BALADI NEWS
Turkey shot down two Syrian warplanes on Sunday in an escalating offensive against the Damascus regime as Ankara pressured Europe over the conflict by opening its border for migrants to cross into the continent.
Following weeks of violence in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, Turkey confirmed a full military operation against Russian-backed Syrian forces after dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed last week in an air strike blamed on Damascus.
Tensions have intensified between Russia and Turkey -- who back opposing forces in Syria's civil war -- but Ankara has insisted it does not want to clash directly with Moscow.
"One anti-aircraft system that shot down one of our armed drones and two other anti-aircraft systems have been destroyed, and two SU-24 regime planes that were attacking our aircraft have been downed," Turkey's defence ministry said in a statement.
Syrian state media said Turkish forces "targeted" two of its planes over Idlib. An opposition group and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, both said the planes had been downed.
The situation in rebel-held Idlib was already volatile as the regime supported by Russian air power pressed an assault on the region in a bid to retake the last opposition enclave in a nine-year civil war.
Source: AFP.