COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark will not extend military operations of its seven F-16 fighter jets in Syria and Iraq from mid-December after six months in action, the Danish government said on Friday.

Instead the Danish contribution in Syria and Iraq will primarily consist of training and analysis teams, which to a large extent will work closer to Iraqi military units.

“We are pulling our airplanes out as planned. We have offered the coalition extra help with some construction and engineer troops,” Danish foreign minister Anders Samuelsen said after a meeting in the foreign political council.

“It has been assessed whether it would make sense from economical and practical considerations (to extend the mission) ... the conclusion has been that it makes no sense, so we just stick to the plan,” Samuelsen said.

NATO member Denmark is part of the U.S.-led operation “Inherent Resolve” against Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria. It said when it joined the mission in June it would review the operation after six months.

On Monday, a U.S. military investigation said Danish war planes were involved in a Sept. 17 coalition air strike, where a series of “unintentional human errors” killed fighters aligned with the Syrian government instead of the targeted Islamic State militants.

The minister made no mention of the incident in his statement. </s> COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — In a planned move, Denmark is pulling back its F-16 fighter jet squadron from an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.



Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen says the Scandinavian country would instead send engineering troops to help with reconstruction projects. He didn't specify where.



Denmark joined the international coalition in October 2014, and sent, among others, seven F-16 planes, which were briefly brought back to Denmark for repairs. In April, a large majority in the Danish Parliament sent them back, this time with a mandate to bomb in Syria.



Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said Friday that an undisclosed number of special Danish troops were continuing to train and support Iraqi troops fighting Islamic State militants. </s> Russia has announced it is withdrawing its aircraft carrier and some other warships from the waters off Syria as the first step in a reduction of its forces in the war-torn Middle East country.

General Staff chief General Valery Gerasimov said the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier and accompanying ships will be the first to leave.

Gen Gerasimov was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying: “In accordance with the decision by the supreme commander-in-chief (President) Vladimir Putin, the defence ministry is starting to downsize the grouping of armed forces in Syria.”

Moscow has been a key supporter of President Bashar al–Assad’s government and forces in Syria’s devastating civil war.

Gen Gerasimov did not give further details on the force reduction, which follows an order by Mr Putin on December 29th.

Syrian forces’ retaking of the city of Aleppo last month and a Russian/Turkish-brokered ceasefire, in place for nearly a week, make Russian forces less critical to Mr Assad, but it is unclear how extensive the military reduction will be.

Air strikes from the Admiral Kuzetsov began in mid-November, the first time the carrier has been used in combat. It has lost two aircraft. An Su-33 fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in December as it returned to the carrier following a sortie over Syria, and in November, a MiG-29 crashed into the sea while trying to land on the carrier.

Russia and Turkey, a strong supporter of Syria’s moderate opposition, brokered the ceasefire, which came into effect on December 30th. The truce has mostly held but not altogether halted fighting in the country, and the government and opposition have blamed each other for violations.

The ceasefire is meant to pave the way for peace negotiations in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, later this month. The gathering could give new impetus for UN-mediated talks between Syria’s warring sides. </s> The Russian Defense Ministry announced it is halting cooperation with its US counterparts in the framework of the Memorandum on the Prevention of Incidents and Ensuring Air Safety in Syria following the coalition’s downing of a Syrian warplane.

The ministry has demanded a thorough investigation by the US military command into the incident with the Syrian government military jet, with the results to be shared with the Russian side.

“In the areas of combat missions of Russian air fleet in Syrian skies, any airborne objects, including aircraft and unmanned vehicles of the [US-led] international coalition, located to the west of the Euphrates River, will be tracked by Russian ground and air defense forces as air targets,” the Russian Ministry of Defense stated.

Downing the military jet within Syrian airspace “cynically” violates the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic, Russian military said.

The actions of the US Air Force are in fact “military aggression” against Syria, the statement adds.

The ministry emphasized that Russian warplanes were on a mission in Syrian airspace during the US-led coalition’s attack on the Syrian Su-22, while the coalition failed to use the communication line to prevent an incident.

“The command of the coalition forces did not use the existing communication channel between the air commands of Al Udeid Airbase (in Qatar) and the Khmeimim Airbase to prevent incidents in Syrian airspace.”

