ON JUNE 18th the unexpected happened. For the first time since America’s involvement in the skies over Kosovo 18 years ago, an American fighter plane shot down a hostile jet. America targeted the Syrian plane after it bombed American-backed forces battling to drive the jihadists of Islamic State (IS) from their capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The downing of the Syrian plane and a string of recent air strikes and skirmishes between ground forces backed by America and Iran, have opened a new chapter in the multi-sided Syrian war. This raises concerns of further escalation in a conflict that has already sucked in neighbours and regional powers. Russia, enraged by the attack on the regime it supports, threatened in retaliation to track American warplanes with its missile systems should their pilots stray west of the Euphrates river. And Iran, which already supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, with ground troops, escalated its involvement on June 18th by firing a...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2sYbYkK
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