Syrian warplane crashed near Damascus after technical fault - Interfax

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A plane belonging to the Syrian Air Force crashed southeast of Damascus on Friday because of a technical fault, Russian news agency Interfax said, citing a Syrian military source. "The plane had recently undergone repairs... there was no attack from the ground. It crashed because of a technical fault. The pilot ejected," Interfax quoted the source as saying. Interfax said the plane was a Mig-23. A video shared online by Islamic State-affiliated news agency Amaq says the plane was shot down by the jihadist group on Friday. The footage showed Islamic State fighters around burning plane wreckage, part of which had a Syrian flag painted on it. Reuters could not independently verify the video. Earlier on Friday Islamic State said a Syrian warplane had been shot down, but did not specifically claim responsibility. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the plane crashed in the southeast Damascus countryside after flying over territory controlled by Islamic State. It said the fate of the pilot was not known. The Observatory said earlier it was not clear if it had been brought down by gunfire or suffered a technical fault. (Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; editing by John Stonestreet)