The ministry considers the move “a conscious failure to comply with the obligations under the Memorandum on the Prevention of Incidents and Ensuring Air Safety in Syria,” and is thus halting cooperation with the US within the memorandum framework as of June 19, the statement concluded.

Earlier Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov condemned the attack, branding it an act of aggression which actually helped the terrorists the US is fighting against.

The US-led coalition downed the Syrian government warplane on Sunday. At the moment of the attack the jet was carrying out operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) some 40km from Raqqa, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The pilot ejected from the plane above IS-controlled territory and is still missing. </s> COPENHAGEN, March 23 (Reuters) - Boeing lost a lawsuit against Denmark on Friday which related to the Danish government's decision to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II combat jets in preference to Boeing's F/A 18 Super Hornets.

Boeing had taken Denmark to court over a lack of access to documents used in the government's decision to buy the Lockheed Martin jets.

"The court has found that the authorities' decisions on refusal of access to the documents are legal and valid," Copenhagen's city court said in a summary of the verdict on its website on Friday.

Boeing said it would issue a statement later on Friday.

After Denmark decided to buy 27 of Lockheed Martin's new warplanes in 2016, Boeing complained that the evaluation process for the planes competing for the order had been "flawed" and demanded access to the documents in the case.

Denmark's defence ministry had denied Boeing access because the U.S. company had not specified which documents it wanted to see, and that it would too large a task to find all documents since preparations for the order began in 2005. (Reporting by Teis Jensen. Editing by Jane Merriman) </s> Russia on Monday angrily condemned the downing of a Syrian aircraft by a U.S. fighter as a "flagrant violation of international law," and said its forces will treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft and drones as targets if they are operating in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates in areas while Russian aviation is on combat missions.

The Russian defense ministry also said it is suspending an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between Russian and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operating over Syria.

Russia, which has provided military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2015, was reacting to U.S. military confirmation that a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian SU-22 fighter-bomber on Sunday. The Syrian jet had just dropped bombs near forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are aligned with the U. S. military in the campaign against the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, U.S.-backed opposition fighters said that Assad's forces have been attacking their positions in the northern Raqqa province, and warned that they would take action if the attacks continue.

On Monday, the Russian defense ministry said that its warplanes had been in operation in the area of the encounter between the U.S. and Syrian jets, and said that the coalition had not used the deconflicting hotline to warn the Russian jet.

"Multiple military actions of U.S. aviation under the guise of fighting terrorism against the legal military of a state that is a member of the United Nations are a flagrant violation of international law and constitute de facto military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic," the ministry said.

"We view these actions by the American command as a conscious failure to neglect their responsibilities within the memorandum," the ministry said.

Russia briefly suspended the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations after U.S. forces fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in April.

Also on Monday, a senior Russian diplomat warned that the downing of the Syrian jet was "yet another step in a direct and dangerous escalation."

"We are warning Washington not to take such actions in the future," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

The confrontation took place late Sunday near the central city of Tabqa, hours after Syrian government forces harassed a U.S.-backed local ground force with airstrikes.

It was the first time that the American military has shot down a Syrian warplane during the six-year conflict, and followed a series of U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed forces advancing on partner forces in a strategically-prized swathe of land along the Iraqi border.

Outside observers said that Sunday's strike underscored a growing willingness on the part of Assad's forces to confront the U.S.-led coalition as they jostle to roll back Islamic State militants from eastern Syria.

That effort has been bolstered by the freeing up of thousands of Shiite militias that had fought in a campaign across the border to capture the city of Mosul from Islamic State militants.

"The wild card here is the logic of an Assad regime which has decided that it no longer wants to be constrained to a western Syria-based statelet," said Nicholas A. Heras, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

That shift has been driven by an assessment that the Trump's administration could use the territory its forces capture as a bargaining chip with which to push Assad into a political transition or Syria into a decentralized political system, Heras added.

In Moscow, officials argued that Sunday's shoot-down was intended as a message aimed squarely at them.

Franz Klintsevich, deputy head of the defense and security committee of the Russian upper house of parliament, called the incident "an aggression and a provocation" directed at Russia.

"It looks like Donald Trumps' United States is a source of a brand-new danger both in the Middle East and the world at large," Klintsevich wrote on his Facebook page.

Another member of the upper house, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted that the incident was "a new act of war" against the Syrian government.

