... Keane said on “Fox & Friends” he sees the statement from the Kremlin as more “talk” and “bluster” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“That’s rubbish. They’re not gonna shoot at U.S. airplanes. They’re not gonna take on the United States. They have very limited capability in Syria by comparison to U.S. capability,” said Keane, a Fox News military analyst.
It’s the first time in nearly 20 years that a U.S. fighter jet shot down a warplane in air-to-air combat. The last time was a Serbian jet downed in Kosovo in 1999.
Watch Keane’s full analysis above, including on what President Trump should do about Afghanistan...
Russia Threatens to Attack U.S. Planes in Syria Following Assad Jet Fighter Shootdown
... “Repeated combat actions by U.S. aviation under the cover of counter terrorism against lawful armed forces of a country that is a member of the U.N. are a massive violation of international law and de facto a military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic,” said the Russian Defense Ministry.
Russia warned that planes from the U.S.-led coalition will be “tracked by the Russian ground and air anti-aircraft defense systems as air targets in the areas where Russian aviation is on combat missions in the Syrian sky.” The threat came up just short of promising to fire on those targets.
The Russians claimed the U.S. did not use the de-confliction hotline to warn them before shooting down the Syrian jet, and said Russian planes operating in the area could have been jeopardized...
...“The attack stresses coordination between the US and ISIS, and it reveals the evil intentions of the US in administering terrorism and investing it to pass the US-Zionist project in the region,” the Syrian government responded.
The Washington Post notes it was the first American downing of a Syrian jet since U.S. forces entered Syria’s civil war in 2014, the first time a U.S. plane brought down a manned hostile aircraft in over a decade, and the fourth time in a month the U.S. military has been obliged to fire on pro-regime forces...
... “The regime’s forces have mounted large-scale attacks using planes, artillery, and tanks since June 17,” an SDF spokesman said, as quoted by Reuters. “If the regime continues attacking our positions in Raqqa province, we will be forced to retaliate… and defend our forces.”
Reuters notes that the Syrian government has previously suggested it would focus its efforts on other parts of Raqqa during the drive to liberate it from the Islamic State, so the attack on SDF forces appears to mark a change in policy. SDF units have reportedly liberated four districts of the city from ISIS and is fighting over another three, so the Syrian attack may have been meant to stall out the SDF offensive and prevent the Kurdish-led coalition from controlling a large portion of the city...
How is it when there are no good sides in a conflict, we still manage to pick the wrong side?