"Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet" Topic

It's 20 degrees and cloudy in Anatalya… I suspect the tourism season is calming anyway.

I think there is generally a lot of criticism over the shooting of the pilot, from all sides. I suspect there may have been a few harsh words on the ground as well, as a live pilot is a much stronger bargaining position than a dead one.

A lot of people were planning New Year in Turkey, as always, – including a couple of my colleagues.
I, personally, never liked Egypt or Turkey for vacation ;)
Turkish newspapers already started panicking over failed tourist season – long New Year holidays and May holidays next year.
So this will hurt.

We were in Turkey last year – my wife found the Russian presence there to be a little… base (bit like Cosa-del-Anglia)…

This is also one of the reasons I don't like it here ;)

Are Russian attacks against IS concentrations, or are they using it as an excuse to target any minority groups that oppose Russia's position?

"Moscow is an ally of President Assad and is conducting air strikes to prop up his government. It says it is targeting only "terrorists" – above all jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) – but its strikes have mainly hit Western-backed rebels."

If that map is correct, there would appear to be more attacks outside of IS controlled areas than inside (?)

First we need to clarify, who and what are moderate rebels. Lot of politicians, including US vice president can't find them.
A lot of these in-between rebels are either allied to bigger players, like Al-Nusra/Isis, or coordinating their activities with them.
Saying that they're opposing Russia position is at least strange. They're opposing Assad, or each other or whatever. If they attack base in Lattakia they're fair game (see those Turkmen). Base security is first priority and this is where you have most of the strikes.

While I'm pretty sure that Syrian army might be supplying coordinates of the groups who might be called "political opposition", but as long as they act against government troops in coordination, or at least at the same time as Al-Nusra/Isis it will be very strange to leave them advancing, and bombing only those, who are acknowledged being terrorists by the West.

Well according to our PM, there are 70K of them ,including Kurds.

Given they've been attacking ISIS and aren't fundies themselves, I guess we'd have to include the Turkmen.

The Free Syrian Army still exists, but it's a loose grouping rather than anything else.

Of course if Russian keeps bombing them rather than ISIS, there soon won't be many left.

But Putin seems to regard 'ISIS' as meaning 'anti-Assad'….

Turkish purveyors of shell-suits, chunky bling and white stilettos must be gutted.

I think that is what I was querying. Given that the vast majority of attacks are shown to be concentrated around the area between Aleppo and Latakia, are the attacks actually more pro or anti regime change than directed at IS?

The attacks are rightly, as in efficiently? to help the only reliable ground troops that fight our ennemies, they happen to work for yet another dictator, Assad.
If we don't like dictators, there are still plenty around including "ours"; there is just a choice as to which one we can or want down.
Not many have a civil war on, to display their best slaughtering modes though. (but given the chance).
Btw did Assad recently sentence to death any blogger or poets for blasphemy? (like some " friends of ours nearby).
Selective indignations of ours.

devil is in details. Increase the scale of your map, put Al-Nusra-controlled cities into place and it will start making sense.

<<There are two gateways into Syria through Turkey; through the eastern one, ISIS receive arms, equipment, volunteers, supplies and goods, all with Turkish compliance. Through the Western, the US, French and Saudi supported rebels, including the al-quaeda murderers of Christians, al-Nusra, who hold a number of border towns including Harem, Salqin and Armanaz (clicky to see big – they're the dark grey) do the same. From the news reports, Russian air activity is aimed at a precursor to ground troops first closing the western of the border gateways.>>

link

…including the al-quaeda murderers of Christians, al-Nusra, who hold a number of border towns including Harem, Salqin and Armanaz (clicky to see big – they're the dark grey)…

Assuming 'eastern' and 'western' is referring to those to big blue arrows… then if Russia is carrying out attacks against IS (as they have stated) would you not expect the concentration to be east of Aleppo?

