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IPFS News Link • Syria

Jordanian air force pilot captured by Isis militants after plane came down over Syria

• http://www.theguardian.com, Ian Black

Fighters of the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria have scored a major propaganda coup by capturing a Jordanian air force pilot whose plane came down on Wednesday during an air raid by the international coalition near the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto jihadi capital.

Images posted on social media showed jubilant Isis gunmen, some of them masked, with a clearly frightened man, naked from the waist down and being dragged out of a lake. He was identified as the downed pilot and named on Twitter, which displayed his military ID card, as First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh, 26. The Jordanian military immediately described him as a "hostage".

The F-16 was the first warplane lost since the US-led coalition began air strikes against Isis in Syria three months ago. The group said it had shot down the fighter jet with a heat-seeking missile. It was not immediately clear whether it had indeed been shot down or suffered a technical failure. Another image on social media showing the plane's intact cockpit canopy suggested that the pilot might have ejected.


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