ISIS 3 warplanes - three fighter jets were spotted flying over the captured al-Jarrah military airport on Friday, and Reuters reports that Iraqi pilots who joined the militant group are training the Islamic State members to fly, Huffington Post has learned.
The militant group has been flying the ISIS 3 warplanes in Syria without the U.S. Central Command knowing.
"We're not aware of ISIL conducting any flight operations in Syria or elsewhere," said U.S. Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder.
"We continue to keep a close eye on (Islamic State) activity in Syria and Iraq and will continue to conduct strikes against their equipment, facilities, fighters and centers of gravity, wherever they may be," Ryder continued.
If the reports were true that ISIS has been flying 3 warplanes, this is the first time that the militant group is enlisting aircraft in preparation for their possible attack.
"They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for (former Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein," said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as per a NewsOK report.
"People saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back," Abdulrahman added.
Witnesses, who live near the airbase, report that the 3 ISIS warplanes were flying at a low altitude and their flight only lasted for 10 minutes before landing.
It is still not clear whether the ISIS warplanes were equipped with weaponry or whether they are capable of flying long distances.
According to some witnesses, the aircraft appear to be MiG 21 or MiG 23 models, which were reportedly captured from the Syrian military by the Islamic State members.
Around the same time, Pro-ISIS Twitter accounts shared pictures of the captured military aircraft, but diplomats insisted that the warplanes are anything but usable, according to The Independent.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Central Command still cannot confirm whether Iraqi pilots indeed joined the militant group.
"We don't have any operational reporting of ISIL flying jets in support of ISIL activity on the ground and so I cannot confirm that," General Lloyd Austin, head of the Command, said on the reports that Iraqi pilots are possibly training Islamic State members to fly warplanes.
"And to the degree that pilots may have defected and joined the ranks of ISIL, I don't have any information on that either," he told a Pentagon news briefing," Austin added.
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