In fact looking at the attack locations they don't seem to be on the border towns of Harem, Salqin or Armanaz, but much farther south. Rather, the devil in the detail seems to confirm that they are not actually attacking ISIS (the grey area, labelled ISIS) at all, but rather focussed on the green area…

Come on, it is clearly written << AL_NUSRA>> which is, if you forgot, Al-qaeda. Russia, unlike western coalition, that names only ISIS as target, stated that it will and is attacking other terrorist groups as well, and Al-Nusra is definitely a terrorist group. In order to deblockade Aleppo, and cut the supplies coming through western blue arrow, Syrian army is making offensive on Aleppo (black arrow). As in October previous offensive was cut short in "tank massacre", helped with TOW, supplied from US via Turkey to all parties, the only real support for the grunts to get to Aleppo and cut supplies through Al-Nusra-controlled territory is from tactical bomber strikes.
You may follow regular updates here, as I know that you have no problems with Russian.
link
There were strikes at both Al-Nusra and ISIS.

May be with the increased number of planes the pattern of stikes will change, but at the momen they are dealing with immediate threat (base protection, stopping offensive that was threatening to cut government-controlled territory into half) and tactical strikes in support of Syrian army.

One can wonder, how Al-Nusra and some "other" opposition share their territory and supply routes from Turkey without being…err…friendly?

Saying all that, I'm sure that some strikes are against something that is not ISIS or Al-Nusra, it doesn't mean that they're not fundamentalists and/or terrorists. In the beginning of operation our MOD actually was trying to receive information from western parties where exctly these moderate opposition groups are…

Ok… But Russian bombers are not attacking Al Nusra… They are attacking the free Syrian army front?

Well so you can say where they are located exactly? If you check the link in the blog, this green territory is not only FSA, it is "various" opposition.
This map from Daily beast gives even better picture:

Nobody can tell where exactly FSA forces are…

it is especially interesting as the map was created by
Coalition for a Democratic Syria (CDS), a Syrian-American opposition umbrella group.

And if you cared to follow MOD link you may find strikes on Al-Nusra described there.

Seems that you can just pick the map that reinforces your position (meaning in general, not you Barin), although even that map seems to again confirm that the vast majority of attacks are on Syrian opposition areas rather than Isis or Al Nusra

For obvious reasons (terrorism) the west has tunnel vision and is solely fixated on Daesh (ISIS), but to the other pariticipants in Syria and the Mideast Daesh is just a "sideshow":

Read the excellent Vox article which explains the Syrian civil war and its various players linked from my previous post (Is Daesh a "sideshow"?): TMP link

You will see that Daesh is but one faction among many in Syria's civil war. Assad even aided it by releasing jihadist prisoners in 2012 to help sectarianize the conflict so he can maintain power.

The other rebel factions, moderate or otherwise, rather fight the Assad regime than Daesh and hold territories closer to Damascus, so obviously were the more "clear and present danger" to Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies.

Pretty map … and accurately shows what cluster the whole situation is … and I thought A'stan was Frakk'd up with 6 major tribes to deal with. I think the Syrian mess may have it beat ?

I doubt the Russians want to fight the Israelis.

But on the other hand, I doubt the Israelis want to push the Russians – because the Russians WILL respond.

And the Russians provide the kind of opposition the Israelis aren't used to either…. it's a bit different to fighting 3rd world nations without any combat aircraft (Lebanon)…

Don't underestimate the IDF. But Russia has shown it's metal for better or worse. As I said, I think the Russians and the Israelis made a "deal" … for the time being, at least. Regardless, I think both know it is not to their advantage to be in conflict.

As odd as it may sound to "some", I certainly trust the Israelis much more than any others in the region. And even the Russians for that matter. The Turks, Saudis, Iraqis, Persians, etc., I would not turn my back on them.

I trust the Israleis more than most.

That doesn't mean I trust them much.

Vice ambassador,of Russia let slip a sentence hinting at agreement with Israel who is looking for support as US is edging out of the aera.

stu … you wouldn't trust the Pope …

Vice ambassador,of Russia let slip a sentence hinting at agreement with Israel who is looking for support as US is edging out of the aera.

As I said, Bibi and Putin made "a deal" …

Since I'm CofE I'm not expected to…. :)

I think Barin has the right of it. The main aim is to cut all rebel supply lines and access to safe havens coming through Turkey, which will significantly degrade the rest of the opposition forces deeper in Syria. The fact that the first steps along a West-to-East axis of advance along the border happens to involve crushing the least-bad of the bad guys? Oh well, tough luck for them.

In the short term it may look like Russia is just pounding the non-ISIS rebels but there is *some* method to the madness.

