Beirut: Daesh on Wednesday shot down a warplane from the US-led coalition over northern Syria, a monitoring group said, with the Islamist militants claiming to have captured a Jordanian pilot.
“We have confirmed reports that Daesh members took a (non-Syrian) Arab pilot prisoner after shooting his plane down with an anti-aircraft missile near Raqa city,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Daesh branch in Raqa published photographs on militant websites purporting to show its fighters holding the captured pilot, with a caption identifying him as Jordanian and giving his name.
Several photographs were released, including one showing the pilot, wearing only a white shirt, being carried from a body of water by four men.
Another showed him on land, surrounded by about a dozen armed men.
The militants claimed to have shot down the warplane with a heat-seeking missile.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, had no further immediate information.
There was no immediate reaction from authorities in Jordan.
Jordan is among a number of countries that have joined the US-led alliance carrying out air strikes against Daesh after the militants seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain are taking part in the air strikes in Syria alongside the United States.
Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France and The Netherlands have joined the raids in Iraq.
The Islmaist extremist Daesh has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control, including mass executions of captured soldiers and public beheadings of hostages including Western journalists and aid workers.
Coalition warplanes have carried out regular strikes around Raqa, which Daesh has used as the headquarters for its self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
