The Islamic State has grabbed the world's attention by pushing through Iraq and war-torn Syria using barbaric tactics. Here's how they did it, and what's being done to stop them.
Produced by Alex Kuzoian and Lamar Salter. Narrated by Graham Flanagan.
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Brussels (AFP) - NATO allies will hold an "extraordinary" meeting Tuesday at Ankara's request to discuss Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet along the Syrian border, an alliance official said.
"At the request of Turkey, the North Atlantic Council will hold an extraordinary meeting at (1600 GMT). The aim of this extraordinary NAC is for Turkey to inform Allies about the downing of a Russian airplane," the official told AFP.
The North Atlantic Council consists of ambassadors from the 28 NATO member states.
Turkish F-16 fighter aircraft shot down the plane after it violated Turkish airspace near the country's border with Syria.
Turkey released this radar map which it claims is proof the Su-24 warplane crossed into airspace under Turkey's control.
Nato spokeswoman Carmen Romero said: “Nato is monitoring the situation closely. We are in close contact with Turkish authorities.”
The Russian Ministry of Defence released the following statement:
“Today an aircraft from the Russian air group in the Syrian Arab Republic crashed on the territory of Syria supposedly shot down from the ground.
The aircraft was flying at the altitude of 6,000 metres. The status of the Russian pilots is being defined.
According to the preliminary data, the pilots managed to eject from the warplane.
The circumstances of the crash are being defined.
During all the flight time, the aircraft was flying only within the borders of the Syrian territory. That was registered by objective monitoring data.”
A Kremlin spokesman told Reuters it was a "very serious incident" but Russia says it is too early to draw conclusions about the crash.
Last month Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his nation would not hesitate to shoot down aircraft that violated its airspace.
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
Russian President Vladimir Putin harshly rebuked Turkey for its downing of a Russian warplane Tuesday morning.
"Today's loss is linked to a stab in the back delivered to us by accomplices of terrorists,"Putin said Tuesday from the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi before a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, according to Reuters."I cannot qualify what happened today as anything else."
"We established a long time ago that large quantities of oil and oil products from territory captured by Islamic State have been arriving on Turkish territory," he continued, saying that was how the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, had been funding itself.
"And now we get stabbed in our back and our planes, which are fighting terrorism, are struck. This despite the fact that we signed an agreement with our American partners to warn each other about air-to-air incidents and Turkey ... announced it was allegedly fighting against terrorism as part of the US coalition."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to visit Turkey on Wednesday, but he canceled his trip after the downing of the plane.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has defended Turkey's decision to down the plane, saying on Tuesday that it was Turkey's "national duty" to protect the country's security. He added that Turkey had the right "to take all kinds of measures" to protect its border, the Associated Press reported.
Turkey says the plane was in Turkish airspace and had been warned repeatedly before it was shot down by Turkish F-16 jets. A US military spokesman confirmed to the BBC that Turkey had warned the Russian jet to exit Turkish airspace at least 10 times.
But the Russian leader says the plane was attacked by a Turkish surface-to-air missile while flying in Syrian airspace, roughly a mile from the Turkish border. Putin claims the plane crashed 2 1/2 miles inside Syria.
"Our pilots didn't threaten Turkey," Putin said. "This is obvious."
A Turkmen rebel brigade in Syria said it shot dead the Russian plane's two occupants, who descended with parachutes, according to Reuters. That claim had not been confirmed. The Turkmen in Syria have close ethnic and historical links to Turkey.
The Turkish military published a radar map demonstrating the reported flight path of the jet it shot down, which Ankara is using as proof that the pilots violated the country's airspace:
"We have always treated Turkey as not only a close neighbor, but also as a friendly nation," Putin said. "I don't know who has an interest in what happened today, but we certainly don't."
He added: "Today's tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider that this bellicose rhetoric coming from Russia was to be expected and would most likely continue.
"Putin will need to save face and will offer a lot of stern language, but his options are limited if he doesn't want to start a war with NATO at this moment," Zilberman said.
"I would be concerned that Russia could take a tit-for-tat approach and down a Turkish fighter jet at some at point in the future, but an incident in 2012 when Syria shot down a Turkish fighter jet shows that perhaps cooler heads will prevail, as that incident did not further escalate."
Russian warplanes have been conducting airstrikes over Syria since late September, sometimes causing tension with Turkey when its planes come too close to the Turkish border.
