The complications of acting in Syria have just become more apparent. The Russians are fighting in support of Assad – but Turkey, a Nato member, is backing anti-Assad rebels and has just shot down a Russian Su-24 jet. The Turkish foreign ministry says that the pilots were warned ‘ten times in five minutes’ that they were violating Turkish airspace. The pilots managed to eject and video footage has emerged:-
The aircraft came down near the Antakya mountains, where Turkmen rebels (backed by Turkey) are fighting Isil and Assad’s forces (blue areas, below).
The Su-24s, owned by both Assad’s regime and Russia itself, have been bombing rebel positions for some time. Turkey has been warning the Russians that their jets were straying too far into the wrong airspace, and could be shot down. Today, it has shown that it’s quite serious.
The Kremlin doesn’t like the idea of its aircraft being downed by Turkish F-16s; the Russian Foreign Ministry has claimed that the Su-24 was downed by a ground-launched missile. It has said:-
‘We are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet. The Ministry of Defense would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight.’
And the Turks would like to stress that it wasn’t. Anyway, this morning’s incident underlines the complications of military action in Syria: how can the US and Russia act in concert if they are backing different sides? Sure, we have a common enemy in the Islamic State, and the Turkmen rebels has recently been making good progress in reclaiming towns from the jihadis. But most of Russia’s military effort has been bombing the positions of non-Islamic State rebels – sometimes the very people backed by the US.
It’s a very complex situation, and the Prime Minister ought to admit as much when he makes his case for British involvement on Thursday.
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