Russia Deploying Anti-Aircraft Missiles in Syria after Turkey Shot Fight...

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Russia Deploying Anti-Aircraft Missiles in Syria after Turkey Shot Fighter Jet.



Tensions rise as Russia says it's deploying anti-aircraft missiles to Syria

Tensions in the Middle East ratcheted up dangerously Wednesday, a day after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, with the Turkish President accusing Russia of deceit and Russia announcing it would deploy anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.



Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said on his ministry's Twitter feed that the country would deploy S-400 defense missile systems to its Hmeymim airbase near Latakia, on Syria's Mediterranean coast.



The missiles have a range of 250 kilometers, according to the missilethreat.com website -- or 155 miles. The Turkish border is less than 30 miles away.



And Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian TV on Wednesday that Russia has "serious doubts" that Turkey's downing of its warplane Tuesday was "an unpremeditated act."



"It looks very much like a planned provocation," Lavrov said.



For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned what he said was the violation of Turkish airspace by Russian warplanes, calling the incident an infringement of his country's sovereignty.



He charged Russia with propping up the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad -- a regime he said was inflicting terrorism on its own people. His remarks came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Turkey of being "the terrorists' accomplices" for shooting down a plane he claimed was on an anti-terrorism mission.



Erdogan disputed that claim in a speech Wednesday.



"There is no Daesh," in the area where the Russian planes were flying, Erdogan said, using another name for ISIS. "Do not deceive us! We know the locations of ISIS."

An alarming wave of international turbulence

And experts agreed.



"None of the targets that ... the Russians were going after had anything to do with ISIS. Those were all those Turkmen groups," said CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.





The Turkmen minority in that part of northern Syria has strong ties to the Turkish government, which wants to afford them a degree of protection. Anyone who bombs that area attacks "our brothers and sisters -- Turkmen," Erdogan said.



Erdogan said Turkey had no intention of escalating the situation. But the fire in his words showed that the conflict in Syria has now churned up a new and alarming wave of international turbulence.



High stakes are at play in Syria, where the United States, Russia and a swarm of other global, regional and local forces are entangled in the civil war.



Turkey, a NATO member, said it had repeatedly warned the Russian warplane, shooting it down only after it ignored several warnings and violated Turkish airspace. Russia rejected that version of events, saying the Sukhoi Su-24 bomber was attacked 1 kilometer inside Syrian territory.



But Erdogan claimed parts of the downed plane had fallen inside Turkey, injuring two people.





Adding to the tensions were the fates of the two Russian pilots aboard the bomber.



Turkmen rebels operating in the area of Syria where the plane went down appeared to claim in a video that they shot both pilots to death as they parachuted toward the ground. CNN couldn't independently confirm the claim.



The Russian military said it believed one of the pilots was dead. The Russian Defense ministry said Wednesday that the second pilot had been rescued and was safe.



The military also said a Russian marine was killed when a helicopter came under attack during the search-and-rescue efforts.