In early October, Turkey complained that at least one Russian warplane had violated Turkish airspace and that another Russian jet had locked its targeting radar on Turkish planes, The Wall Street Journal reported. It led US Secretary of State John Kerry to warn Russia about the threat of escalation.
And last week, Turkey summoned Russian ambassador Andrey G. Karlov and called for an immediate end to Russia's military operation close to the Turkish border. Turkey accused Russia of bombing villages in northern Syria inhabited by Syrian Turkmen.
NATO has called an "extraordinary meeting" after the incident. Turkey is part of NATO, whose member nations are bound by the treaty to defend one another from aggression.
Here is a video of the plane being shot down:
A White House spokesman declined to comment further. The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Turkey has reportedly summoned a Russian envoy to Ankara to discuss the incident.
SEE ALSO: A Russian warplane has been shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border
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Syrian fighters fired at a Russian helicopter forcing it to make an emergency landing in a nearby government-held area in Syria's Latakia province on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A Syrian insurgent group, recipient of U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile.
SEE ALSO: Putin: Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane is 'a stab in our back by associates of terrorism'
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Is the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 ‘Fencer’ bomber by a Turkish fighter – the first direct NATO vs Russia combat incident – a big deal or not? My first thoughts are that the answer is probably not, at least not in the long term, but we can expect a fair amount of overt sound and fury on the one hand, and probably some covert retribution from Moscow, too. WW3 is not, however, on the cards.
The Russians are saying it was on the Syrian side of the border, the Turks say the plane was on theirs. I have no idea at this stage which is true, although it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if the Russian jet had intruded. Putting aside the (remote) possibility of pilot error, Moscow has been willing to cross into NATO airspace in the past and may even had an operational reason for doing so, perhaps trying to set up an attack run on a rebel convoy or facility on the Turkish border.
After all, let’s not forget that Ankara is playing an active role in the Syrian civil war, and in its eagerness to hammer Kurds, wherever they may be, arguably supporting some pretty toxic elements.
Moscow may well have been assuming the Turks would be as restrained as other NATO members, which was an undoubted mistake. Putting aside any cultural stereotypes, Ankara is not only embarked in a campaign to assert itself as a regional power, it also sees Moscow as a sometimes partner-of-convenience, but also local rival.
Russian intelligence officers have assassinated Chechen fundraisers in Turkey, and generally the Kremlin has shown little signs of seeing in Ankara a serious ally, partner or player, even in the days when Putin and Erdogan were getting along. Only this Friday, Russia’s ambassador had been given a dressing down about the bombing of Turkish-backed rebels. It may well be that Ankara leapt at the opportunity to teach Russia a lesson and also show that it was a serious player.
Putin’s immediate response has been mordant and tough, accusing Turkey of stabbing Russia in the back, of in effect protecting ISIS, and running to its NATO powers as if it has been one of its own aircraft that had been shot down. We can expect some kind of retaliation on the political-economic front (maybe stopping Turkish airliners coming to Russian airports?) and maybe also some unloading of additional serious ordnance on Turkish-backed elements in Syria.
However, I suspect neither Moscow nor, at the very least, the other European NATO powers will want to let this go too far. Russia cannot fight hot diplomatic wars on too many fronts, and Europe clearly wants Moscow to be part of the solution in Syria and maybe Ukraine, too. And, frankly, there is in many capitals concern about Turkey, its agenda and its role in the region.
Much will depend on where Washington falls, of course, but if Moscow can get even a crumb of contrition from Ankara or sympathy from Europe, then we can expect this to be splashed on Russian TV and allow the Kremlin to let this slide a little.
But even in this best-case scenario, I don’t imagine that will be the end to it. Moscow has already been willing to operate inside Turkey covertly, and is engaged in political tussles over influence in the South Caucasus as well as Middle East. I would expect some uptick in ‘mischief’ – perhaps some support for the Kurds or other violent extreme movements, for example – as well as a more assiduous campaign to push back and stymie Turkish regional ambitions.
It’s often said, with good reason, that Putin really wants a return to 19th century geopolitics, when might made right and realpolitik was all. Let’s not forget that one of the defining 19th century conflicts was that between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, which were sometimes openly at war, sometimes ostensibly at peace, but never anything than enemies. Here we go again.
SEE ALSO: Putin: Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane is 'a stab in our back by associates of terrorism'
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
The Turkish military shot down a Russian jet that it says violated its airspace on Tuesday.
Turkey says the plane didn't respond to repeated warnings.
