Reuters, Beirut :Russian and Syrian special forces rescued one of the pilots of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey near the Turkish-Syrian border, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday.The state news agency SANA said the pilot, whose Su-24 jet came down in Syrian territory on Tuesday, had been retrieved from an area where rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad were present.Syrian special forces “last night carried out a joint operation with Russian special forces, penetrating four to five kilometres into areas where terrorists are located, and were able to save one of the pilots of the Russian plane”, SANA reported, adding that he had been returned to a military base.The incident was one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century. Turkey said the jet had violated its air space while Moscow said the plane had not left Syrian air space.
