Seeking “revenge,” Russian forces stormed a Syrian town on the border with Turkey hunting for the attacker who claimed he shot and killed the pilot of a downed Russian jet, state media reported Monday.
A Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down the Russian aircraft near the Turkish border north of Latakia, Syria on Nov. 24, a senior U.S. official tells Fox News. Soon afterwards, Turkish citizen Alparslan Çelik said in a video that he killed the pilot on the ground because Russia had been dropping bombs minutes before the jet was downed.
“There is no place for a person who has bombed civilian Turkmens every day,” Çelik said, according to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News. He reportedly added, “Reprisal is the most natural right.”
Russia claims special forces rescued the other man on the jet, a navigator.
State media report the gunman is in the town of Rabia, in Latakia province, which Syrian government forces recently recaptured from rebel fighters.
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