The jet was carrying two pilots, who reportedly ejected with parachutes. Turkmen rebels in Syria, who have close ethnic and historical links to Turkey, say they have shot both pilots dead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the act a "stab in the back" and disputed how the plane was shot down — Turkey says the plane was intercepted by F-16 fighter aircraft in Turkish airspace, while Russia says the plane was destroyed over Syria by a Turkish surface-to-air missile.
Here's video footage of the plane being shot down:
SEE ALSO: Putin: Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane 'a stab in the back' by 'accomplices of terrorists'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday he would not visit Turkey as planned on Nov. 25 following Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet.
Lavrov, speaking to reporters in the southern Russian city of Sochi, advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova; Writing by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Christian Lowe)
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On Tuesday morning, the Turkish military said it shot down a Russian fighter jet on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Turkey, a NATO member, says the Russian jet violated Turkish airspace. Russia has denied this.
In a news conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the act a "stab in the back delivered to us by accomplices of terrorists" and added that "today's tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
This latest development adds another complicated layer to the ongoing Syrian conflict, in which the key players have varying regional interests and priorities.
Citi Research's chief global political analyst, Tina Fordham, put together a brief cheat sheet listing the key players in the Syria conflict and some of their motivations.
Notably, this chart is missing some non-state actors, including members of the Syrian opposition who are fighting to remove President Bashar Assad. Many of those groups are given funding and weapons by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
If you need a quick refresher, take a look below:
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
The downing of a Russian fighter jet on Syria's Mount Turkmen has thrown the spotlight on to its inhabitants, part of the broader Turkmen community that stretches across northern Syria and Iraq.
In Syria the Turkmen, who are linguistically and ethnically Turkish, live alongside Arabs and Kurds but have aligned mostly with non-jihadist rebel groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad.
They historically objected to the Arab nationalism of the Assad regime's Baath party, which stressed assimilation to the Arab language and culture.
In turn, the regime has frequently regarded them as a fifth column working in favor of Ankara.
Around a dozen Turkmen militias have formed, some directly supported by the Turkish government. It is one of these, Alwiya al-Ashar, that is reportedly holding one of Russia's downed pilots.
They have been fighting alongside other rebel groups, including the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and more moderate brigades, in Latakia province, which runs to the sea along the Turkish border in the northwest.
In recent days, thousands of civilians have fled over the border, saying they feared Russian bombing raids in support of regime forces in the area. Another 5,000 arrived at a refugee camp at Arfali, on the Syrian side of the border.
According to the governor of the Turkish province of Hatay, Ercan Topaca, 28 civilians arrived injured and one died in a hospital.
The clash that led to the downing of the Russian jet today may be connected to that fighting.
Alwiya al-Ashar is linked to a Turkish and CIA-backed logistics supply program that funnels a near-constant stream of small arms, ammunition, and cash for salaries to rebel groups across northern Syria.
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
US operations in Syria and Iraq are continuing "as planned," Army Col. Steve Warren said Tuesday, hours after Turkey reportedly shot down a Russian warplane.
"This is an incident between the Russian and the Turkish governments. It is not an issue that involves the combined joint task force or Operation Inherent Resolve," Warren said at a Pentagon briefing from Baghdad, using the name for the US military operation against the Islamic State group, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
"Our combat operations against ISIL continue as planned, and we are striking in both Iraq and Syria," added Warren, a spokesman for the US-led military campaign against the group.
Warren later reaffirmed that the US was not involved in the downing of the plane.
"This is Turkey and Russia. This is their incident," he said. "Our focus is on ISIL. The US military's feeling is our mission is to fight ISIL in Syria and Iraq … That's what we're focusing on."
He clarified that forces the US had trained and partnered with in Syria were not in the area where the Russian plane was downed.
Warren also called out Russia for hitting moderate rebels in Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS in the country. Some experts have said Russia's main goal in Syria is to prop up the regime of President Bashar Assad, who has killed thousands of civilians as he struggles to maintain power amid a four-year-long civil war.
Warren said most of Russia's strikes had been of "a direct benefit to the Assad regime, and it's the Assad regime that's the problem here," adding that Assad had "brought suffering and misery to the Syrian people and has led to the growth of ISIL itself."
"We've seen the Russians already strike forces that are moderate Syrian opposition forces," he added. "We've seen them do this, and it flies directly in the face of what they said they would do."
Experts argue that Assad's atrocities help ISIS recruit. Showing the violence of the regime can help radicalize people while also convincing them that they need ISIS for protection from the regime.
