Warplane crashes near Damascus, causes unclear: monitor

BEIRUT/MOSCOW - Reuters

A Syrian army jet takes off from al-Dumayr military airport, 40 km north-east of Damascus, on April 8, 2016 - AFP photo

A warplane in Syria crashed southwest of Damascus on April 22, and it was not clear if it had been brought down by insurgent gunfire or suffered a technical fault, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. 

The plane crashed southwest of Damascus airport, the British-based monitoring group said, after flying over territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The fate of the pilot was not known. 

ISIL earlier said a Syrian warplane had been shot down. Its statement could not be independently verified. 

Meanwhile, Russian warplanes have not flown over an area near Damascus where a military plane crashed, RIA news agency quoted a spokesman for Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria as saying. 

All Russian jets are at the airbase, the spokesman said.