'Terrorists' kill Russian fighter pilot after jet shot down over Syria
Updated
Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria have shot down a Russian warplane, killing its pilot after he ejected from the plane and landed on the ground in the embattled north-western province of Idlib.
Key points:
- Russian Defence Ministry said pilot was killed in fighting with "terrorists"
- The plane was downed on Saturday afternoon local time near the rebel-held town of Saraqeb
- There have been dozens of Russian airstrikes in the area over the past 24 hours
The pilot resisted being captured and fired at the militants who then shot and killed him, according to one of the militants and Syrian monitors.
The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the downing of the Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack plane and said the pilot was killed in fighting with "terrorists".
A report on the ministry's Zvezda TV said preliminary information indicated the plane was shot by a portable ground-to-air missile in an area under control of Al Qaeda's branch in Syria.
Video posted on social media appeared to show the plane being hit, while other video showed burning wreckage on the ground, with a red star on a wing.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it was trying to recover the pilot's body.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the plane was downed on Saturday afternoon local time near the rebel-held town of Saraqeb, which Syrian troops have been trying to take under the cover of Russian airstrikes.
Monitoring groups say there have been dozens of Russian airstrikes in the area over the past 24 hours.
A Russian strike from an undisclosed high-precision weapon killed more than 30 militants in the area where the Russian plane was downed, TASS news agency quoted Russia's Defence Ministry as saying.
At least five civilians were killed in another bombing which residents blamed on Russian jets.
The UN says 100,000 civilians have been displaced from the area in just the past month.
Syria's state news agency SANA said Syrian troops captured a nearby village and hill, cutting links between Saraqeb and the rebel stronghold of Maarest al-Numan to the south.
Syrian Government forces and their allies launched a push into Idlib six weeks ago, inching closer to a key highway that connects Syria's two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.
Russia is a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, and has been waging a military campaign on behalf of his forces since 2015.
Russia's Defence Ministry regularly says it targets only hardline Islamist militants in Syria.
Meanwhile, fighting raged on Saturday between Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition fighters, and a Syrian Kurdish militia in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin.
The Turkish military said two of its soldiers were killed in Syria and a third was killed on the Turkish side of the border in an attack by Syrian Kurdish militiamen.
Syria's civil war, now entering its eighth year, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven more than 11 million from their homes.
AP/Reuters
First posted
