FN-6

It has been a difficult month for the Syrian air force and its Russian allies. In April alone, rebel forces claimed to bring down three aircraft: two Syrian jets and one Russian helicopter. Each incident sparked a frenzy of speculation about whether the opposition had obtained anti-aircraft missiles that could bring down planes, known as Man-Portable Air […]

From the battlefield near Baiji, an Islamic State jihadist fired a heat-seeking missile and blew an Iraqi Army Mi-35M attack helicopter out of the sky this month, killing its two crew members. Days later, the Islamic State released a chilling series of images from a video purporting to capture the attack in northern Iraq: a jihadist […]

Islamic State militants stormed a Syrian airbase over the weekend, routing the remaining elements of the country’s army from northern Raqqah province and reportedly seizing a cache of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. The seizure of Tabqa air base, while not the first installation of its type to fall to militants, highlights the Islamic State’s gains in the region and the group’s continued pilfering of […]

Warnings from an international research group and the Federal Aviation Administration underscore the rising threat to commercial aircraft posed by hundreds of anti-aircraft weapons that are now in the arsenals of armed groups in Syria and could easily be diverted to extremist factions. Armed groups opposing the Assad regime in Syria have already amassed an […]