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HomeUncategorizedUS says ISIS didn't down Jordan aircraft after Islamic State captures pilot

US says ISIS didn’t down Jordan aircraft after Islamic State captures pilot

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The US military has categorically refuted the claim made by the Islamic State, saying that it was not the ISIS that shot down the Jordanian aircraft near the Syrian city of Raqqa.

“Evidence clearly indicates that ISIL did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organization is claiming,” the US Central Command said in a statement.

The pilot of the Jordanian F-16 aircraft was taken captive by the Islamic State after the plane was shot by an anti-aircraft missile.

The ISIS claimed to have shot down the plane and also posted online images purported to be that of the pilot.

However, the US military has refuted the IS claim, suggesting that the extremist group wants to cash in on the crash to highlight its achievement.

Condemning the ISIS for having taken the pilot captive, the commander of US Central Command, General Lloyd J. Austin III, who supervises all coalition military operations in Iraq and Syria, said, “We … will not tolerate ISIL’s attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes”.

“The Jordanians are highly-respected and valued partners and their pilots and crews have performed exceptionally well over the course of this campaign,” Austin added.

Jordan is one of the anti-ISIS coalition members that has carried out air strikes against the ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition has been launching anti-jihadist airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since September and this is the first coalition warplane to have crashed.

The crash is a major brownie point that the ISIS has gained in long time and it will seek to capitalise on it to flaunt its influence which had been curbed by the air strikes.

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