Coming
soon: the Islamic State Air Force. The Iraqi pilots are motivated to do
this by an ideological affinity with the Islamic State.
“Former Iraqi
pilots train Islamic State fighters to fly MiG jets,” Associated Press, October 17, 2014:
BEIRUT — The Islamic State group is test flying, with the
help of former Iraqi air force pilots, several fighter jets captured
earlier from air bases belonging to the Syrian military, a Syrian
activist group said Friday.
The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain
could not be independently confirmed, and U.S. official said they had no
reports of Islamic State militants flying jets in support of their
forces on the ground.
The new development came as the Islamic State group in Iraq pressed
its offensive on the strategic city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad.: Their
advance on the Syrian city of Kobani, however, has stalled as the
militants have been forced to retreat on several fronts, shifting the
monthlong battle increasingly in favor of the Kurdish fighters defending
the city, according to commanders and Kurdish and U.S. officials.
Dozens of air strikes this week by the U.S.-led military coalition
killed hundreds of Islamic State fighters, allowing Kurdish units to
regain territory, said Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of the U.S. Central
Command on Friday.
The Observatory said the planes, seen flying over the Jarrah air base
in the countryside of Aleppo province in eastern Syria this week, are
believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets. Rami Abdurrahman, director of the
Observatory, said the planes have been flying at a low altitude,
“apparently to avoid being detected by Syrian military radar in the
area.”
He described the flights as a “moral victory” for the Islamic State
group, saying “the jets could not fly much further without being knocked
down by the (international) coalition.”…
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