The main aim is to cut all rebel supply lines and access to safe havens coming through Turkey, which will significantly degrade the rest of the opposition forces deeper in Syria

Agreed … but once again, it's the Turks, a member of NATO, not helping the situation much, accept when it's to their advantage …

Since I'm CofE I'm not expected to…. :)

Well I can't argue that point !

Saw on the News today, Turkey's Erdogan is claiming "Mea Culpa" about the whole SU-24 shoot down. Wants to play and talk nice to Vlad P. and his crew. Guess he realized how much his economy, which is not that stable anyway, depends on trade, etc. with Russia.

How do you say, "DOH !!!!" in Turkish !!!!

Or translated from Turkish to Russian !!

I'm not sure Turkey has ever claimed anything other than "oops, my bad, we thought it was Syrian"?

It seems to be the other side that is determined to label this as a deliberate and intentional action.

More details were given on 27 November by Russian air force commander Gen Viktor Bondarev. He said Russian and Syrian radar data pointed towards an "ambush" by the two Turkish F-16s… The timings showed that they could not have taken off from their Diyarbakir airbase for the interception – they were poised to attack, he said.

Yes, it's possible they were stooging around for an hour or so waiting to shoot down a Russian bomber… Or more likely they were flying routine CAP along the border.

Incompetence meets paranoia.

Guess he realized how much his economy, which is not that stable anyway,

True. Turkey buys 70% of its gas from Russia. It's only got 2 weeks supply in reserve. So with winter approaching, shooting down a Russian plane was not the greatest move. Turkey is trying to move to nuclear power. No prize for guessing who is supplying the technology.

Geoff,

This is of course the same Russian Air Force which lied, lied and lied again regarding MH-70, even to the point of stating that radar plots showed things that they manifestly did not to anyone who knew anything about radar plots…

If you fly around with transponders off and refusing to talk to anyone ("Didn't hear" my arse – the Russians listen to Guard the same as us), tragedies will eventually occur (as was pointed out when they were ing about in European civil controlled airspace last January).

Agreed … but once again, it's the Turks, a member of NATO, not helping the situation much, accept when it's to their advantage …

With allies like Turkey, who needs enemies?

It seems to be the other side that is determined to label this as a deliberate and intentional action.

Does a USAF 3-star count as "the other side"? ( link )

In his role as Norad commander for Alaska, McInerney dealt with more Russian fighter jet incursions (which he calls "bear penetrations") than anyone else in the world.

So McInerney knows how to tell innocent from hostile incursions by foreign fighter jets, standard rules of engagement of foreign fighter jets, how to read radar tracks, and the other things he would need to know to form an informed opinion about the shootdown of a foreign jet.

Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News – much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him – that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia wasn't threatening Turkey, and that Turkey's shoot down of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned", as the jet wasn't in Turkish air space long enough for anything other than a premeditated attack to have brought it down:

Ballhooks.

If the Su-24 was making its second pass through the area as has been reported, there would be ample time to line up the shot, lock the target up before it re-crossed the border and shoot at it as soon as it re-crossed.

I'm not sure Turkey has claimed it had hostile intentions against Turkey. Merely that it appears to have entered Turkish airspace without authorisation, no flight plan, possibly with no operating transponder or IFF, did not respond to radio calls and its actual intentions were unclear, having originated from a warzone and a high conflict area in which Turkey is directly engaged.

With tensions running very high after Paris, how far inside and for how long do you let it continue before taking positive action? What if it had been a Syrian aircraft with an air launched cruise missile? Then the Turkish authorities would have been criticised for failing to act.

Turkey may have been a bit quick to shoot, but Russia seems to have placed themselves squarely in the target then complained that they got shot at, and now seems determined to penalise Turkey for what may be an unfortunate incident.

Question, how would Russia likely react if other nations military aircraft were repeatedly crossing their borders? Not flying close to, but actually over the border?

Indeed.

With allies like Turkey, who needs enemies?

To paraphrase Homer Simpson [again], "Worst ally ever !!!!!!"

Does a USAF 3-star count as "the other side"?

I saw the interview with that Ret. Gen. Based on his lengthy experience, etc. … He pretty much knows how these things work … Or should …

As many know this type of thing is usually fixed with just an escort to the border. We all know Putin loves to posture, along borders, etc. … The Turks were chest beating [like King Kong] as well. As along with turning more Islamic and less secular. It seems some want to reclaim the past glory of the Ottoman Empire. Of course the same could be said about Putin and Russian's Imperial/nationalistic past.

