ISLAMABAD – Senior Russian lawmakers have urged the country to probe theorigin of the man-portable air-defense system (MANPAD), which wasreportedly used by Takfiri terrorists to down a Russian jet over Syria.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed in a statement on Saturday that theSu-25 fighter jet had been shot down in Syria’s northwestern province ofIdlib.link>
Citing preliminary data it said the jet had been downed by a MANPAD. Thepilot had parachuted down into the area controlled by Jabhat Fateh al-ShamTakfiri outfit, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, but was killed during aconfrontation with militants from an unspecified group.
Russian military planes retaliated afterwards by targeting theNusra-controlled area of Idlib and killing more than 30 terrorists.
“Certainly, we will investigate, including a great many things: from thetype of the MANPADS to the circumstances of the Su-25 downing,” FrantsKlintsevich, the first deputy chair of the Russian Federal Council’sDefense Committee told Interfax. “The loss of one aircraft is nothing, butpolitically, it has great significance and far-reaching consequences,” headded.
MP Dmitry Sablin, the coordinator of the Russia-Syria parliamentaryfriendship group, said, “We have information that the MANPADS used to bringdown our jet was brought into Syria from a neighboring country several daysago.”
“Countries from whose territory weapons arrive, that are then used againstRussian servicemen, must understand that this will not go unpunished,”he told the agency.
Deputy head of the State Duma’s Defense Committee, Yury Shvytkin, toldRussia’s RIA news agency he was inclined to believe that the “MANPADSorigins were linked with Western countries.”
A 2017 military spending bill, signed under former US President BarackObama, allowed supply of such weapons to the militants fighting the Syriangovernment.
In September 2016, Reuters cited an unnamed US official as saying thatWashington “has kept large numbers of such man-portable air defensesystems, or MANPADS, out of Syria by uniting Western and Arab allies behindchanneling training and infantry weapons” to anti-Damascus militants.
“The Saudis have always thought that the way to get the Russians to backoff is what worked in Afghanistan 30 years ago – negating their air powerby giving MANPADS to the Mujahideen,” it quoted another American officialas saying. However the situation can get worst if Russians give SAMs toTaliban for shooting down US Jet in Afghanistan.
Members of the Ansar al-Islam Front were shown in a video posted inNovember 2016, parading a cache of shoulder-launched anti-aircraftmissiles, the first evidence of the weapons being supplied to militantsafter an expected relaxing of US restrictions.
Russia has been lending aerial support to Syria’s counter-terrorismoperations since September 2016.
The United States and its allies, including regional ally Saudi Arabia,however, have been backing the militants against Damascus since the onsetof the crisis.