Reuters – by MAAYAN LUBELLIsrael shot down a Syrian warplane on Tuesday, saying the aircraft crossed the battle lines of Syria’s civil war and flew over the Israeli-held Golan Heights, perhaps by accident.
The incident coincided with but did not appear to be directly related to air strikes the United States and Gulf Arab allies mounted on Islamic State strongholds in Syria.
But it presented another challenge to Israel’s oft-stated desire to stay on the sidelines of a conflict on its northern doorstep, in which al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebels took over a border crossing on the Golan last month.
The Israeli military said its U.S.-made Patriot missile air defence system shot down a Syrian Russian-built Sukhoi fighter plane that had “infiltrated Israeli airspace” over the territory, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
It was the first time in three decades that Israel had downed a Syrian warplane.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the civil war, 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. It said the pilot had bailed out.
Syria described the downing of the aircraft as an act of aggression.
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, commenting on the incident, said Israel “will not allow any element – neither a state nor a terrorist group – to threaten our security and violate our sovereignty”.
Israeli military sources said the plane apparently crossed by accident into Israeli-controlled airspace.
In his statement, Yaalon also seemed to raise that possibility, saying Israel would respond strongly to perceived threats “whether they stemmed from a mistake or were deliberate”.
Israel has fired into Syrian territory on numerous occasions in response to shelling on the Golan that the military has said was largely spillover from fighting between rebels and the Syrian Army.
An Israeli Patriot missile destroyed a Syrian drone over the Golan on Aug. 31. Israel last downed a manned Syrian aircraft in 1985, when Israeli fighters on a surveillance mission over Lebanon destroyed two Syrian MiG-23s that approached them.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Tom Perry; editing by Janet McBride)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/23/us-mideast-crisis-israel-idUSKCN0HI0IX20140923
See! Israel doesn’t need our help for protection. They did just fine on their own. As a matter of fact, if Syria did the same thing to an Israeli fighter, they would be viewed as aggressors and terrorists and having something to hide and WWIII would be declared. But noooo…not the chosen people.
“An Israeli Patriot missile”…Wrong, the jews don’t make their own weapons, they get them from us, for free. This world is so sick of that “shitty little country in the middle east”, that we wish them to set off all their nukes where they are stored. A sea of glass would be a welcome event for the world.
“The Israeli military said its U.S.-made Patriot missile air defence system shot down a Syrian Russian-built Sukhoi fighter plane that had “infiltrated Israeli airspace” over the territory,…”
I don’t suppose they’d lie about a thing like that.
“…captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.”
STOLEN by Israhell in the 1967 Middle East war.