PHOTO: Syrian men with the wreckage of the regime warplane shot down in Aleppo Province


In a notable change of tactics in Syria’s five-year conflict, rebels have downed a regime warplane with an anti-air missile.

Both opposition sources and the Syrian military said that a Su-22 jet fighter was struck on Tuesday by a portable MANPADS missile.

The warplane was attacking al-Eis, a town on the southern front captured by rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra last Friday. It crashed near the village of Al-Bawabiya, about 35 km (22 miles) southwest of Aleppo.

See Syria Daily, April 5: Rebels Down Regime Warplane in Aleppo Province

The pilot ejected and parachuted to the ground. He was captured by Nusra, who released a photo of him wounded but alive.

The rebel faction Ahrar al-Sham said it carried out the strike. The group did not confirm whether a MANPADS was used.

However, sources noted that it would be almost impossible to strike a moving jet with an anti-tank guided missile, which rebels have used in ground operations. Only one Syrian warplane has been downed by an ATGM, in what a source said was a “fluke shot”.

Tuesday’s attack now appears to be the second successful use of a MANPADS system. In mid-March, an Su-21 jet crashed in Hama Province after it was hit by the Jaish al-Islam faction.

The US has insisted since 2012 that rebels not be armed with anti-aircraft weapons.

It is unconfirmed whether the two attacks used MANPADS captured from the Syrian military or supplied from outside Syria.

Analyst Charles Lister claimed on Tuesday that rebels received a dozen MANPADS from an outside supplier in late 2015. He did not give a source for the assertion.

However, the “select political purposes” appear to be deterrence of Russian and regime warplanes from aerial attacks, as well as a military response countering the narrative that rebels are ineffective against Moscow’s intervention supporting regime-Iranian-Hezbollah ground offensives in northwest Syria.

President Vladimir Putin announced a withdrawal of “most” Russian forces on March 14, two weeks after a cessation of hostilities went into effect. Some of Russia’s advanced warplanes have been withdrawn since then, and the only attacks in Aleppo Province have been by the Syrian Air Force.