{"id":399,"date":"2014-10-20T00:19:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T21:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2014-10-20T01:37:18","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T22:37:18","slug":"israeli-air-force-ups-alert-over-islamic-state-crews-flying-captured-syrian-fighter-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=399","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Air Force Ups Alert Over Islamic State Crews Flying Captured Syrian Fighter Jets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch a video of ISIS militants after overr unning the Tabqa Air base.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Israeli Air Force has raised its alert level in the north over reports that Iraqi defector pilots are training ISIS air crews to fly missions using captured Syrian MiG warplanes, Israel\u2019s 0404 News said Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel is concerned that the militants might opt to use the aircraft to carry out attacks against Israeli targets, despite the Jewish State\u2019s substantial air defense capabilities.<\/p>\n

After heavy fighting in late August, ISIS militants overran the\u00a0al-Tabqa air base on August 24th, and captured three Syrian MiG-21 or MiG-23 models, as well as missiles and related gear, according to\u00a0the London-based\u00a0Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the International Business Times reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein,\u201d<\/em> according to witnesses, who said they saw the jets in Aleppo, in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how many Iraqi pilots \u2013 or fliers from other Arab countries, for that matter \u2013 have joined ISIS\/ID forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back,\u201d SOHR head Rami Abdul Rahman said,\u00a0according to the report.<\/p>\n

The reports compound Israeli concerns over evidence that ISIS militants have taken control of some Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles, including\u00a0sarin, VX, and mustard gas agents.<\/p>\n

On September 23, an Israeli Patriot\u00a0missile shot down a Syrian Mig-23 bomber that strayed into Israeli airspace over the eastern Golan Heights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis jet could have reached the center of the country within a short time,\u201d<\/em> according to an IDF official. \u201cIn under a minute, it would have been over Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), and within five minutes, it could have gotten to any place,\u201d the air force officer said. \u201cThis decision is in line with our policy of intercepting all intrusions into our air space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The two crew members, who were believed to have survived the hit, were filmed by a Syrian ejecting from the craft, and landing within Syrian territory.<\/p>\n

In 1989 a Syrian pilot flying a Mig-23 defected to Israel. An Arab pilot flew a Mig-21 to Israel in 1966, in a similar defection<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> By Dave Bender\u00a0\u2014\u00a0algemeiner.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Syrian<\/a>

Syrian Tabaqa Airbase Showing MiG-21MF Fishbed-J Fighter Jets Captured by ISIS (01.09.2014)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch a video of ISIS militants after overr unning the Tabqa Air base. The Israeli Air Force has raised its alert level in the north over reports that Iraqi defector pilots are training ISIS...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[238,239,242,237,163,171,241,164,240],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}