Syrians Shoot Down Turkish War Plane

[GHook93]

Blog: Syria shoots down Turkish warplane

Already high tensions between the two countries and now Syria shoots down a plane? Is this enough for Turkey to invade Syria? Nope, they leave their tough talk for those Jews. Nevertheless it's not good for ASSSad's mass murdering machine.

I expect Turkey to scream foul and do nothing.




Oh and how long before Israel did it accusations????

 

[waltky]

So, like what is he tryin' to do - give the ME to Iran?...

UN’s Annan: Iran should be part of Syria solution
June 22, 2012 | U.N. envoy Kofi Annan said Friday that Iran should be involved in efforts to end the escalating violence that has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, told reporters that he is working to convene a so-called `contact group’ meeting on Syria in Geneva on June 30. The United States has vehemently opposed the involvement of Iran demanded by Russia. Annan said the composition of the meeting is one of the sticking points that may not be resolved until next week. “I have made it quite clear that I believe Iran should be part of the solution,’’ the former U.N. secretary-general told reporters in Geneva, flanked by Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the struggling U.N. observer mission in Syria.

Annan said it was “time for countries of influence to raise the level of pressure on the parties on the ground.’’ However, he had no specific proposals for changing his six-point peace plan, which he said Syria had not yet implemented but still might support in the future. “The longer we wait, the darker Syria’s future becomes,’’ Annan said.

Mood praised the work of his 300 U.N. monitors, whose mandate ends next month. He conceded, however, that they are now largely confined to bureaucratic tasks and calling Syrians by phone because of the insecurity and dangers on the ground. “They are keen to resume their work. Their commitment to the Syrian people has not faltered,’’ he emphasized. “Whether more observers or arming observers would be relevant to the situation on the ground, I’m far from convinced that that would help the situation on the ground.’’

The increasing militarization of both sides in the conflict has Syria lurching toward civil war. The failure of Annan’s internationally brokered peace plan has made it more difficult for outside observers, humanitarian workers and supplies to get in, or reliable information to filter out. Activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March last year. U.N. officials said Friday that an agreement by Syria to allow in aid workers and supplies to four of the hardest-hit provinces has been delayed by the steady violence. So far, only reconnaissance missions to prepare for the aid workers and supplies have been conducted, U.N. humanitarian officials said.

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Turkish president vows action after Syria shoots down fighter jet
Saturday, Jun. 23 2012, Turkey’s president said Saturday his country will take “necessary,” but unspecified, action against Syria, a day after Damascus said it had brought down a Turkish military plane near the volatile border between the two countries.

Abdullah Gul said that Turkey was still trying to establish the exact circumstances of the incident. Regional security may hinge on the details that emerge, including whether the jet may have been brought down in Turkish territory. The incident comes at the tense moment when the Syrian regime has lost control in large parts of the countryside and blames Turkey for assisting rebels. Friday saw another spate of news about Syrian military defections, a mass killing and weapons smuggled into rebel enclaves from Turkey.

Turkish authorities said they lost contact with an F-4 Phantom around noon on Friday about 13 kilometres from the port of Latakia, but initially seemed reluctant to blame Syria for shooting down the jet. In the early hours of Saturday morning, however, the Syrian state news agency SANA released a bulletin in English, French and Arabic saying that security forces had fired on an unidentified aircraft over Syrian territory. “An unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters,” the agency said.

The Syrian government said its anti-aircraft artillery hit the plane about one kilometre offshore before it crashed farther out in the Mediterranean. “The target turned out to be a Turkish military plane,” the news agency said. Turkey held a two-hour meeting of top security officials on Friday night; a terse statement afterward said that Turkey understood its plane had been shot down by Syrian forces and promised, without elaborating, that Ankara “will determinedly take necessary steps” in response.

Earlier in the day, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the fate of the jet and crew remains unknown. He also emphasized that whatever brought down the aircraft may have happened some distance from the place where it eventually crashed, perhaps indicating that Turkey did not intend an aerial incursion. “It would be very significant, and unprecedented, if Turkey intentionally violated Syrian airspace,” said Elizabeth O'Bagy, an Arabic-speaking Syria analyst at the Washington-based U.S. Institute for the Study of War. “I personally don't think that's likely, considering the stakes.”

