Mere days after Turkish capital Ankara urged its NATO allies to endorse possible regime change to aid in the fight against terrorism, Turkish forces have shot down a Syrian helicopter. The shooting occurred today a little after 2 p.m. local time, when the helicopter breached a seven-mile strip of the border in Turkey’s southeastern Hatay province. After detecting the border violation (the chopper had breached for about five minutes), Turkish forces dispatched two F-16 fighter jets to attack the helicopter. Turkish military reported that it had crashed inside Syria.
Amidst frenzy, Syrian “helicopter” identified to be remotely controlled drone
The Syrian pro-government Addounia TV channel claims that these reports were faulty — that the Turkish actually shot down a small, drone-like surveillance plane. Both the Turkish Minister of Defense Ismet Yilmaz and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dispute these claims, saying that, while the aircraft initially appeared like an unmanned vehicle, it was ultimately identified to be a helicopter. The reason the Turkish military had for taking down the helicopter was straightforward: it had failed to listen to warnings given for it to halt its border breach.
This is the third time since June 2012 that Turkey has shot down a Syrian aircraft. All incidents have occurred after Damascus gunned down a Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet over the Mediterranean Sea that year. The first Syrian helicopter shooting occurred in September 2013, and the second, a Syrian MIG-23 warplane, was shot down in March 2014.
Not so coincidentally, all of these aircraft shootings have gone in line with Turkish governmental efforts to crack down the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey has previously denied Assad’s accusation that it has conspired to deliver arms to Islamist militant insurgents to lay hold of the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib earlier this year.
NATO aids in increased Turkish efforts to battle Syrian regime
Turkey’s NATO allies are currently focusing on combatting extremist terrorist militant groups that are mainly led by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Earlier this week, NATO’s foreign ministers met in Antalya, Turkey to discuss the state of terrorism in Turkey’s neighboring nations. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu concluded that, in order for the fight against the Islamic State to be wholly forceful and effective, there desperately needs to be a regime change in Damascus, a transition that will hopefully bring about much-needed stability to the country.
