Rebels Down Second Syrian Jet in a Month
Rebel fighters shot down a government warplane on Tuesday, the second in less than a month, and captured the aircraft’s pilot in Talat al-Iss highland south of Aleppo, Reuters reports.
Rebel sources said the plane was downed by a man-portable air-defense system (MANPAD), while the Syrian army said the jet was shot with an anti-aircraft missile, adding that the same type of missile was used to shoot down a government fighter jet in Hama less than a month ago.
Southern Aleppo has seen heavy fighting between the government and rebel forces over the past week, despite an agreement to temporarily cease hostilities.
Militants fighting with the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front have come under heavy bombardment by Syrian and Russian warplanes since taking control of the area in recent days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The pilot was captured alive and later gave his name in a video released by al-Nusra Front. Khaled Saeed said he was carrying out bombing missions in the area when his warplane was hit by anti-aircraft gunfire.
Both al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham have claimed responsibility for the downing of the plane. Monitoring groups have said that Ahrar al-Sham have MANPADS.
Kerry: If You Want Peace, Assad Has to Transition
U.S. secretary of state John Kerry said that the upcoming peace talks on a political transition in Syria will test whether Syrian president Bashar al-Assad can negotiate in good faith, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
“The key right now is whether Assad is capable of negotiating in good faith, and we have to put that to the test,” Kerry told Bloomberg Television in New York.
Assad has already said that he thinks the peace talks can produce a new government that includes opposition. However, he rejected the idea of a transitional authority.
The opposition, on the other hand, has long demanded a transitional governing body that does not include Assad.
Peace talks are expected to resume next Monday in Geneva, according to U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi.
Kerry said that there is no way for the war to end with Assad still in power. “I don’t see any way possible for Assad to remain because there is no way to end the war while he is there, there is no way to end the violence, there is no way for him to unify the country,” he said, “so Iran and Russia, and others need to recognize if you want peace, Assad has to transition.”
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said it was expected the next round would touch on “the core” issue of a political transition, including Assad’s fate.
Russian Airstrikes ‘Inaccurate on Grand Scale’ Says Report
A new open-source investigative report by the Atlantic Council released Tuesday highlights false claims made by Russia that its airstrikes have mostly targeted positions held by the so-called Islamic State group (ISIS) since it began its military intervention in September 2015.
Six months of Russian airstrikes, up until the February 27 cease-fire, caused only minor damage to ISIS, according to the report.
At the outset of Moscow’s aerial campaign, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said the military goal was “exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against the IS.”
The report describes such claims made by Russian officials as “inaccurate on a grand scale.”
The Washington-based group’s analysis of video footage of targets released by the Russian defense ministry between 30 September and 17 November last year repeatedly found them to have been outside ISIS-controlled areas.
According to the report, the main focus of the Russian intervention in Syria before the cease-fire was to strengthen the Assad government by pushing back rebel forces, all the while claiming to be working together with the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS.
Recommended Reads
- Syria:Direct: Syria’s Detained Women Face Stigma, Rejection: ‘My Suffering Began After I Got Out’
- The Daily Beast: Al-Qaida’s Screwing Up in Syria
- War on the Rocks: Moscow’s Mercenaries in Syria
- Independent: Pictures of Life for Turkey’s 2.5 Million Syrian Refugees
- BBC News: Syria’s Loss of Students to Rebuild Future
Top image: Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, right, listens to Staffan de Mistura, U.N. special envoy of the secretary-general for Syria, during their talks in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 5, 2016. Mistura is in Moscow ahead of the planned resumption of indirect peace talks between the Russia-backed government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups next week in Geneva. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)