Turkey Should Shut Down Jihadists on Border
Turkey's shooting down of a Syrian helicopter that violated its airspace on Sept. 16 should provoke a clampdown on all border activity.
On Monday [Sept. 16] the Turkish armed forces issued the following statement on its official website: “Unified Control Alert Center (BIKIM) in Diyarbakir identified an M-17 Syrian helicopter at 26 NM [nautical miles] to the Turkish border at 13:41 hours. ... [It] was warned that it was coming close to Turkish airspace ... [even] as close as 5 NM, but it continued to come closer and violated the Turkish airspace by 2 kilometers [flying] at 14,200 feet at 14:25 hours around the Guvecci border station in Hatay/Yayladagi.”
The statement continued, “Accordingly, it was shot by one of the two F-16 aircrafts on patrol duty at 14:27 hours in the Turkish airspace, and it fell down approximately 1 kilometer on the Syrian side.”
