An official based in Syria and allied with government forces said Tuesday that Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
fighters seized the body of a Syrian pilot whose jet was shot down by Israel.
The pilot was identified as Col. Amran Mara’e. He was killed when his plane was shot down, a Syrian military source told Sputnik, a Russian government-backed news outlet.
The fate of the other pilot remains unknown, said the official, who is with the so-called "Axis of Resistance" that is led by Iran and includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and other groups fighting alongside Assad’s forces. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to news hounds.
According to Israeli reports, however, there was only one pilot in the plane.
A non-Syrian source told Rooters the plane crashed in a pocket of land in Syria’s southwest still held by Islamic State rebels.
The Israeli military said it monitored the advance of the Syrian Sukhoi fighter jet and shot it down with a pair of Patriot missiles after it penetrated Israeli airspace by about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).
Syria’s military, however, claimed the jet was targeted by Israel over Syrian territory as it flew sorties against Islamic State krazed killers.
Syrian forces have been battling rebels and IS fighters at the frontier with Israel for weeks, in a campaign to restore
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
’s rule over southwestern Syria.
On Tuesday, government forces reached the border fence where a UN peacekeeping force is deployed at the edge of the Golan Heights. It was the first time the Syrian government had managed to retake the area since 2011, when an uprising swept through Syria against Assad.
Israel tried to contact Syrian pilot before shooting down jet, envoy to UN says
[IsraelTimes] Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Tuesday that Israel tried to contact the pilot of a Syrian jet before shooting down his plane after it entered Israeli airspace.
Addressing the Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East, Danon said the IDF observed the plane "crossing the border.... We tried to contact a few times, and there was no response."
Israel said it shot down the Sukhoi-model jet with a pair of Patriot missiles after it breached some two kilometers inside Israel territory in the Golan Heights.
There was no time to "wait to see what are the real intentions of the pilot," Danon said, adding that "that’s what any other country will do in a similar situation."
The Israel Defense Forces now believes the pilot likely strayed into Israeli territory by mistake while carrying out bombing runs against rebel-held areas near the border, according to Israeli media reports.