Syrian rebels claim downing regime warplane

A Syrian opposition group said it shot down a regime warplane on Tuesday and captured its pilot alive near a ceasefire zone in the war-ravaged country's south.

Ahmad al Abdo forces – allied with the Free Syrian Army – shot down the Syrian regime's MiG-21 near Wadi Mahmud in the southern province of Sweida, the group's communications head Fares al Munjed said.

"The pilot is in our hands. He is injured and being treated," Munjed said.

Rebels released photos of a pilot they identified as Major Ali al Hilwa, with bruises on his face, and the wreckage of a jet they said was a Russian-built MiG 

Regime-owned Ikhbariya television quoted a source as saying that an investigation was under way to determine what caused the crash. It did not mention the fate of the pilot.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor, confirmed the rebel faction had shot down the plane and captured its wounded pilot.

Group: captured pilot treated well

Munjed said his group had used a "23-millimetre anti-aircraft gun" to down the warplane on Tuesday.

"We will take care to treat the captured pilot in accordance with international law," he said.

The rebel group's leadership was still debating what would happen to the pilot after his treatment, he said.

According to Munjed, the area where the aircraft was downed is outside a ceasefire zone negotiated last month by the United States, Russia and Jordan. 

Parts of Daraa, Quneitra, and Sweida provinces are included in the agreement, which has brought relative quiet to the zone though some violence has been reported. 

Days after the deal went into effect, Ahmad al Abdo forces hit a Syrian regime jet but it landed safely in regime-controlled territory.

The Western-backed FSA rebel groups in the south still control much of Syria's southwestern frontier with Jordan and Israel.

Rebel fire kills civilians in Aleppo

Opposition fighters fired rockets in Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least five civilians, SOHR said, in the deadliest bombardment on the northern city in months.

The rockets rained down on several districts in Syria's second-largest city on Tuesday afternoon, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the war monitor.

"Five civilians were killed and at least 10 others were wounded," Abdel Rahman said

"It's the highest toll we have documented in several months," he said.

The Britain-based Observatory said the rockets came from the western outskirts of Aleppo, where opposition fighters are still entrenched.

Syria’s regime recaptured all of Aleppo in December 2016, after a ferocious month-long offensive that ended with the evacuation of thousands of opposition fighters and civilians from the city’s opposition-held east.

That withdrawal was the biggest blow yet to Syria’s rebels, who had overrun half the city in mid-2012.

Since announcing victory in Aleppo, the Syrian regime’s armed forces have gone on to score advances in the wider province, as well as near Damascus and in desert areas in the country’s centre and east.

More than 400,000 people have been killed in Syria since the war began in March 2011 with anti-regime protests. 

Multiple attempted ceasefires, including nationwide truces, have failed to bring a lasting end to the war.