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Russia threatens to target coalition planes in Syria
[Al Jazeera] Russia has said that it will treat all US-led coalition aircraft to the west of the Euphrates River in Syria as "targets" and halted an incident-prevention hotline with Washington after US forces downed a Syrian warplane.Moscow has only once before suspended the hotline, which was established in October 2015 to prevent conflict between the different forces operating in Syrian airspace. Sunday’s downing of the jet and Russia's response on Monday further complicate Syria's six-year war and come as the US-led coalition and allied fighters battle to remove the 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.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) group from its Syrian bastion, Raqqa. Russia's foreign ministry accused Washington of failing to use the hotline before downing the plane near Raqqa and called for a "careful investigation by the US command" into the incident. "Any flying objects, including planes and drones of the international coalition, discovered west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as aerial targets by Russia's air defences on and above ground," it warned. Russia's defence ministry condemned the downing of the jet in a separate statement, saying the latest incident, in addition to others, was a violation of international law. "As a result of the strike, the Syrian plane was destroyed. The Syrian pilot catapulted into an area controlled by Islamic State [of Iraq and the Levant] terrorists. His fate is unknown," the statement said. Posted by: Fred 2017-06-20 |
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