{"id":77211,"date":"2014-12-25T07:49:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T07:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=77211"},"modified":"2014-12-25T07:49:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T07:49:05","slug":"jordan-plane-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/12\/jordan-plane-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan plane ‘not shot down by IS’"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Jordanian plane that crashed in Syria was not shot down by Islamic State (IS) militants, the US says.<\/p>\n
The plane was lost in IS territory on Wednesday morning, and the pilot has been captured.<\/p>\n
IS militants said that they shot down the plane with a heat-seeking missile. However, the US says “evidence clearly indicates” that this is not true.<\/p>\n
Jordan is one of four Arab states in a US-led coalition that has launched air strikes on IS targets in Syria.<\/p>\n
The F-16 fighter jet is the first coalition aircraft to be lost on IS territory since air strikes began in September.<\/p>\n
IS fighters have published photographs showing the pilot being captured. They named the pilot as Flight Lieutenant Moaz Youssef al-Kasasbeh.<\/p>\n
In a statement, US Central Command (Centcom) said it strongly condemned the actions of IS, and confirmed the group “has taken captive the downed pilot”.<\/p>\n
It did not say what could have caused the plane to crash.<\/p>\n
However, it said it would not tolerate IS’s “attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes”.<\/p>\n
“Evidence clearly indicates that Isil [IS] did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organisation is claiming,” it added.<\/p>\n