Syria has some of the best air defences in the Middle East. An analysis published by Sean O'Connor, an expert at the think tank Air Power Australia, shows that Syria has early-warning radar with visibility deep inside Turkey; this could have alerted Syrian officials about the plane's approach when it was roughly half the distance from its reported takeoff location, the Erhac military base in the eastern province of Malatya, to the spot off the coast where the plane disappeared.

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[GHook93]

 

[hjmick]

Great. This could get ugly.

NATO invades Syria.

Just what we need.

 

[waltky]

150 Dead, TV Station Stormed In Syria...

Blast hits Damascus, Turkey sends troops to border
Thu Jun 28, 2012 - Rebel forces attacked Syria's main court in central Damascus on Thursday, state television said, while Turkey deployed troops and anti-aircraft rocket launchers to the Syrian border, building pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

A loud explosion echoed through the streets and a column of black smoke rose over Damascus, an Assad stronghold that until the last few days had seemed largely beyond the reach of rebels. State television described it as a "terrorist" blast. Dozens of wrecked and burning cars were strewn over a car park used by lawyers and judges. The state news agency SANA said three people had been wounded by a bomb hidden in one of the cars. The fighting coincided with a Turkish military buildup on its border with Syria and a growing sense of urgency in Western- and Arab-backed diplomatic efforts to promote the idea of a unity government to end 16 months of bloodshed.

But Assad himself dismissed the idea of any outside solution to Syria's crisis. "We will not accept any non-Syrian, non-national model, whether it comes from big countries or friendly countries. No one knows how to solve Syria's problems as well as we do," Assad told the state television channel of Syria's ally Iran. He said Turkey's official stance belied the Turkish people's "positive view" of Syria.

A first substantial convoy of about 30 Turkish military vehicles, including trucks loaded with anti-aircraft missile batteries dispatched from the coastal town of Iskenderun, headed towards the Syrian border 50 km (30 miles) away. A Turkish official who declined to be named said he did not know how many troops or vehicles were being moved but they were being stationed in the Yayladagi, Altinozu and Reyhanli border areas. A general in the rebel Free Syria Army said on Friday that Syrian government forces had amassed around 170 tanks north of the city Aleppo, near the Turkish border, but there was no independent confirmation of the report.

General Mustafa al-Sheikh, head of the Higher Military Council, an association of senior officers who defected from Assad's forces, said the tanks had assembled at the Infantry School near the village of Musalmieh northeast of the city of Aleppo, 30 kms (19 miles) from the Turkish border. "The tanks are now at the Infantry School. They're either preparing to move to the border to counter the Turkish deployment or attack the rebellious (Syrian) towns and villages in and around the border zone north of Aleppo," Sheikh told Reuters by telephone from the border. Last Friday Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan responded by ordering his troops to treat any Syrian military element approaching the border as a military target. This could cover Syrian forces pursuing rebels towards the border, or patrolling helicopters or warplanes. Syria said at the weekend that it had killed several "terrorists" infiltrating from Turkey.

TURKISH CONVOYS

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Lebanon sucked into Syria crisis
29 June 2012 - Nowhere is the stress exerted on Lebanon by the Syrian crisis more apparent than in Tripoli, the country's second city.

Like Syria's other neighbours - Turkey, Iraq and Jordan - Lebanon has absorbed thousands of refugees fleeing from the conflict now raging on the other side of the border. But unlike the other countries, Lebanon risks being plunged into sectarian strife, possibly even civil war, by the strains inflicted on its own delicate internal situation by the Syrian crisis. If there is a spark that sets off a wider conflagration in the country, it is most likely to come from Tripoli, where blood has already been spilled.

The majority of the city's 500,000 or so inhabitants are Sunnis, most of whom naturally side with the uprising across the border in Syria, which has taken root mainly in the country's Sunni areas. But there is a small but tough minority of Alawites, perhaps 35,000 strong, mainly concentrated in the hilltop Jebel Mohsen quarter. They share the same obscure faith as the ruling clan of Bashar al-Assad in Syria - an occult offshoot of Shia Islam - and most of them strongly support the Syrian regime.

Symbols of struggle

It is not a theoretical alliance. During the Syrian military presence in Lebanon (from 1976 until 2005) Alawite leaders in Tripoli worked closely with the Syrians and fought on their behalf in various proxy battles over the years. The main Lebanese Alawite faction, the Arab Democratic Party led by Rifaat Eid, is strongly linked to Damascus and is widely believed to receive arms and even instructions from the regime. Twice already this year, there have been bouts of fighting along a civil war front line between Jebel Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh - the adjacent Sunni district. More than 20 people have been killed in clashes which nobody doubts were related to the Syrian conflict, though there were conflicting recriminations.