The upper house, the Federation Council, is a largely toothless body that essentially carries out Putin's policies with little opposition.

The reaction of Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was more muted. Russia's top diplomat said that the United States should show respect Syria's territorial integrity and that any actions on the ground "should be coordinated with Damascus."

"We call on the United States and all others who have their forces or their advisers 'on the ground' to ensure coordination in our work," the official Russian Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Brazil, India and China in Beijing.

Putin last week said that Syria has proven to be a useful testing ground for advanced Russian weapons systems.

"It has done enormous good for our defense industry," Putin told Russians in his annual televised call-in show. "I can say that the experience our armed forces have gained under combat conditions, especially with the use of cutting-edge weapons, is invaluable." </s> Russia announced on Friday that it is withdrawing its aircraft carrier and some other Russian warships from the waters off Syria as the first step in a drawdown of its forces in the war-torn Mideast country.

According to Russian General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier and accompanying ships are to be the first to leave.

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Gerasimov was quoted as saying by the state news agency Tass that “in accordance with the decision by the supreme commander-in-chief (President) Vladimir Putin, the Defense Ministry is starting to downsize the grouping of armed forces in Syria.”

Moscow has been a key supporter of President Bashar Assad’s government and forces in Syria’s devastating civil war.

Gerasimov did not give further details on the force reduction, which follows an order by Putin on Dec. 29.

Syrian forces’ retaking of the city of Aleppo last month and a subsequent Russia- and Turkey-brokered cease-fire, in place for nearly a week now, make Russian forces less critical to Assad, but it is unclear how extensive the drawdown might be.

Airstrikes from the Admiral Kuzetsov began in mid-November, the first time the carrier has been used in combat. It has lost two aircraft — an Su-33 fighter jet that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in December as it returned to the carrier following a sortie over Syria. In November, a MiG-29 crashed into the sea while trying to land on the carrier.

Russia and Turkey, a strong supporter of Syria’s moderate opposition, brokered the current cease-fire, which came into effect on Dec. 30. The truce has mostly held but not altogether halted fighting in the country, and the government and opposition have blamed each other for violations of the truce.

The cease-fire is meant to pave the way for peace negotiations in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, later this month. The gathering could give new impetus for U.N.-mediated talks between Syria’s warring sides. </s> WASHINGTON — Russia’s defense ministry says it will treat U.S.-led coalition planes in Syria, west of the Euphrates River, as targets after the U.S. military shot down a Syrian Air Force jet on Sunday.

Moscow has condemned the U.S. downing of the Syrian government fighter jet after it dropped bombs nears U.S. partner forces.

The Russian defense ministry says in a statement that, starting Monday, it will track all jets and drones of the U.S.-led coalition west of the Euphrates and treat them as targets.

The ministry also called on the U.S. military to provide a full account of why it decided to shoot down the Syrian SU-22.

The United States and Russia, which has been providing an air cover for Syria’s President Bashar Assad since 2015 in his offensive against the Islamic State group, have a standing agreement that should prevent in-the-air incidents involving U.S. and Russia jets engaged in operations in Syria.

The Russian defense ministry said that it was suspending the deal after the U.S. military confirmed that it downed a Syrian Air Force fighter jet on Sunday after it dropped bombs near U.S. partner forces.

The ministry says it views the incident as Washington’s “deliberate failure to make good on its commitments” under the de-confliction deal.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies on Monday that the downing was akin to “helping the terrorists that the U.S. is fighting against.”

Ryabkov asks: “What is this, if not an act of aggression?” </s> Russia's defence ministry says it will treat US-led coalition planes in Syria, west of the Euphrates River, as targets after the US military shot down a Syrian Air Force jet on Sunday (18 June).

Moscow has condemned the US downing of the Syrian government fighter jet after it dropped bombs nears US partner forces.

The Russian defence ministry says in a statement that, starting Monday, it will track all jets and drones of the US-led coalition west of the Euphrates and treat them as targets.

The ministry also called on the US military to provide a full account of why it decided to shoot down the Syrian SU-22.

Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has been providing an air cover to the government's offensive on Isis since 2015.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies on Monday that the downing was akin to "helping the terrorists that the US is fighting against".

Ryabkov asks: "What is this, if not an act of aggression?"
Denmark's government announces it will be withdrawing its seven F-16 fighter jets from military operations against ISIL in Iraq and Syria from mid-December.