Islamic State Training Pilots With Captured Fighter Jets

Oct 18, 2014 12:28 AM EDT

(Photo : Syrian activists via Reuters) A handout picture from Syrian activists shows a MiG-21 Russian fighter plane at the King Hussein military base in Jordan, June 21, 2012. UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed the Islamic State group is training pilots to fly three captured fighter planes, including MiG-21s.

Iraqi pilots who have defected to join the Islamic State are believed to be training militants to fly three captured fighter jets, said a group monitoring the war in Syria, Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that the jihadists captured three fighter planes, believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23, when they overrun the military airports in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Raqqa earlier this year.

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The Observatory reported eyewitness accounts detailing how a fighter jet was seen this week, flying at low altitudes over Aleppo near the Al Jarrah airbase. This is the first time the Islamist group, also called ISIS, is known to have gone airborne, reported the Reuters.

The UK-based Observatory's director, Rami Abdulrahman, told BBC that Iraqi officers who served under Saddam Hussein have been training the ISIS would-be pilots.

BBC reported it is not known how many ex-Iraqi pilots are involved in the training.

Reuters also cannot independently verify the report and the Syrian government could not be reached for comments.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder told reporters Friday that the U.S. military have no intelligence report of any flight operations in the area, adding that they are keeping a close eye on military activities in Syria and Iraq.

He said the coalition will continue to mount airstrikes against the Islamist group that has been carving out a caliphate country in the region.

Speaking at a news conference on Friday, director of the U.S. Central Command General Lloyd Austin said, he has no information of any former Iraqi pilots, who joined the ranks of the Islamic State group.

The Jarrah air base has passed hands between various Islamist groups, including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, until ISIS captured the base last January, said Reuters.

Photos of captured military aircrafts have earlier been posted on ISIS-linked Twitter accounts and websites, but analysts said, they appeared nonoperational at the time.

TagsISIS, Islamic State training pilots, ISIS in Syria