News Digest

Islamic State said to be flying 3 captured jets in Syria - with Iraqi help

The Islamic State (IS) is test-flying, with the help of former Iraqi air force pilots, several fighter jets captured earlier from air bases belonging to the Syrian military, a Syrian activist group said Friday. The report by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights could not be independently confirmed, and US officials said they had no reports of IS militants flying jets in support of their forces on the ground. The new development came as the Islamic State group in Iraq pressed its offensive on the strategic city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The militants appeared to be taking advantage of the focus of US-led airstrikes on the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, along the border with Turkey, to concentrate on their second front in Iraq.

The jets could not fly much further without being knocked down by the (international) coalition.

Rami Abdurrahman, director, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

The Observatory said the planes, seen flying over the Jarrah air base in the countryside of Aleppo province in eastern Syria this week, are believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets. Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Observatory, said the planes have been flying at a low altitude, “apparently to avoid being detected by Syrian military radar in the area”. He described the flights as a “moral victory” for IS. The US and its allies are bombing IS bases in Syria and Iraq, where extremists have seized large swaths of territory. General Lloyd Austin, the top US commander for the Middle East, said he has no operational reports of IS militants flying jets in support of their forces on the ground.