Turkish fighters scramble after Russian jet strays near border on bombing mission, prompting fears of accidental clash
A Russian warplane on a bombing run in Syria flew within 8km of the Turkish border and may have crossed into Turkey’s airspace, Turkish and US officials said.
The incident raises new concerns that Russia’s armed intervention in Syria could spill over to neighbouring countries, lead to an unintended military confrontation and trigger an even bigger regional conflict.
A Turkish security official said Turkish radar locked onto the Russian aircraft as it was bombing early Friday in al Yamdiyyah, a Syrian village directly on the Turkish border. He said Turkish fighter jets would have attacked had it crossed into Turkish airspace.
But a US military official suggested the incident had come close to sparking an armed confrontation. Reading from a report, he said the Russian aircraft had violated Turkish airspace and that Turkish jets had scrambled, but that the Russian aircraft had returned to Syrian airspace before they could respond. The Turkish security official said he could not confirm that account.
The US Central command, which oversees military operations in Syria, has not yet commented.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up his rhetoric. In his strongest comment to date, he called Russia’s intervention unacceptable and a “grave mistake” that would isolate Moscow. Russia’s intervention and its bombing campaign in Syria “have no acceptable side,” he said.
Turkey has maintained a buffer zone five miles inside Syria since June 2012, when a Syrian air defence missile shot down a Turkish fighter plane that had strayed into Syrian airspace. Under revised rules of engagement put in effect then, the Turkish air force would evaluate any target coming within 8km of the Turkish border as an enemy and act accordingly.
Al Yamdiyyah hosts a tent camp for internally displaced Syrians and a hospital, run by the French-based Doctors Without Borders. The bomb struck in the village just a few hundred yards from the actual border, wounding several townspeople, local residents said. The Doctors Without Borders hospital apparently was not damaged.
The town, in a mountainous region of northern Latakia province, has been a prime route for smuggling people and goods between Turkey and Syria and reportedly has functioned as a key entry for weapons shipped to Syrian rebels by the US-led Friends of Syria group of Western and Middle Eastern countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government have repeatedly claimed that the intervention is aimed at destroying the Islamic State extremist group, which controls large swaths of Syrian territory. But most of the Russian bombing so far has targeted other rebel groups in the country’s west, amid speculation that Russia hopes to help the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad re-establish control over a stretch of central Syria now in rebel hands.
Michael Fallon, Great Britain’s secretary of defence, was quoted Saturday as saying that only 5 percent of Russian airstrikes so far have hit Islamic State targets. The bulk have killed civilians and fighters from other anti-Assad groups, he told the Sun newspaper.
“We’re analysing where the strikes are going every morning. The vast majority are not against ISIS at all,” he said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State.
