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Syrian Insurgents Claim to Down Another Warplane Threat to Syrian Civilians Is Growing, Officials Say
(about 7 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian opposition activists said that rebel fighters shot down a government warplane on Thursday in the northern province of Idlib, the latest in a series of insurgent attacks targeting the Syrian military’s airpower. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Human rights workers and diplomats said Thursday that Syria’s military was increasingly relying on indiscriminate air power to crush the insurgency, as top United Nations officials attending a special Security Council session reported alarming new data on the severity of the crisis, including a doubling in the number of civilians who need emergency aid.
On Wednesday, fighters in Idlib said they had attacked a military airport and destroyed at least 5 government helicopters, and on Monday, opposition fighters said they had downed an attack helicopter over the Damascus suburbs. The government disputed the details of both episodes, saying that it had repulsed the assault on the airport and that the helicopter had malfunctioned. “The cohesion of Syria’s diverse society is in danger,” Jan Eliasson, the deputy secretary general, told the Council members in a meeting convened by France, which holds the rotating presidency. Mr. Eliasson also said the emergency United Nations relief operations marshaled for Syria were already under financial strain, and “as the conflict intensifies, the number of people in need clearly exceeds our capacity to assist.”
Earlier this month, rebels in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour said they had shot down a Russian-made MIG of the Syrian Air Force and had captured the pilot. He recited a litany of updated statistics on the conflict, noting that the number of refugees in neighboring countries now exceeded 220,000, fewer than half of Syria’s hospitals are functional and food prices have tripled in some areas. Moreover, Mr. Eliasson said that more than 2.5 million people were now in “great need of assistance and protection inside Syria” — roughly double the number reported by the United Nations in March.
In a broad, government offensive in recent weeks, the Syrian military has become increasingly reliant on airpower as it tries to dislodge rebel fighters from positions in Aleppo, the Damascus suburbs and Idlib province. The airstrikes, carried out with little precision, have struck buildings and markets, killing scores of civilians, according to witnesses. The foreign minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country has absorbed more than 80,000 of the Syrian refugees in an exodus that has grown drastically just in the past few weeks, exhorted the Security Council to establish safety zones inside Syria to help mitigate the crisis, which he and others said was threatening to destabilize the region.
The strike claimed by insurgents on the warplane on Thursday could not be independently verified. Video purportedly of the aftermath showed what appeared to be the pilot parachuting to the ground. In another clip, men stand over what appears to be a man’s corpse clothed in a military uniform, with blood trailing from his head and a parachute strapped to his back. A second parachute on the ground could be seen in the distance. “Now the regime is deploying fighter jets against the people,” Mr. Davutoglu said. “How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and deliberate mass targeting?”
The reported downing of the plane came a day after Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, sought to rally public support for the counterinsurgency, which has strained his military, subjected his government to defections and assassinations and delivered deadly violence to every corner of the country. Safety zones inside Syria, which would require an armed intervention, were unlikely to be approved by the Security Council, which has repeatedly deadlocked over how to achieve a political solution to the 18-month-old conflict. There has been little appetite for a direct military intervention, and Russia and China, which are veto-wielding members and allies of the Syrian government, have objected to any resolution that they regard as an infringement on Syria’s sovereignty. In an interview on Wednesday, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria also dismissed the talk of safety zones as unrealistic.
Appearing confident and relaxed during a televised interview inside what he said was the presidential palace in Damascus, Mr. Assad said Syria was facing a “regional and international war” that would “take time to resolve.” But the foreign ministers of France and Britain, who attended the emergency Security Council session, told reporters they were not ruling out Turkey’s suggestion.
His statement was a rare, belated acknowledgment that as the conflict entered its 18th month there was no sign that either the government or any of its disparate groups of opponents was strong enough to prevail. But the interview, carried on a private television channel owned by Mr. Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, also appeared intended to convey a sense that the government’s survival was inevitable. Mr. Assad said the country was moving forward and the situation getting “better.” All three are members of NATO, which established safety zones for civilians in Kosovo during the Serbia conflict in the 1990s.
“When we get this done,” he said, “Syria will return to the Syria before the crisis.” “We are excluding no options for the future,” said William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary. “We do not know how this crisis will develop over coming months. It is steadily getting worse.”
Mr. Hague also said “anything like a safe zone requires military intervention and that of course is something that has to be weighed very carefully.”
In Syria on Thursday, rebel fighters claimed to have shot down a government warplane flying over the northern Idlib Province, the third report of an insurgent assault on Mr. Assad’s air force this week. The intensifying effort by antigovernment fighters to target the Syrian military’s airpower reflected the increasing use of warplanes and helicopters by the government.
On Wednesday, fighters in Idlib said they had attacked a military airport and destroyed 5 to 10 government helicopters parked there, and on Monday, opposition fighters said they had downed an attack helicopter that was flying over the Damascus suburbs.
This month, rebels in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour said they had shot down a Russian-made MIG of the Syrian Air Force and had captured the pilot.
The government disputed the details of all those attacks, saying that it had repelled the assault on the airport and that helicopters and airplanes in its aging fleet had suffered mechanical failures.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch charged that some of the military’s strikes seemed intended to harm civilians; the group detailed what it said was a government policy of attacking bread lines in Aleppo.
Saying at the very least the attacks were “recklessly indiscriminate,” the group reported the bombing or shelling on or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo over the last three weeks.
On Aug. 20, the group said, a jet dropped a bomb near the Kanjou bakery, killing 12 people, including 6 people who had run away from the bakery when they heard the roar of the jet.
On its way down, the bomb hit the home of the Hidani family, killing four members.
In another attack, on a bakery in the Bab al-Hadid neighborhood on Aug. 21, at least 23 people were killed by two bombs dropped from a helicopter, the group said.
A 44-year-old volunteer at the bakery interviewed by the group said that when he heard the helicopter, he told people in line that there was no bread left, hoping they would leave.
He told Human Rights Watch that the bombing decapitated a 16-year-old boy named Rafat Halak.
The strike claimed by insurgents on the warplane on Thursday could not be independently verified. Several videos said to show the aftermath included images of what appeared to be the pilot parachuting to the ground, and the wreckage of a wing.
In one clip, men stand over what appears to be a man’s body clothed in a military uniform, with blood trailing from his head, possibly from a gunshot, and a parachute strapped to his back.
A second parachute on the ground could be seen in the distance. The plane crashed near the Abu Zuhour air base, which was also attacked by insurgent fighters on Thursday, according to a local rebel commander.

Kareem Fahim reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.