TURKEY SHOOT
Russian fighter jet brought down; parachuting crew machine gunned to death
A Russian fighter jet was shot down by Turkish war planes yesterday — and the two crewmen were killed in midair as they tried to parachute to safety, riddled with machinegun fire by Syrian rebels.
Later, a Russian marine was killed when a helicopter was blown up on a mission to rescue the doomed crew.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin vowed there would be “serious consequences.”
Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian military aircraft that had strayed across Turkey’s border on Tuesday, sending the plane plummeting to the ground in a ball of a fire — as its two crewmen were machinegunned to death in midair trying to parachute to safety.
The Turks claimed they opened fire because the Russians flew nearly a mile and a half into their airspace across the Syrian border, despite repeated warnings.
US officials acknowledged that Turkish airspace was breached by the plane but said they believe that the Russian jet was shot down while in Syrian airspace.
It was the first time a NATO member has downed a Russian plane since the 1950s and has increased tensions in a region that is already at the boiling point.
Footage from Turkish TV shows the Su24 jet streaming fire and spiraling down to the ground on the Syrian side of the border in an area known as Turkmen Mountain.
The pilots are seen floating to the ground, where their bodies were found riddled with bullets fired by Syrian rebels.
“Our comrades opened fire into the air, and [the Russians] died in the air,” said Alpaslan Celik, a deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade, which opposes the rule of Russiansupported Syrian President Bashar alAssad.
A separate video posted on Twitter by a man believed to be a rebel soldier showed men surrounding a pilot’s body, the Daily Mail reported. Some shouted, “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.”
Later, a Russian marine was killed when a rescue chopper trying to get the downed pilots was blown up by USbacked Free Syrian Army fighters while on the ground in the area, according to reports. The rebel group reportedly used a USmade TOW mis sile to down the chopper.
The group released a video claiming to show that attack.
The jet’s downing led Russian President Vladimir Putin to angrily denounce the Turkish actions. “Our military is doing heroic work against terrorism . . . but the loss today is a stab in the back carried out by the accomplices of terrorists,” the Russian strongman railed before a meet ing with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sochi. “I can’t describe it in any other way. We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today.”
The incident would have “serious consequences” for Russian-Turkish relations, Putin said.
It also highlighted the complexity of Syria’s civil war, where multiple sides, including the US and France, with clashing alli ances are fighting on the ground, and the sky is crowded with aircraft bombing various targets.
Russian forces are in Syria ostensibly to combat ISIS. But critics of Moscow’s intervention in the region claim Russia is really there to support Assad, who is accused of committing crimes against his people.
One of the dead Russian pilots was identified as Maj. Sergei Rumyantsev, the Daily Mail reported. Russian military spokesman Gen. Sergei Rudskoi similarly reported that one pilot was killed by gunfire from the ground as he parachuted.
Despite the rebel claims that both pilots were dead, Russia said the second crewman remained unaccounted for.
The Russian marine was killed during a failed operation to rescue the pilots, the staterun news agency RIA Novosti confirmed.
While Russia said it never violated Turkish airspace, Turkey insisted the fighter jet had crossed into its territory “to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length for 17 seconds.”
Turkey said the Russian pilots ignored 10 warnings that they were about to intrude into Turkish airspace.
The Su24 was then fired upon by Turkish F16s “in accordance with the rules of engagement,” Turkey’s UN ambassador, Halit Cevik, said in a letter.
Putin said Turkey — which is part of a USled coalition bombing ISIS — shot down the plane despite Moscow’s agreement with the United States to avoid such incidents.
“It is as if we shot down a Turkish plane and not they ours,” he said. “We always treated Turkey not only as a close neighbor but a friendly state. I don’t know who needed what was done today. Not us, at least.”
He also accused the Turkish military of assisting ISIS.
Russia later said it will have its own fighters flying alongside any jets in Syria, and that a guidedmissile cruiser was moved off the Syrian coast to “destroy any target that may pose a danger,” according to Russian news outlet RT.
