Friendly fire cited after Syria downs Russia military plane

JERUSALEM -- Syrian anti-aircraft batteries responding to an Israeli airstrike Monday night accidentally downed a Russian military plane, killing 15 of its service members, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The downing of the plane in what Russia called a case of "friendly fire" raised immediate questions about the Israeli military's freedom of action inside Syria, where Israel has been able to mount more than 200 airstrikes in two years thanks in large part to Russian forbearance.

But that speculation was dampened Tuesday by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, who laid blame for the crash of the Russian Ilyushin Il-20 surveillance aircraft on "a chain of tragic accidental circumstances" and not just on Israel.

Putin drew a distinction between the downing of a Russian fighter plane by Turkey in 2015, which he condemned at the time as a "stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists," and Monday's accident, "because an Israeli plane didn't shoot our plane down."

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry had angrily accused Israel of hiding its F-16s behind the Russian plane, effectively turning the less stealthy Russian Il-20 into a target for Syria's anti-aircraft missiles. Russia also suggested that Israel had abused the countries' coordination system that is meant to avoid such accidents by providing only a minute's notice before its fighters struck a Syrian air base -- too little time for the Russian plane to be kept out of the crossfire.

"We reserve the right to take adequate measures in response," Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, had said, the news agency Interfax reported.

In a departure from its normal policy of refusing to comment on military actions, the Israeli Defense Forces released a lengthy statement that expressed sorrow for the loss of life and held the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad "fully responsible." It added that Iran and Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that operates in Syria and is a bitter enemy of Israel, were also accountable.

Citing an "intolerable threat," Israel said its jets were targeting a military facility in Syria from which weapons-manufacturing systems were to be transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It added that the anti-aircraft missiles fired by Syria had been inaccurate and had been fired indiscriminately.

The statement went on to say that the Russian jet was not in the area when Israeli warplanes made their attack on the Syrian weapons facility and that the Israeli jets were already back in Israel's airspace at the time the surveillance plane was shot down.

Israel has long had the tacit support of Russia in pursuing its own agenda in Syria of preventing Iran from establishing a military presence there and from supplying Hezbollah with advanced weaponry.

A Section on 09/19/2018

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