In comments made after the Russian jet was destroyed, Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed his claims that Russia is fighting ISIS in Syria and said Turkey downing the jet was "linked to a stab in the back delivered to us by accomplices of terrorists."
"We established a long time ago that large quantities of oil and oil products from territory captured by Islamic State have been arriving on Turkish territory," he continued, saying that was how ISIS had been funding itself.
"And now we get stabbed in our back and our planes, which are fighting terrorism, are struck. This despite the fact that we signed an agreement with our American partners to warn each other about air-to-air incidents and Turkey ... announced it was allegedly fighting against terrorism as part of the US coalition."
SEE ALSO: Putin: Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane 'a stab in the back' by 'accomplices of terrorists'
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
The US military has released new videos showcasing the anti-ISIS coalition's latest airstrikes against ISIS oil trucks.
The airstrikes, which were conducted on over the weekend in eastern Syria, destroyed 283 oil trucks belonging to the militant organization. According to the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) responsible for anti-ISIS operations, the strikes are part of the broader Operation Tidal Wave II.
The operation is aimed to completely shutter ISIS's production of oil in eastern Syria and its subsequent sale on the black market.
The CJTF notes that ISIS receives 2/3 of its revenue from oil production. And, according to The New York Times, ISIS is estimated to be able to earn $40 million a month through the production and sale of oil on the black market.
The strikes on ISIS trucks come amid an intensification of operations against the militant group.
On Sunday, US-led coalition forces struck five ISIS positions in Syria and 11 positions in Iraq. The targets included a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device facility — one of ISIS' most damaging weapons— as well as earthen bridges the group constructed and various ISIS tactical units and fighting positions.
You can watch video of the latest air strikes below:
SEE ALSO: Putin: Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane 'a stab in the back' by 'accomplices of terrorists'
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US President Barack Obama suggested that some blame lies with Russia after one of its military jets was shot down after it supposedly violated Turkish airspace on Tuesday.
During a press conference with French President Francois Hollande, Obama said that "if Russia is directing its energies toward Daesh and ISIL," aka ISIS, "some of those conflicts or potentials for mistakes or escalation are less likely to occur."
Obama emphasized the need to avoid these escalations.
"Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace," Obama said. "I think it's very important right now for us to make sure that both the Russians and the Turks are talking to each other to find out exactly what happened and take measures to discourage any kind of escalation."
After the jet was shot down, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the "tragic event" would "have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
The Turkish military said on Tuesday that it downed a Russian jet that violated Turkey's airspace and that the aircraft did not respond to repeated warnings. Russia has been bombing targets in Syria, which shares a border with Turkey, under the guise of fighting ISIS. Experts say, however, that Russia has been hitting moderate Syrian rebels more often than actual ISIS targets.
"I do think that this points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to a Turkish border and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries," Obama said at the press conference.
He continued later: "If their priority is attacking the moderate opposition that might be future members of an inclusive Syrian government, Russia is not going to get the support of us or a range of other members of the coalition."
Both Obama and Hollande also noted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wouldn't have a role to play in the future of Syria. This runs counter to Russia's interests, as the country has been propping up the Assad regime. Russia is one of Syria's biggest allies, and Putin has vowed to stand by Assad.
Syria has been ripped apart by a civil war that started in 2011 and continues to drag. Jihadist groups, including ISIS, are fighting for control in some areas of the country, and moderate rebels who oppose Assad are fighting jihadists and the regime.
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NOW WATCH: Here's footage of a Russian warplane crashing after Turkey shot it down
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday the United States and France have agreed to step up strikes in Syria and Iraq to target Islamic State militants after the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.
Hollande, appearing at a White House news conference with President Barack Obama, said the two leaders agreed on the importance of closing the Turkish border to limit the movement of extremists into Europe.
Obama emphasized the long friendship between France and the United States and pledged to step up efforts to combat terrorism alongside its European partners.
"As Americans, we stand by our friends in good times and in bad, no matter what," Obama said.
Hollande is trying to rally support this week for a more coordinated international campaign to destroy Islamic State. He is due to visit Moscow on Thursday.
"We are here today to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists and those who sent them and to defend our nations," Obama said.
Obama called Islamic State a "barbaric terrorist group," adding that "its murderous ideology poses a serious threat to all of us. It cannot be tolerated. It must be destroyed. And we must do it together."
Hollande said the United States and France agreed to step up strikes in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State. But Hollande said France will not put troops on the ground in Syria to fight Islamic State.
