The wreckage of an Israeli F-16 shot down over Syria
Israel stands alone as the country that has been shouting loudest and longest about the evils of Iran, so it makes sense that Israel would play a key role in the creation and perpetuation of the Syrian conflict aimed at overthrowing Assad. It's well known that throughout the course of the conflict Israel has supplied Syrian proxy forces with vital equipment and money to buy weapons. Over the last 6 months Israel has carried out several direct rocket and missile attacks on Syrian army positions around Damascus and on alleged 'Iranian weapons shipments' to Hizb'allah.
Earlier today, Israeli jets once again breached Syrian territory and attacked Syrian military positions in the "central region of Syria" according to Syrian news outlet Sana. This time however Syrian air defenses responded and shot down at least one Israeli F-16 jet. According to Israeli sources, the jet crashed in Israeli territory near the town of Harduf. Both pilots ejected and landed in Israel, although one is said to be "badly injured".
This is the first time an Israeli F-16 was brought down since Israel began using the jets in the 1980s. The Israeli narrative around the events is typically hypocritical. According to Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus, an "Iranian drone" was intercepted and brought down over Israeli territory.
According to several sources, the Israeli military stated that it had the offending drone in its possession. But then Conricus posted a video to twitter supposedly showing the 'Iranian drone' being destroyed.
If that video is truly of the 'Iranian drone', I suppose the Israelis could technically have 'it' in their possession, in the form of 10,000 tiny fragments. But you'll forgive me if I call BS on this one.
Anyway, the 'drone incursion' provoked the initial Israeli attack on what Conricus claims was "an Iranian drone control facility near the desert city of Palmyra". As the Israeli jets were returning to Israel, they came under sustained Syrian anti-aircraft fire leading to the crash of the F-16 near Harduf.
The target of Israeli jets in Syria (Palmyra) and the location where the Israeli jet crashed in Israel (Harduf)
The Syria government has contested this narrative saying that the claim that a drone entered Israeli territory is a lie, and that drones had left the Syrian T4 air base in the morning to conduct routine operations against Islamic State in the Syrian desert. So who are we to believe?
For a start, the idea that Israel can legitimately complain about a "violation of Israeli sovereignty" - even if an 'Iranian' drone did enter its territory - is laughable given that Israel has not only repeatedly violated Syrian (and Iranian) sovereignty, but bombed Syrian military positions and murdered Iranian scientists in Iran.
Secondly, the claim of a drone entering Israeli territory is a little too convenient as a justification for the initial Israeli attack on Syrian positions. It is more likely that the Syrian account is closer to reality. Perhaps Syrian drones were indeed operating over ISIS positions in the Syrian desert and the Israelis knew about it, because there were Israelis embedded with ISIS in those positions? And maybe the reference to 'Israeli sovereignty' is a euphemism for the territory that Israeli forces have staked out inside Syria, right where ISIS happens to be? This would then have provoked an Israeli military attack in an effort to stop the Syrians spying on 'Israeli territory' inside Syria.
The war in Syria is fully a proxy war between Western powers - USA and allies in Europe and the Gulf, including Israel - and Russia and its allies in the Middle East - Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and to some extent Iraq and Turkey. Proxy wars are very 'useful' because they allow for the major powers to engage in what is effectively a 'hot' conventional war over third-party territory, while pretending that everything is 'normal', at least on the military front.
The danger does exist, however, that this kind of conflict can escalate beyond the proxy forces engaging with each other to proxy forces directly attacking the military resources of the major powers. This is in fact what happened this morning with the shoot-down of the Israeli jet, but that wasn't the first salvo. The first was when someone shot down a Russia jet on the Syrian-Turkish border in late Nov. 2015. The second was last week's shoot-down of another Russian jet over Idlib by US-backed al-Qaeda-in-Syria terrorists. In both cases, a Russian pilot was killed by the jihadists.
It's difficult then not to see today's shoot-down of an Israeli jet of US origin by Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian forces as a response to last week's shoot down of a Russian jet by US-backed terrorists. That said, from a certain perspective, this can be seen as a positive development in the Syrian conflict for two reasons:
- It sends a clear message to the US and Israel that they can no longer violate Syrian territorial integrity and brutalize the Syrian people with impunity.
- That the US and Israel are forced to resort to increasingly flagrant attacks on the Syrian, Iranian and Russian military is a sign that their collective plot to overrun Syria is failing.
"We urge all the involved parties to exercise restraint and avoid any steps that could lead to aggravation of the situation. We consider it necessary to unconditionally respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries of the region." The ministry also noted that the creation of threats in Syria, where the Russian military contingent is present, is unacceptable.Enough said. For now.
For those of you who don't like reading, (I know, I should have said this at the beginning) here's me saying pretty much the same thing to Press TV today.
Reader Comments
Push just might come to shove if the jew's really want the storm so bad.
Syria is ready to have a lawn dart party with those aging Falcons, how else will they draw out the fresh meat...
A prayer for SDF aim and ammo.
R.C.
The Russians are telling the Isreali's to cool it.
R.C.
(As I said about the killing of the Russian pilot, watch for some oblique move, "knight takes queen." I agree that Russia is telling Israel to 'bug off.')
R.C.
I wonder if Russia will return to Syria to show the fools who's boss. After all their presence there probably cost about 1/20th per day as much as to US/PTBs does, (and the US/PTB's has had little effect, as planned, because the US's ISIS bomb runs were aimed at empty desert) and to give some of its newer or less experienced pilots some real combat time.
R.C.
Thank-you, Joe!
About a year ago, there was a tiny news story that everyone ignored. An unidentified drone entered Israeli airspace from Syria, and the Israelis fired TWO ground-to air missiles to shoot it down. Both missed.
Israel then scrambled an F-16, which fired an air-to-air missile at the drone, which also missed. The drone then turned around and calmly flew back unharmed into Syria. Why was this so important?
Because my deduction is that it was a Russian drone, and the Russians were testing their Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) against the guidance systems of American anti-aircraft missiles, with which Israel is equipped.
Again, it was noticed that when Donald Duck fired 52 missiles at a Syrian airbase, a couple of things happened: First, the US military gave the Russians (and thereby also the Syrians) plenty of warning so they could get their planes and forces out of the way in time, and second, half of the missiles fell into the sea.... Russian ECM again, being tested against US cruise missiles.
There was also the incident of the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea, which was incapacitated - all its electronics shut down - by a Russian SU-30, which flew back and forth over the ship a dozen times.
And I have seen publicity videos on the web from Russian manufacturers of their new battlefield ECM system. This is half-a-dozen trucks with telescoping aerials 100 meters high, which form an array, and can shut down all communications-and-control within 1,000 kilometers of where the array is pointed.
So what exactly happened in Syria a couple of days ago? We will probably never find out, but it is entirely possible the Russians were - again - testing their ECM, this time against an American F-16.
Isn't that something to think about? "Sustained Syrian anti-aircraft fire" has never before succeeded in bringing down an American-made Israeli F-16, which has ECM of its own. But it succeeded this time. Do you suppose that just maybe, Sergei Shoigu shared a shot of vodka with Vladimir Putin yesterday, while Putin had his shot of tea? (He does not drink alcohol, as an example to all the Russian people, who have a problem with alcoholism.)
What say you?
Nice fuzzy coverage of US Special Forces troopies gunning down Syrians inside their own country. Getting the sheep used to fait accompli I guess. Can't we bribe Kim Jong to nuke the swamp?