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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Israel shoots down Syrian fighter jet which 'infiltrated' Israeli airspace
Military source says plane infiltrated Israeli airspace and was shot down using Patriot air defence system
Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
Tuesday 23 September 2014
An Israeli Patriot missile battery has shot down a Syrian fighter jet
that infiltrated half a mile into airspace controlled by Israel over the
Golan Heights on Tuesday morning.
Video footage of the first such downing by Israel of a Syrian jet since
1982 showed two burning sections of the plane falling to the ground and
then the parachutes of the pilot and navigator who ejected moments
before impact.
Syria immediately condemned the downing of the jet, with state
television describing it as an “act of aggression” and linking it to US-led air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) forces in Syria that had occurred earlier.
The jet entered Israeli-controlled airspace a few minutes before 9am and
was flying at between 10,000 and 14,000 feet when it was engaged.
An Israeli military source said a “Syrian aircraft infiltrated into
Israeli airspace [and was] intercepted in mid-flight, using the Patriot
air defence system”.
Military sources and experts described the plane as a Sukhoi 24, which
they say had flown from Saikal air base in eastern Syria. They said they
believed it had strayed into Israeli-controlled airspace while fully
armed on a mission to bomb anti-government groups on the other side of
the border.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the warplane had been
bombing areas outside Quneitra, a Syrian town near the Israeli-held side
of the frontier, at the time it was shot down.
The decision to bring down the aircraft was taken after it had spent one
minute and 20 seconds in Israeli airspace. Defending the decision,
sources and military experts said the infiltration by an armed enemy
aircraft could not be tolerated.
Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, said the Syrian warplane had
“approached Israeli territory in the Golan Heights in a threatening
manner, and even crossed the border”.
He said Israel “has made it clear in the past, and is reiterating now:
we will not allow anyone, neither state nor terror organisation, to
threaten our security and to violate our sovereignty.”
In recent weeks, fighting on the Golan Heights – which Israel captured
from Syria during the six day war in 1967 – has raised tensions on the
normally quiet border.
The regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has recently been
fighting al-Qaida-linked groups around the Quneitra border crossing. On a
visit to the Golan last week, the Guardian could hear the sound of
fighting echoing over the mountainous border throughout the day and into
the night.
Israel has largely stayed on the sidelines of the civil war raging
across the border in Syria. But Israeli leaders appear increasingly
nervous about the possibility of fighters linked to al-Qaida occupying
the Golan’s high ground over northern Israel.
During the civil war, Israeli troops have responded to occasional mortar
fire that has landed on their side of the Golan. Israel says some of
the attacks have been accidental spillover, while others have been
intentionally aimed at Israeli civilians and soldiers. It has always
held Syria responsible for any cross-border fire.
Despite Tuesday’s incident, the former Israeli air force commander Eitan
Ben Eliyahu said he did not believe that the Assad regime was trying to
provoke an escalation, adding that he did not believe the aircraft
posed a threat to Israel before it was shot down.
He told Israel Radio: “The Syrian regime would not dare now – and it has
not dared for decades – to do anything to provoke us. So I don’t
believe that this was deliberate. The fighting there is right on the
border fence and when planes are involved, because of their speed and
altitude and ability to spot the targets, it is easy to make mistakes.
We, of course, cannot permit this.
“No, I don’t consider the infiltration as a threat. But it reminds us of
the mess over there. Perhaps the most important thing is the formation
of the coalition against Isis.”