"France will not intervene militarily on the ground," Hollande said.
Hollande's meeting with Obama follows the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people at the national sports stadium, a concert venue and bars and restaurants in heart of the French capital. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Obama said he and Hollande agreed that more needed to be done to combat Islamic State's efforts.
"U.S. assistance has supported recent French strikes in Syria and we're going to keep stepping up that coordination," he said. "We will continue to do everything in our power to defend our nation."
"We will win and groups like ISIL will lose," Obama said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
"It's been noted that the terrorists did not direct their attacks against the French government or military. Rather, they focused their violence on the very spirit of France and, by extension, on all liberal democracies," Obama said.
"Viva la France," Obama added.
On the Syrian crisis, Obama also said that Russian strikes against moderate opposition there only serve to bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Hollande would not provide a date for Assad's transition from power but said it must be "as soon as possible."
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The term DAESH is slowly beginning to replace ISIS, ISIL, or IS in diplomatic discourse around the world. The militant group strongly abhors this term, as it undermines their legitimacy.
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On 16 November, three days after the Paris Attacks, the Bellingcat Investigation Team identified the Facebook profile of one of the assailants, Bilal Hadfi. Here is how we did it.
In the evening of 13 November, six simultaneous terrorist attacks happened in France’s capital city of Paris. One of these happened in the vicinity of the Stade de France during a friendly France-Germany football game. Three suicide bombers detonated themselves outside of the Stadium: one of them is yet to be identified, the second one has been associated with a forged Syrian passport, and the third attacker is Bilal Hadfi.
Bilal Hadfi was a 20-year-old French citizen residing in Belgium. Mr. Hadfi is not reported to have travelled to Syria before early this year (according to his mother, his departure to Syria happened on 15 February 2015). Hadfi detonated his vest at 9:53 p.m. on Rue de la Cokerie, just outside of a McDonald’s restaurant about 300 meters from the Stade de France. The explosion did not cause other casualties than Hadfi himself.
Three days later, the Bellingcat Investigation Team uncovered the Facebook profile of Bilal Hadfi.
In the wake of the unprecedented attack and amidst diverse and oft-contradictory reports about the attackers, the Bellingcat Investigation Team started looking for existing social media accounts belonging to the assailants.
A Facebook search for the name ‘Bilal Hadfi’ listed five accounts with this name. The first such one had a clearly labelled URL: ‘facebook.com/bilal.hadfi.1’. Each of the five Facebook profiles was carefully examined and archived for pictures, bios and statuses.
One of the ‘bilal.hadfi.1’ connections came out to be ‘Billy du Hood’. His Facebook account looked intriguing: a young male was proudly posting images of an AKM and of other handguns. ‘Billy du Hood’ thus posted a picture of weapons exhibited on what looks like a table, timestamped 9 December 2013. The origin of this image is unclear, it had already appeared in press in 2010 and September 2013.
‘Billy du Hood’ profile pictures were publicly visible before the Facebook account was shut down; amongst them, we saw this one of an AKM automatic rifle in what appears as an unidentified indoors location:
This image is timestamped 1 July 2015. Contrary to the aforementioned press image, this one appears grainy as shot with a mobile phone. Thus, ‘Billy du Hood’ profile shows a growing number of features indicating he is no ordinary youth, along with similarities with what is known about Bilal Hadfi’s area of residence.
At first, we were not sure whether ‘bilal.hadfi.1’ and ‘Billy du Hood’ are friends or are the same person. There were no publicly visible images for the profile ‘bilal.hadfi.1’. Thus, the only image we had from him is the one published by Belgian media on 16 November:
In an image posted by ‘Billy du Hood’, he captions “With the family” (timestamp: 9 June 2014, original caption “Avec la famille”):
There is clearly a striking resemblance between ‘bilal.hadfi.1’ and ‘Billy du Hood’, so the question was: is really ‘Billy du Hood’ a friend of ‘bilal.hadfi.1’ who is visible together with him on the photograph?
To assess whether ‘bilal.hadfi.1’ and ‘Billy du Hood’ are the same person, we compared the publicly visible pictures of the two young men:
The faces of the man on the far left (picture from ‘Billy du Hood’ profile images) and the youth on the right image (Bilal Hadfi as identified by media) were strikingly resemblant.
Another interesting coincidence is the shirts: both men seem to wear a very similar, striped t-shirt.
