30 pm on Tuesday. They were replaced four hours later by another
group of planes which overflew southern Lebanon until 2 am and a third
mission took over, finally leaving at 7:55 am on Wednesday morning."
The statement made no mention of planes entering Syrian airspace.
A western diplomat and a security source said Wednesday that "Israeli
forces have attacked a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight."
Despite the ambiguity of Lebanon's reports, the diplomat – who
declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue – insisted
that "There was definitely a hit in the border area."
The US-based
Al-Monitor website reported Tuesday that IDF Intelligence Chief Maj-Gen.
Aviv Kochavi traveled to Washington for closed-door consultations with
American officials. Israeli officials would not comment on the matter.
Among those Kochavi met with at the Pentagon was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, the report said.
According to Al-Monitor The IDF declined comment on the MI
chief's visit, saying that "Israel does not comment on the working
visits of IDF officers."
However, the website qouted an anonymous Israeli official as saying
that "Some people say (the) IDF wouldn’t object to (the) opportunity to
set the record straight vis-à-vis Hizballah... Also, there's the idea of
putting them out of play, as done with Hamas recently."
Better this than a full scale war. If it's enough to keep Hezbullah in line, that's great. But I suspect it won't be....
Labels: chemical weapons, Free Syrian Army, Hezbullah, Lebanon overflights, Syrian air space, Syrian uprising
Russia warns NATO to stay out of Syria
Based on a report in Britain's
Sunday Times (which is behind a paywall), YNet reports that Russian technicians were behind Syria shooting down a Turkish F-4 Phantom last week as a
warning to NATO to stay out of Syria's civil war.
Russian technicians played a key part in the interception and shooting down of a Turkish warplane by Syria’s anti-aircraft defenses 10 days ago, Britain's Sunday Times reported Sunday. Diplomatic sources in the Middle East told the paper that destroying the F-4E Phantom II was a split-second decision intended as a warning to NATO to stay out of Syria’s civil war.
A source in Israel's Air Force was quoted as saying “we would not be surprised if these Russian experts, if they didn’t push the button, at least were beside the Syrian officers who did it."
...
“It definitely has Russian fingerprints on it,” a diplomat told the Sunday Times. He summarized the Russian message: “Syria is not Libya and any attempt to impose a ‘no fly zone’ over Syria will face one of the most formidable air defenses on Earth and will cost any attacker dearly.”
Meanwhile, the fairytale President of the United States is afraid to confront the Russians.
An international conference held in Geneva Saturday accepted a UN-brokered peace plan for Syria, but saw Russia and China still supporting President Bashar Assad.
The US was forced to back away from demands that Assad be excluded, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed over 14,000 lives.
Haaretz adds (Hat Tip:
Perlman M):
The unarmed reconnaissance jet had briefly entered Syrian airspace on June 22 as it approached land after patrolling the eastern Mediterranean, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said, but was warned by Turkish radar controllers and immediately left and turned again out to sea.
It then made another approach to land when it was shot down 13 miles off the coast in international airspace, he said, out of the reach of Syria's anti-aircraft guns.
"According to the data in our hands, it points to our plane being shot by a laser or heat-guided surface-to-air missile. The fact our plane was not given an early radar warning, suggests it was not a radar-guided missile," said Arinc.
Hmmm. If this is correct, it's much more important than the exact location of the plane when it was shot down. Aren't you glad Obama pressed that reset button with the Russians?
Labels: anti-aircraft missiles, Barack Hussein Obama, Russia, Syria, Syria no-fly zone, Syrian air space, Turkey
Syrian air space closed to civilian air traffic?
DEBKA is reporting that
Syrian airspace has been closed to civilian traffic after riots broke out in response to President Bashar al-Assad's speech on Monday (Hat Tip:
Jay Jay).
debkafile reports war fever in and around Syria after Syrian President Bashar Assad's speech Monday, June 20, sparked riots by disappointed protesters in Damascus and Latakia. Syria closed its air space to civilian traffic. Cypriot control tower warned international flights to avoid Syria after Damascus had signaled it is keeping its skies clear for military air action in case of unspecified hostilities.
According to other sources, some Iranian, Turkish military helicopters are infiltrating northern Syria on reconnaissance missions. Arab sources report NATO is planning to fly extra troops from Spanish and Germany bases to the Izmir Air base in western Turkey to expand the current number of 400. Damascus accuses Turkey of seeking to seize Syrian territory on the pretext of providing a buffer zone for Syrian refugees.
As many of you know, I don't like to use DEBKA as a sole source. However, I checked the web site of
Damascus International Airport - specifically the list of arrivals between 12:00 Noon and Midnight on Monday. Since 4:42 on Monday afternoon, only one flight has arrived, and that was a Saudia flight from Riyadh that arrived at 7:17 pm. The only other flight in the evening that even has a scheduled arrival time is a Royal Jordanian flight from Amman that is due in at 9:55 pm, but given the flying time from Amman to Damascus, that flight may not have even departed yet. On the
departure side, the only flight that has departed since 6:00 pm was a Saudia flight to Jeddah, which left at 8:43 pm - probably returning the equipment from the Saudia flight that arrived an hour and a half earlier.
Hmmm.
Labels: Damascus, Syrian air space, Syrian uprising
