Syrian villagers cheer downed airliner

Villagers with northern Syria picked components of a downed fighter airliner from an olive grove Wed after rebel fighters claimed to have shot down three government aircraft in a day.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's govt has relied more on air capacity to battle the 21-month-old revolt next to it, and witnesses said some sort of cheer went up in the event the jet went down close to Aleppo.

"We want to adopt this... to show them inside other villages, " a male who identified himself as Abu Dargham told CNN as he showed off a pair of twisted chunks of steel. "Let them see just what happened to these planes. "

The downed plane's butt was largely intact, but the fuselage is at pieces and the type of aircraft was not immediately identifiable. Locals picked the item apart, with some stuffing parts into in bags being a tractor hauled away what were an engine. Cheering children were piled around the tractor as it owned away.

Witnesses said two fliers ejected in the plane before the crash. One was found unconscious and taken up a makeshift clinic, while villagers said we were looking at still searching for another late Wednesday.


Rebels posted two videos online to support their claims. One shows rebels carrying an unconscious man wearing what seems like a military pilot homogeneous, while another includes video footage of medics bandaging some sort of bloodied and moaning start.

"Here is the pilot who was simply shelling houses of civilians! " someone says off-camera. "The characters of Darret Ezza picture down his plane! "

In addition to the particular jet brought down Wed, the rebels say they've shot down two helicopters due to the fact Tuesday night. Rebel online video showed one helicopter overflowing in midair, but CNN could hardly independently confirm the authenticity of the footage.

The claims of good results follow the capture of the key Syrian air force installation last week. Rebel fighters who overran the bottom reported finding more than 300 Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles, along with heavy machine guns, rockets and in some cases tanks.

About half the particular shoulder-fired missiles were inoperable, but the rebels shortly posted video instructing viewers the way to handle the ones that worked well. Syrian commanders often retained the trigger components separately to prevent the weapons from being utilized if they were taken.

The installation housed troops in the Syrian army's 46th Routine. Rebel forces surrounded the bottom for two months, harassing the troops interior with sniper fire and waiting to help them to weaken, Hussein al-Shule said.

"The government will try and airdrop supplies from helicopter. They wouldn't dare land, " al-Shule said. "Most times they could miss, and we would take the meals. It was inedible. "