However, the Turks placed their "Ottoman" posturing, etc., over the greater good of cleansing Daesh from the planet and help end the Syrian Civil, etc. … And we all know they have their reasons.

But hopefully allies, like in NATO don't make thing worse with their actions. Which the Turks certainly have.
Now they want to fix things with Russia after realizing how much their [failing] economy relies on trade, etc., with Russian. Nothing like thinking thru ones actions … but in this case it was after the fact rather than before … Yes ?

If the Su-24 was making its second pass through the area as has been reported, there would be ample time to line up the shot, lock the target up before it re-crossed the border and shoot at it as soon as it re-crossed.

To clarify: it was not a "re-cross", because the aircraft had not violated Turkish airspace earlier during the mission. It was making a second pass on its *bombing run*…in Syria. The Turkish radar track shows both aircraft in the section (HH036/HH037 on Turkey's radar image), which both crossed Turkish airspace together.

The Tactical Air Operations Center (or whatever the Turkish equivalent is) should not be sending a "Cleared Hot" or "Kill" radio brevity code before the aircraft crosses the border. Nor should the pilot be working through the weapons engagement process (in this case, likely to be operating an AIM-9X missile in SCAN MODE) before receiving a Cleared Hot either.

On a side note, this article ( link ) states that the Su-24M's radio can't tune in to the international Guard/emergency frequencies. If that is indeed the case, then as one of the commenters there points out, maybe the Russians shouldn't be sending aircraft on international deployments that are incapable of basic essential communication with third parties?

Also, where is the exact crash site? The Turkish and Russian accounts differ on where the aircraft hit the deck. At this point, days after the incident, that should be easy to verify. The margin of error for each would lend some credence to their respective arguments…

Turkish and Russian accounts differ

We'd all be shocked if they didn't !

Somehow I suspect this is not the first time aircraft have crossed that piece of airspace

Even Guardian with all its loathing for Russia has published an article which explains, why this accident is not exactly an accident.
link

<<That the Turks shot down the jet and did so within 17 seconds – with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself – suggests very strongly they were waiting for a Russian plane to come into or close enough to Turkish airspace with the aim of delivering a rather pyrotechnic message.>>

Therefore, don't expect Russia to just forget it. In current situation the people may expect some prices for vegetables going up…but it will hurt Turks harder, and will have message delivered.
In the end it can all be about business – Turks might become more flexible in regards to gas pricing for new pipeline and/or lots of construction contracts Turks are enjoying in Russia (ca. 60 bn USD).

The Guardian doesn't loathe Russia.

It employ Seumas Milne, who is – amongst other things, a fan of Stalin…

With that newspaper it does rather depend on who is writing.

Plenty of putinbots infesting the comments section though on occasion.

You'll be hard pressed to find anything positive on Russia there…OK, I think there was an article on Moscow subway, and there might be an occasional cultural reference, but generally all the rest is either Russia this or Russia that. Last months it even started showing in Pics of the Day with "Russian figure skater falling", "Russian heavylifter failing its attempt, etc, etc. Luke Harding is a true hater of everything Russian (not only Puitin) and he is the one who typically writes about us.
They even made a fuss about…dill in Russian cuisine ;)
CiF – yeah, but some of "Putinbots" might just write what they think. I'm not posting there and I'm not especially fond of Putin, but there're times when he is doing what needs to be done….

Speaking of The Guardian

Israel says it averts shooting Russian planes with communication

A Russian jet recently entered Israeli airspace but was not shot down thanks to an open communication system between the two countries, Israel's defence minister has said, as tensions continued to flare between Ankara and Moscow after Turkish troops shot down a Russian warplane.

Israel's defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, said the plane entered about one mile (1.5km) into Israeli airspace by mistake and immediately turned around back to Syria when the Russians were notified. For two months, Russia has been carrying out airstrikes in support of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

<That the Turks shot down the jet and did so within 17 seconds – with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself – suggests very strongly they were waiting for a Russian plane to come into or close enough to Turkish airspace with the aim of delivering a rather pyrotechnic message.>

It suggests strongly there there have been multiple incursions recently into Turkish airspace (whether by Syrian or Russian aircraft) and they were ready to defend it. The Russian message gets more and more ludicrous, shifting between it was hit by ground fire, it was shot from Turkish airspace, the Turkish key chased it deep into Syrian airspace then shot it down… Next they will be suggesting it was hit by a Turkish BUK…

I still maintain that this is most likely one of a series of multiple incursions by Russian fighters recently taking a direct route across that bit of Turkish airspace for the sake of convenience and a failure to communicate properly (by either side) resulted in a slightly rash decision to shoot one of the two aircraft this time.