They also cut off military ties to Turkey.
President Obama said that Turkey had “a right to defend its territory and its airspace” but urged against any escalation in hostilities.
“This points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations,” Obama said. “They are operating very close to a Turkish border, and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries.”
THE battle over Syria now involves so many world powers that it increasingly looks like a brewing world war. But not to worry: President Obama says his decisive alliance will win it.
He won’t lead that alliance, though. He’s too busy healing other global ills, like changing weather patterns.
So as more and more kids play in the Syrian sandlot with no hint of adult supervision, clashes like Tuesday’s downing of a Russian Su24 fighter jet by Turkey are inevitable. (Perhaps the Russians aren’t exactly children — but they’re certainly not providing adult supervision.)
ISIS is attacking in Paris and around the world? Americans are worried that it’ll soon hit here? There’s a solution: A vast array of world leaders will gather in Paris to solve climate change. As Obama said Tuesday: “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be.”
Meanwhile, Syria’s murderous president, Bashar alAssad, is holding on to power even though, per Obama, his continuous presence hinders any political solution there. Problem? Nah — 65 countries oppose Assad, while only two, Russia and Iran, are on his side.
As Obama put it, “We’ve got a coalition organized. Russia is the outlier.”
Organizing a community of allies, in other words, is Obama’s secret weapon in the battle of our time. He now even has someone to lead behind: his Tuesday guest at the White House, French President François Hollande. Next, our new world leader meets Germany’s Angela Merkel, and then flies to Moscow to powwow with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Yes, coordination is needed more than ever. But Hollande doesn’t exactly command the world’s top military power, and on Tuesday he vowed that like Obama (unlike Russia or Iran), France won’t commit ground troops to Syria.
Never mind. Obama keeps talking about how “we” are united, even echoing Ronald Reagan by promising that “our way of life” is the reason that “we will win, and groups like ISIL will lose.”
But who’s “we”? It isn’t Amer ica; it’s his leaderless coalition. And key members of that coalition have interests that don’t always coincide with ours.
The downed Russian Sukhoi jet flew over a TurkishSyrian border area where an Ankaraallied Turkmen militia is trying to unseat Assad, while Russia’s propping Assad up. The Syria war now threatens Moscow’s extensive relations with Turkey, as Putin urges Russian tourists to avoid popular Turkish resorts. And will Russia’s heatinggas supply to Turkey be interrupted next, just as winter approaches?
While the behavior of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan increasingly resembles Putin’s, their aims in Syria clash: Erdogan hates Assad. Putin’s his BFF. And ISIS doesn’t top the target list of either one of them.
Nor is it the top target of other allies: The Saudis and other Sunni Gulf countries are mostly worried about Iran. If ISIS can keep Iran occupied, why not? Israel reportedly bombed an arms delivery this week, showing once more that its top worries include Hezbollah and the Iranian presence on the Golan border with Syria — while Islamist terrorists in Syria, so far, have been careful not to mess with Jerusalem’s red lines.
On the other side of the equation, Iran constantly ups the ante by sending troops and allied militias to support Assad. Tehran, too, is more concerned about growing its Persian clout in the region than about defeating the scourge of Islamist terrorism. (Iran, after all, did a lot to develop such terrorism as a tool of war.)
Meanwhile, the allies that do share our concern about ISIS — from France to Luxembourg and everyone in between — are committing the minimal amount of firepower. Like us, they bomb just enough to say we’re doing something.
If a coalition with members whose interests clash is ever to work, it must have a credible power that will lead and unify the agenda. But with no serious skin in the game, no one will see Obama (or Hollande) as that leader.
Obama treats the war in Syria as a side show, secondary to his war on Republicans, income inequality and the weather — I mean climate.
Syria? Obama follows Mother Mary’s whispered words of wisdom: “Let It Be.” Except it increasingly resembles another golden age of rock album, the Rolling Stones’ much darker “Let It Bleed.”
And that’s how world wars begin.