IRAQI pilots in Syria are training Islamic State members to fly three captured fighter jets.
a group monitoring the conflict reports it is the first time the militants have taken to the air.
The Islamic State (IS), who have acquired land in Syria and Iraq, have been flying the planes over Al Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo, says Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organisation of increasing influence.
Meanwhile, US-led forces are bombing IS bases in Syria and Iraq. The IS has regularly used weaponry captured from the Syrian and Iraqi armies and has overrun several military bases, but this is the first time it has been said to be able to pilot warplanes.
Mr Abdulrahman said "They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for Saddam Hussein (former Iraqi president).
"People saw the flights. They went up many times and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back."
The witnesses are said to be in the northern Aleppo province near the base, 45 miles south of Turkey.
It is not clear whether the jets are equipped with weaponry or whether the pilots can reach longer distances in these planes, which witnesses said appeared to be MiG 21 or MiG 23 models captured from the Syrian military.
US Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said: "We're not aware of Islamic State conducting any flight operations in Syria or elsewhere.
"We continue to keep a close eye on IS activity in Syria and Iraq and will continue to conduct strikes against their equipment, facilities, fighters and centres of gravity, wherever they may be."
Pro-Islamic State twitter accounts had posted pictures of captured jets in other parts of Syria, but they appeared unusable, said some analysts.
The countryside east of Aleppo city is one of the main bases of IS in Syria, where this al Qaeda offshoot controls up to a third of the country's territory.
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