Did they think it was Syrian? Quite possibly. Syrian Arab Air Force flies SU-24s and surely any other nation would be maintaining some sort of communication (or at the very least a listening watch) with a nation whose border was so close.

Ok, you really don't understand?

Russia was expecting some explanation from Turkish side. We didn't want additional confrontation at that time – I already posted here, that as with downed Airbus, Russia wanted to see how situation was developing. Turkey ran to NATO, afraid of been put to shreds. They probably knew pretty well at that time that they were not SLIGHTLY but GREATLY wrong. Only after that rhetorics of Russian officials changed, and the only explanation became – shot by AA missile from Turkish F-16.

BRD (German intelligence agency) came to conclusion, that the plane was shot in Syrian airspace, however it might be that the button was pressed when the plane was these several seconds in Turkish airspace. Guardian for half a day had a flight diagram on their site where it was shown very clearly.

So far no proof that there were multiple incursions there… 2 pass was a lie, and NATO comments were also saying "2 times warned", 10 times warned, etc. BTW, even that Turks were not invited into Syrian airspace they were regularly flying there, and stopped only when S-400 was deployed.

It is not going to be "business as usual", sorry. This time my government has my full support.

Barin – the putinbots are easy to spot. Whenever the Guardian posted an article about MH70 within minutes the discussion board would be full of people spouting exactly the same argument, with the same idiosyncratic command of the English language…

Now I have some sympathy with the Russians here – the Turks are prickly and frankly the Russians are doing more to resolve the conflict, even if right now they've concentrating on bombing the wrong people.

As you say, it's not like the Turks have been asking permission while bombing the Kurds…

Turkey is sending a message to Russia: don't mess with their allies, the Turkmen fighters in Syria.

Russia doesn't have to send a message … the Turks didn't think it thru. They depend too much on Russian economically. … As I said, Turkey's Erdogan is claiming "Mea Culpa" about the whole SU-24 shoot down. Wants to now play and talk nice to Vlad P. and his crew. Guess he realized how much his economy, which is not that stable anyway, depends on trade, etc. with Russia.

How do you say, "DOH !!!!" in Turkish !!!!

Or translated from Turkish to Russian

Well here's a bluff that surely Russia would want to call:

"President Erdogan also vowed to step down if the allegation that Turkey was buying oil from IS proved true, suggesting that President Putin should do the same if he was wrong."

Is there proof?

The trouble is Barin, is that Russia lies routinely and employs hordes of liars to similarly pollute news message boards. The story at present conforms to the usual Russian propaganda pattern of throwing out multiple stories and spurious 'a NATO source said' bollox in order to obfuscate, confuse and split opinion.

We simply don't believe anything you say.

Well, the problem is, that each of us wants to beleive certain things. Then we twist the facts to support our own beleifs. Something that doesn't fit in, or contradicts our beleifs is discarded. And it works not only for us Russians – WMD and 2d Iraq war is a nice example.

I have been posting here a Reuters link – not Lifenews:
link
so even that Su might be in Turkish space for these several seconds it was shot while in Syrian space. Both pilots were landing in Syria. Erdogan claimed that the plane parts wounded 2 people on Turkish territory, but no proof of the claim. Therefore with a very high probability Turkish version of events is not correct.

Ask several questions to yourself:

- why NATO is saying that Turkey provided the proof, but nobody have seen it
- why Alliance immediately sided with Turkey after several hours after accident, even that there were simply not enough data to verify either version of events
- why all Turkey activities with ISIS and other islamists had no consequences on any level apart of occasional newspaper article

I'm not going to tell you whom to trust. I'm not denying that Russian state media is very often providing unreliable information. What I'm saying, that you very often jump to conclusions as long as these conclusions are convenient to you. (NOTE: by "you" I mean you folks in general, not you specifically)