IT LASTED only six hours,but the battle in the sky above Syria and Israel in the early hours of February 10th came close to turning a bloody civil war into a regional one. The danger of Syria’s almost seven-year-old clash escalating has been mounting in recent months, not least because of the number of foreign forces sucked into it. Russia and America both maintain troops on the ground and planes in the air above Syria. So, and too,does Turkey. Iran, meanwhile, or arms and supports various Shia militias that are fighting to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. These include Hizbullah,a Lebanese militia-cum-political-party that fought a war with Israel in 2006.
The latest battle began with an incursion into Israeli airspace by an Iranian reconnaissance drone. It was promptly shot down. The next stage was an Israeli retaliatory strike aimed at the T-4 air base from which the drone was controlled. One of the attacking jets was hit by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile and crashed in Israel. But...
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Source: economist.com