On June 22, 2012, a Turkish RF-4E military reconnaissance aircraft took off
from an air base in eastern Turkey. It flew at low altitude, as most spy planes
do, and violated Syrian airspace before it was hit -- most likely -- by a
missile fired from a Syrian- or Russian-operated air defense system. Two
Turkish pilots were killed. Their bodies were later recovered from the
Mediterranean Sea with help from a US ship.
Turkey was all rage. Turkey's then-prime minister (now president), Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, vowed revenge. The Turks claimed their aircraft was flying on a
training mission. It was most likely flying on a mission to spy on air defense
systems in Syria.
Nearly three years later, on the morning of March 25, a Russian-made Syrian
Scud missile, estimated to have been fired from a range of 180 kilometers, exploded
near the Reyhanli district in Turkey's southernmost city of Hatay, near the
Syrian border. The missile left a 15-meter-wide crater in a stream bed, broke
the windows of the surrounding houses, caused the roof of a building in the
nearby military base to collapse, damaged two military vehicles and inflicted
minor injuries on five Turkish civilians.
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