Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday that Israeli air forces nearly shot down a passenger jetliner in Syria during a missile strike on the suburbs of Damascus a day earlier.
The allegation comes as tensions run high in Syria, where fighting has escalated in the northern province of Idlib. Syrian government forces, backed by the Russian military, have clashed with Turkish troops that support the opposition there after failing to observe a cease-fire.
A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister did not respond to a request for comment. Israel rarely acknowledges strikes carried out in Syria. Israel has repeatedly struck Syrian and Iran-linked targets in Syria in recent years and has vowed to push back against increasing Iranian influence in its neighboring country.
The news of the alleged near-miss came amid jitters just a month after a Ukrainian passenger plane crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. Iran said the plane was mistakenly shot down by its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
In a statement released Friday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said the strike was carried around 2am local time on Thursday. He said four Israeli F-16 fighter jets hit the suburbs of Damascus with eight missiles without taking into account that a passenger plane with 172 civilians on board was preparing to land in the city's airport around the same time.
Mr Konashenkov didn't name the airline or flight number, saying only that it was an Airbus-320 en route from Tehran that "came near to entering the zone of a deadly anti-aircraft missile and artillery fire."
He said the plane had to make an emergency landing at Hmeimeem Air Base, which is operated by the Russian military, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Damascus.
FlightRadar24, a website that provides tracking of air traffic, showed Syrian airline Cham Wings Flight 514 - an Airbus320-211 - taking off from Najaf at 1.07am local time Thursday morning. It can be seen approaching Damascus about an hour later before turning back and diverting its course to the north. It appears to have landed in or near Hmeimeem a half hour later. Flightradar24 listed the arrival time and destination as unknown.
The airline offered no immediate comment. The US Treasury placed Cham Wings on its sanctions list in 2016 for allegedly transporting militants to Syria to fight on behalf of the Syrian government and for moving weapons and equipment to aid it in the nine-year conflict.
In the statement, the Russian military accused Israel of endangering the "lives of hundreds of innocent civilians."
"Scheduled airline traffic in the Syrian air space, as well as everywhere in the world, takes place on well-known altitude flight levels and is clearly detected by Israel's radar equipment," Mr Konashenkov said.
