Israel shoots down Syrian warplane as Golan frontier heats up

trust.org ^ | 7/24/18 | Reuters / Dan Williams and Lisa Barrington

[ColdOne]

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, July 24 (Reuters) - Israel said it shot down a Syrian warplane that crossed into the occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, but Damascus said the jet was fired on as it took part in sorties against rebels within Syria.

The incident added new fuel to weeks of tensions over the Golan, a strategic plateau between the two old enemies and where Israel has been on high alert as Syrian government forces, supported by Russia, close in to regain rebel-held ground.

Israel worries Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may defy a 1974 U.N. armistice that demilitarised much of the Golan, or let his Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements deploy there.

[jmacusa]

Israelis can shoot down Syrian MiGs with the ease one can kill flies with a can of Raid.

[Steely Tom]

Jerusalem Post says it was an SU-22. Not sure if that's true. SU22 is a very primitive airplane, a variant of the SU-17 "Fitter," originally introduced in 1970.

[MeganC]

I hear that the Syrian jet was shot down in Syrian airspace and that it exploded in the air and crashed well inside of Syria.

[ncfool]

GOD BLESS ISRAEL......

AM YISRAEL CHAI.... THE people Israel live!

[wny]

the “...occupied Golan Heights...” were legally annexed by Israel.

[jjotto]

So what? Syria would claim a jet shot down over Tel Aviv was over Syrian territory.

[MeganC]

No one disputes that the jet crashed inside of Syria.

[heterosupremacist]

Vaporized by American engineered, American built, Patriot Missiles provided by the U.S.A.

Not even a real challenge, that would be like passing a Desoto on the interstate...

[jmacusa]

You should read about what the Israeli Air Force did to the Syrian Air Force over the Behkka Valley in 1982. In the space of about three days the IAF shot down some sixty Syrian MiGs without a single loss of their own. It was so much of a turkey shoot one IAF pilot said ‘’They(the Syrian pilots) made almost no attempts to evade. It was as if they wanted to be shot down’’.