TEHRAN, February 19 - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the recent shooting down of an Israeli fighter jet by the Syrian army destroyed Israel’s "myth of invincibility".
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) - After "30 years the Syrians were able to down one of its planes," Zarif told NBC News in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Sunday.
"And so the myth of invincibility of Israel, of the Israeli military, has crumbled,” he added.
The Iranian minister further said Syria "was able to use its own means to bring down one of their planes”.
He added that the message was clear: "Don't violate their airspace."
Last week, the Syrian military downed an intruding Israeli F-16 warplane returning from a bombing raid on an army base in central Syria.
The Israeli military confirmed that one F-16 had gone down in northern Israel, and that its two pilots had ejected and had been located and transferred to hospital. It later announced that one of the pilots was in serious condition.
The Israeli military claimed that it had attacked positions inside the Syrian territory after it intercepted a drone launched from Syria on Saturday.
A pro-Syrian military alliance said later in the day that the Israeli claim about a drone intrusion was bogus, noting that Israel had targeted a drone base in Syria whose unmanned aircraft were used against the Daesh terrorist group.
Over the past years, Israel has frequently attacked targets in Syria, often claiming that it hit positions or convoys belonging to Iran. This is while Iran has no military presence in Syrian territory, only offering advisory military assistance to the Syrian government fighting an all-out foreign-sponsored militancy.
Source: Tasnim