MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. A pilot of the Syrian Air Force’s Su-22 fighter-bomber downed by Israel died in the crash, a Syrian military source told the Al Masdar news portal on Tuesday.

According to the military source, the pilot was identified as a colonel of the Syrian Air Force.

The fate of the second pilot remains unknown.

As the news agency SANA reported, the downed plane stayed in the Syrian airspace and was delivering strikes against terrorists’ positions near the community of Sayda in the valley of the Yarmouk River. However, the Israeli army claimed that the Syrian fighter jet had infiltrated about 1 mile into Israeli airspace and was shot down by two Patriot missiles.

The Syrian government forces launched an operation on Tuesday against militants of the Jaysh Khalid bin-Walid extremist grouping linked with the Islamic State (terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) in the estuary of the Yarmouk River at the junction of the Jordanian border with the Golan Heights.

Aviation and artillery are rendering support to the Syrian government troops and delivering strikes against terrorists’ positions.