Video allegedly shows dead Russian pilot surrounded by armed rebels in Syria (GRAPHIC)
The video posted online shows armed men around an alleged Russian pilot who seems to be unconscious and immobile. His face is bruised and bloodied. The men seem to be happy and are praising Allah, with some regretting that they hadn’t burned him on the spot.
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"A Russian pilot," a voice is heard saying as a group of men gather around him. "God is great," a voice says.
They spoke Arabic with Turkmen accent.
According to Reuters, the video was sent by a rebel group operating in the northwestern area of Syria, where groups including the Free Syrian Army are active but Islamic State has no known presence.
Jahed Ahmad, a representative of the 10th Brigade in the Coast, the rebel group that attacked the pilots, claimed to AP that one of the Russian pilots was dead upon landing.
Both pilots came under fire from members of the group after they attempted to land with their parachutes, Ahmad said. He added that the shots killed one of the pilots, but the fate of the other pilot is still unknown.
From the way the people in the video look and are behaving, we “can assume that they are from the group” that follow the ideology of Islamic State militants or Jabhat al-Nusra, Ali Rizk, journalist and Middle East expert told RT.
“…it poses a lot of questions about what Turkey’s relations with extremists are,” he added.