The quality of the image from ‘Billy du Hood’ Facebook page (on the left) is quite low, yet we proceeded to comparing the shirts:
On Bilal Hadfi’s picture published by other media, the t-shirt has three thick dark blue stripes separated by two thinner white stripes.
‘Billy du Hood’ appears to be wearing a t-shirt with an identical pattern. As the image quality is low, we preferred, however, to be cautious about this detail and chose not highlight it as identifying.
Another distinctive sign which is shared by the two individuals is what looks like a birthmark between the two eyebrows, at the top of the nose:
The dark mark clearly looks like a skin-brown mark, a colour distinct from the black of his facial hair. Thus, the dark mark on top of the nose of these two individuals indicates the same distinctive sign (and not a single thick eyebrow).
Taken together, these elements strongly suggest that ‘Billy du Hood’ and Bilal Hadfi are the same person. Prior to publishing the identification on the Bellingcat Facebook page, the team informed the French police about all the details of the investigation.
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Russian warplanes have been conducting airstrikes over Syria since late September, sometimes causing tension with Turkey when its planes come too close to the Turkish border.
These tensions finally came to a head on Tuesday, when a Russian warplane allegedly violated Turkish airspace and was shot down by Turkish F-16s.
It was an escalation of the conflict that was "not entirely unexpected," said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Washington, DC-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Nevertheless, it complicates an already-muddled situation in Syria, adding layers of unpredictability to the scene.
"Syria is a very crowded military theater. Putin knew that he was making it more crowded — and complicated — when he entered Russia," Schanzer told Business Insider by email.
Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, echoed this sentiment in an email: "It was only a matter of time this sort of incident occurred."
The incident — in which Turkey said a Russian warplane violated Turkish airspace for roughly 17 seconds — comes four days after Turkey accused Russia of bombing villages in northern Syria inhabited by Syrian Turkmen and called for an immediate end to Russia's military operation close to the border.
And in a separate affair last month, Turkey complained that at least one Russian warplane had violated Turkish airspace and that another Russian jet had locked its targeting radar on Turkish planes, The Wall Street Journal reported. It led US Secretary of State John Kerry to warn Russia about the threat of escalation.
In a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama said that the incident "points to an ongoing problem with Russian operations" in and around Syria.
Multiple countries are striking targets around Syria right now — including the US, Turkey, France, and Russia. A US-led coalition striking ISIS-held targets near central and eastern Syria was launched in September 2014. France, Turkey, and Russia entered the fray later for different reasons.
A massive terror attack in Paris carried out by militants associated with the Islamic State earlier this month prompted France to ramp up its campaign against the group in Syria and enlist the US's help in identifying ISIS targets on the ground in Syria. Russia, meanwhile, has stepped up its airstrikes against ISIS targets in the jihadists' de-facto capital of Raqqa at France's request.
Russia had, since September, been primarily targeting rebels in Syria unaffiliated with ISIS and supported by Turkey and other countries, including the US.
Still, experts are divided on how far Russia will go to retaliate.
"I would be concerned that Russia could take a tit for tat approach and down a Turkish fighter jet at some at point in the future, but an incident in 2012 when Syria shot down a Turkish fighter jet shows that perhaps cooler heads will prevail, as that incident did not further escalate," Zilberman told Business Insider.
Geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, noted that the "huge egos" of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin "doesn't help" matters. But he argued that Russia would benefit more from a measured response.
"Putin's initial reaction — calling the incident 'a stab in the back by the terrorists' accomplices' — is about as bellicose as could be imagined. But Putin is no stranger to harsh rhetoric, and he has broader interests to play for," Bremmer said.
Not least of those interests is to keep exporting gas to Turkey, which remains Russia's second-largest buyer. Russia also accounted for approximately 12% of all tourists to Turkey last year.
"There's a very significant economic relationship between the two sides — tourism, trade, and most importantly energy — that neither Putin nor Erdogan want to interfere with," Bremmer said.
Moreover, Putin has important geopolitical considerations to keep in mind.
"Putin doesn't want to create more antagonism with NATO just as he's making progress with the Europeans — France in particular — in turning back the US-led Western 'isolation' of the Russians," Bremmer added.
France, the US, and Russia were in talks to further coordinate their activities on the ground in Syria to form a joint anti-ISIS coalition. But Tuesday's events might complicate the US's and France's efforts to get Russia to cooperate further in the anti-ISIS fight.
As Schanzer said, "The fact that it was a Russian plane obviously complicates recent efforts to pull Moscow into the global anti-ISIS coalition."
