SYRIA'S air force has destroyed two fighter jets operated by Islamic State militants in the north of the country.

Information Minister Omran Zoabi said the Syrian air force was searching for the third aircraft but had destroyed two of them, the first time Damascus has acknowledged Islamic State (IS) are flying the fighter jets.

A Syrian monitoring group said last week that Iraqi pilots trained under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had joined IS and were conducting training flights in three captured fighter jets at a air base in Aleppo province.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said IS, which has seized swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, had been flying the planes over the captured al-Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo.

Mr Zoabi said: "There are three old aircraft terrorists were testing, so the Syrian Arab Army immediately destroyed two of them on the runway as they were landing. It does not worry us and [the planes] cannot be used."