Israeli fighter jet crashes on hitting ‘Iran targets’

Jerusalem, Feb. 10: An Israeli fighter jet crashed on Saturday after coming under fire from Syrian air defences during attacks against “Iranian targets” in the war-torn country, a spokesman said.

The exchange of fire was the most serious between arch foes Israel and Iran since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011. It marked the first time Israel publicly acknowledged attacking what it identified as Iranian targets in Syria since the war began.

The Israeli military issued a warning to Tehran, saying it was responsible for the drone that entered Israel. Israel has repeatedly warned in recent weeks against the presence of Iranian forces in neighbouring Syria. The Israeli pilots of the crashed F16 were reported alive. The Israeli military “targeted the Iranian control systems in Syria that sent the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) into Israeli airspace. Massive Syrian anti-air fire, one F16 crashed in Israel, pilots safe,” spokesman lieutenant colonel Jonathan Conricus tweeted.

According to a separate military statement, Israeli forces identified an “Iranian UAV” launched from Syria and intercepted it in Israeli airspace with a combat helicopter. Police said the F16 crashed in the Jezreel valley in northern Israel. — AFP Beijing, Feb. 10: Nearly 40 geologists from China and Pakistan have teamed up to survey the Makran Trench in Balochistan following Beijing’s concerns over the possibility of a massive earthquake affecting the strategic Gwadar port in the volatile province, a media report said on Saturday.

The trench is the meeting point for two tectonic plates and is close to the Pakistani deep-sea port of Gwadar which China has acquired on a 40-year lease. Gwadar forms part of the important link for the over $50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) connecting to China’s Xinjiang province through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). “It has been more than 70 years since the last big earthquake shook the Makran Trench off the south coast of Pakistan, but if and when the next catastrophic one happens, it could disturb more than the landscape,” the Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported.

Any potential disaster in the area could undermine Beijing’s ambitions to revive trade from China through Asia to Africa and Europe through Gwadar port, the report said. That is why scientists from China and Pakistan teamed up to survey the trench.— PTI