Notably, there are some subtle ways Russia could get back at the Turks — the Russian Defense Ministry has already announced that it will suspend military contact with Turkey. But it is unlikely Russia would risk a significant military escalation with NATO by doing anything more aggressive.
"Putin's immediate response has been mordant and tough, accusing Turkey of stabbing Russia in the back, of in effect protecting ISIS, and running to its NATO powers as if it has been one of its own aircraft that had been shot down," Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security affairs and professor of global affairs at New York University, wrote on Tuesday.
"We can expect some kind of retaliation on the political-economic front (maybe stopping Turkish airliners coming to Russian airports?) and maybe also some unloading of additional serious ordinance on Turkish-backed elements in Syria," Galeotti wrote on his blog, In Moscow's Shadows.
"However," he added, "I suspect neither Moscow nor, at the very least, the other European NATO powers will want to let this go too far."
Zilberman largely agreed.
"Beyond a tit for tat approach, Putin could use Turkey's dependency on Russian gas to his advantage but there are economic ramifications for Russia in that sort of response as well," Zilberman said. "Additionally, Russia could go all in on arming the Kurds as well as a response."
Still, Schanzer said, it is still too soon to say with certainty how Russia — long a fairly unpredictable actor — will respond in the coming days and weeks.
"We must now await Russia's reaction," Schanzer said. "If Russia considers this a hostile act rather than an error, we could see a crisis that invokes the charter of NATO, given Turkey's status in the multilateral organization."
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A Russian soldier was killed on Tuesday during a failed operation to rescue two pilots whose jet was shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border, Moscow announced.
"A search and rescue operation to evacuate the Russian pilots from the crash site was launched with the help of two Mi-8 helicopters," military spokesman General Sergei Rudskoi said in televised comments.
"During the operation, one of the helicopters was damaged by gunfire and had to land. A soldier was killed."
One of two pilots aboard a Russian war plane shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was killed by fire from the ground after he parachuted from the craft, the Russian military said, citing what it said was preliminary information.
"The plane fell in Syrian territory, four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the border. The crew ejected. According to preliminary information, one of the pilots died after being fired upon from the ground," military spokesman General Sergei Rudskoi said in televised remarks.
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Turkey and Russia have released competing maps showing where a Russian warplane violated — or steered clear of, depending on the point of view — Turkish airspace before it was shot down early Tuesday.
Shortly after the jet was downed, the Turkish military published a radar map demonstrating the reported flight path of the jet it shot down, which Ankara is using as proof that the pilots violated the country's airspace:
The blue line is the Turkish border, and the red arrow is pointing to the spot at which the warplane reportedly entered Turkish airspace.
Turkey says it warned the pilots at least 10 times to turn around as the plane was approaching Turkish airspace, but the pilots ignored the warning and crossed the border anyway. The plane was in Turkish airspace for roughly 17 seconds before it was shot down, according to a statement provided by the Turkish ambassador to the UN.
Russia denies that its warplane ever violated Turkish airspace. In a statement from Sochi today, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the plane was attacked by a Turkish missile while flying in Syrian airspace, roughly a mile from the Turkish border. Putin claims the plane crashed 2 1/2 miles inside Syria.
Russia has since countered the Turkish radar picture with a flight map that appears to show no airspace violation:
Putin harshly rebuked Turkey for downing the plane on Tuesday, calling the act "a stab in our back" by "accomplices of the terrorists."
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu defended Turkey's decision to down the plane, saying on Tuesday that it was Turkey's "national duty" to protect the country's security.
Russian warplanes have been conducting airstrikes over Syria since late September, sometimes causing tension with Turkey when its planes come too close to the Turkish border.
Last week, Turkey summoned Russian ambassador Andrey G. Karlovand called for an immediate end to Russia's military operation close to the Turkish border. Turkey accused Russia of bombing villages in northern Syria inhabited by Syrian Turkmen.
The incident is sure to further complicatean already-muddled situation in Syria, adding layers of unpredictability to the scene.
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Retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, the man who oversaw the (temporary) restoration of order in Iraq following the Sunni awakening and the subsequent surge of American troops there, doesn’t see much hope for a similar process in Syria.
In an interview with PBS host Charlie Rose, Petraeus warned against putting American troops on the ground in the war-torn country, saying the country “may be a Humpty Dumpty that can't be put back together again … One doesn't know what the various outcomes could be.”
