IN PICTURES: Pilot of crashed Syrian military jet identified

Several news websites reported on Sunday that the Syrian pilot whose military jet crashed near the Turkish-Syrian border was identified Colonel Mohammed Safwan.

The Dimashq Now Facebook page which is close to the Syrian regime said the pilot, who Turkish security forces found after the jet crashed, is named published photos of Safwan when he was first found at the site of the crash and other photos which showed him lying on a hospital bed.

Other Syrian opposition pages provided information which has not been verified yet but stated that Sawfan is from Idlib’s Kefraya and was suspended from flying but he was reinstated due to a shortage of soldiers and pilots.

The “News Network of Besieged Kefraya and Foua” Facebook page which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Iranian regime wrote that Sawfan is “the son of Kefraya and Foua” in Idlib. Both cities are home to a Shiite majority.

The Syrian military plane crashed in Turkey on Saturday near the country's border with Syria. According to Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu, the pilot was recovered during an air and ground search and taken to a local hospital after the plane went down on Saturday night in the Turkish province of Hatay.