Sunnis accused the Alawites and Damascus of stirring up the trouble to divert attention from Syria's internal struggle and to warn the Sunnis against allowing Tripoli to become a rear base for the Syrian rebels, which it effectively is. Alawites accused the Sunnis of trying to impose a Salafi (fundamentalist) emirate and of arming and financing the Syrian Sunnis. Rifaat Eid even suggested that the only solution was to invite the Syrian army in to impose order. Most parts of Tripoli are clearly badged with the symbols of the struggle. In many areas, the black-white-and-green banner of the Syrian revolution flutters, in places more prominently than Lebanon's own flag. But in Jebel Mohsen, the posters are of Mr Assad and his father, the regime founder Hafez al-Assad, some of them featuring Rifaat Eid.

'Civil war'

 

[freedombecki]

Assad regrets shooting down a Turkish Jet

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad said he regrets the shooting down of a Turkish jet by his forces, and that he will not allow tensions between the two neighbors to deteriorate into an "armed conflict," a Turkish newspaper reported Tuesday.[/FONT]

So... that's that?

 

[Jos]

ON THIS DAY, 3rd July 1988

1988: US warship shoots down Iranian airliner
An American naval warship patrolling in the Persian Gulf has shot down an Iranian passenger jet after apparently mistaking it for an F-14 fighter.

All those on board the airliner - almost 300 people - are believed dead.

The plane, an Airbus A300, was making a routine flight from Bandar Abbas, in Iran, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The USS Vincennes had tracked the plane electronically and warned it to keep away. When it did not the ship fired two surface-to-air missiles, at least one of which hit the airliner.

Navy officials said the Vincennes' crew believed they were firing at an Iranian F14 jet fighter, although they had not confirmed this visually.

No survivors

The plane blew up six miles from the Vincennes, the wreckage falling in Iranian territorial waters.

Iranian ships and helicopters have been searching for survivors but none have so far been found. Iranian television broadcast scenes of bodies floating amid scattered debris.

Iran has reacted with outrage, accusing the United States of a "barbaric massacre" and vowed to "avenge the blood of our martyrs".

President Reagan said the Vincennes had taken "a proper defensive action" and called the incident an "understandable accident", although he said he regretted the loss of life.

BBC ON THIS DAY | 3 | 1988: US warship shoots down Iranian airliner
The US government has never admitted responsibility or apologised for the tragedy.

 

[ekrem]

So... that's that?

The E/V Nautilus, which located Titanic, has joined today the search for the pilots and the wreckage after 3 day travel to the area.
ntvmsnbc Video Galeri

 

[kirkuki]

time will come for Kurdistan government one day to follow similar steps , not just turkish planes but any country violating our airspace .

i am against Assad and his dogs but this is against the international laws .

 

[ekrem]

 

[waltky]

Obama shakes a stern an' serious finger at Assad...

Obama warns Syria against chemical weapons
Jul 23, 2012 - President Obama warned Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad today not to use chemical weapons against rebel forces.

"Given the regime's stockpiles of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad and those around him that the world is watching -- and that they will held accountable by the international community, and the United States, should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons," Obama told the VFW convention in Reno, Nevada.

Obama also said: "We will continue to work with our friends and our allies and the Syrian opposition on behalf of the day when the Syrian people have a government that respects their basic rights to live in peace and freedom and dignity." The president spoke shortly after Syria said it does indeed have chemical weapons, but would only use them in case of foreign attack.

From the Associated Press:

The statement -- Syria's first-ever acknowledgement that the country possesses weapons of mass destruction -- suggests President Bashar Assad will continue the fight to stay in power, regardless of the cost. "It would be reprehensible if anybody in Syria is contemplating use of such weapons of mass destruction like chemical weapons," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during a trip to Belgrade, Serbia. "I sincerely hope the international community will keep an eye on this so that there will be no such things happening."

Syria is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas, Scud missiles capable of delivering these lethal chemicals and a variety of advanced conventional arms, including anti-tank rockets and late-model portable anti-aircraft missiles. During a televised news conference Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi stressed that the weapons are secure and would only be used in the case of an external attack. "No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used, and I repeat, will never be used, during the crisis in Syria no matter what the developments inside Syria," he said. "All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression."

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