Petraeus, who was forced to resign as CIA director after acknowledging that he supplied classified materials to his biographer, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, is still remembered by many as the most successful U.S. general in recent generations, even as the two wars for which he is best known, in Iraq and Afghanistan, resulted in states that can’t successfully govern themselves.
Petraeus said that introducing a large U.S. ground force to establish order in Syria is not “sustainable” and that any force on the ground there supported by the U.S. would have to be made up of moderate Sunni fighters – and there currently aren’t enough of those to present an effective opponent to counter the terror group ISIS or the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are backed by the Russian military.
“There are some there. We have been enabling them, supporting them and assisting them for some time,” he said of the moderate Sunnis. “Clearly, if we really get behind them and vow to protect them again from Bashar's air force and so on, I think you would see a lot more.”
In his comments, Petraeus seemed to be describing a no-fly zone in at least part of the country, which would allow Sunni fighters the freedom to organize without being attacked. This would appear to put him in line with a number of presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, who has called for establishing such a zone.
However, Petraeus was plainly not supportive of the suggestion by other candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who have called for more U.S. troops on the ground.
Asked about introducing U.S. troops, he said, "I would not at this point. Again, you need to have a hold force that has legitimacy in the eyes of people that has to be Sunni Arab forces.”
“Again, you can envision — you should have some contingencies if there's some real urgency beyond what we even have now, which is quite a great deal, have some contingencies for taking action, but I would not, I wouldn't take that at this point," he said.
However, he said, "I would make sure that there is a headquarters established, a joint task force, say, up in … Turkey, that is unifying all of the efforts in Syria under a combined joint task force commander.”
Petraeus’s interview with Rose was conducted prior to the news that Turkish fighter planes had shot down a Russian fighter jet on the Turkey-Syria border, an event that, most agree, is likely to greatly complicate the situation in the region.
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In a press call on Wednesday morning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday seemed like a "planned provocation."
"We have serious doubts it was an accident, and prepared footage of the jet downing suggest the opposite," Lavrov said. "It all looks like a planned provocation."
"We're not going to wage a war against Turkey ... But we will seriously reconsider our agreements with the Turkish government," he added, according to a translation provided by the state-owned Russian news agency Sputnik International and corroborated by the Associated Press.
"Our attitude to the Turkish people hasn't changed," Lavrov continued. "We only have questions about the Turkish leadership."
Lavrov was due to visit Turkey on Wednesday, but he canceled his trip after the incident. Still, he noted that Moscow was "not avoiding contacts with Ankara — my phone conversation with the Turkish foreign minister is a proof" of that.
Lavrov spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday, according to Reuters. But there are conflicting reports over whether Lavrov had agreed to meet with his Turkish counterpart.
Turkey defended its decision to down the plane on Tuesday, contending that the plane was in Turkish airspace and had been warned repeatedly before it was shot down by Turkish F-16 jets. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane was destroyed by a Turkish missile while flying in Syrian airspace, roughly a mile from the Turkish border.
"Our pilots didn't threaten Turkey," Putin said from the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi before a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah."This is obvious."
"We established a long time ago that large quantities of oil and oil products from territory captured by Islamic State have been arriving on Turkish territory," Putin continued. "And now we get stabbed in our back and our planes, which are fighting terrorism, are struck."
He added: "Today's tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider the bellicose rhetoric coming from Russia was to be expected and would most likely continue — but is unlikely to be followed up by any overt, aggressive retaliation.
"Putin will need to save face and will offer a lot of stern language, but his options are limited if he doesn't want to start a war with NATO at this moment," Zilberman said on Tuesday.
But Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security affairs and professor of global affairs at New York University, wrote on his blog on Tuesday that "some kind of retaliation" could be expected.
"We can expect some kind of retaliation on the political-economic front (maybe stopping Turkish airliners coming to Russian airports?) and maybe also some unloading of additional serious ordnance on Turkish-backed elements in Syria."
Galeotti's latter prediction may be panning out already: On Wednesday morning, Russia began bombarding rebels — including Turkmen insurgents, who have ethnic ties to Turkey — in Syria's Latakia province, ignoring demands made by Turkey over the past week to end its military operations close to the Turkish border.
Russia also announced Wednesday that it would deploy state-of-the-art S-400 missile systems to the Russian Hemeimeem air base in Latakia — 30 miles south of the Turkish border, AP reported.
The moves are sure to exacerbate tensions with Turkey and further complicate the muddled military situation in Syria.
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