CNN reported the airstrikes followed a series of deadly incidents, including a Thai soldier losing his leg to a landmine explosion just one day earlier.

The Thai military's 2nd regional command announced on Facebook that F-16 fighter jets had been deployed and claimed to have "destroyed" two Cambodian regional military support units, according to CNN. Deputy Army spokesperson Colonel Richa Suksuwanont stated the airstrikes targeted only military positions, though Cambodian officials had not immediately confirmed the attacks.

Armed confrontations broke out along the disputed frontier early Thursday morning when Thai forces said Cambodian troops opened fire on a Thai army base near the ancient Ta Muen Thom Temple, which sits in contested territory between Thailand's Surin province and Cambodia's northwest region, CNN reported. Thai officials accused Cambodia of deploying an unmanned drone before the temple and then sending armed troops into the area.

The fighting spread beyond the temple site as Cambodian forces allegedly fired heavy weapons into civilian areas of Thailand's Kap Choeng district in Surin province. "The attack injured three civilians. Thai authorities have promptly evacuated residents from the area to ensure the safety of lives and property," the Thai military stated.

Cambodia's Defense Ministry offered a sharply different account, with Lieutenant General Maly Socheata claiming their troops acted in self-defense following an unprovoked Thai incursion. "Cambodian forces acted strictly within the bounds of self-defense, responding to an unprovoked incursion by Thai troops that violated our territorial integrity," Socheata explained to CNN.

Prime Minister Hun Manet wrote on Facebook that Thailand had attacked Cambodian army positions at two temple locations in Oddar Meanchey province, as well as sites in Cambodia's Preah Vihear province and Thailand's Ubon Ratchathani province. "Cambodia has always maintained a position of peaceful resolution of problems, but in this case, we have no choice but to respond with armed force against armed aggression," the Prime Minister declared while urging Cambodian citizens to remain calm.

The escalation injured at least two Thai soldiers Thursday, while three civilians were wounded in the crossfire, according to CNN. Two hospitals in Thailand's Surin province began evacuating patients as fighting continued near the clash sites, Thailand's ministry of public health confirmed.

Thursday's armed confrontation followed a devastating incident just one day earlier when a second Thai soldier in a week lost his leg to a landmine explosion at a different point along the disputed border. Five Thai soldiers were injured in that blast, prompting Thailand to immediately downgrade diplomatic relations with Cambodia by recalling its ambassador from Phnom Penh and expelling the Cambodian ambassador, CNN reported.

Thailand also closed sections of its northeastern border to both local residents and tourists as tensions reached their breaking point. Cambodia responded by announcing it had downgraded relations with Thailand "to the lowest level" and ordered all diplomatic staff to return home immediately.

The current crisis builds on mounting tensions that began in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed during clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops in the contested Emerald Triangle region where Cambodia, Thailand and Laos converge. Both sides opened fire in that incident, which has since triggered major political consequences for Thailand and inflamed nationalist sentiment in both countries, according to CNN.

Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra now faces potential dismissal after being suspended from duties earlier this month following the leak of a phone call with Cambodia's powerful former leader in which she appeared to criticize her own army's actions in the border dispute. The leaked conversation has added domestic political turmoil to the international crisis.

The two nations share a complex relationship marked by both cooperation and rivalry across recent decades. Their 508-mile (817-kilometer) land border was largely mapped by French colonial authorities during their occupation of Cambodia, creating boundary lines that have periodically sparked military clashes and political tensions between the neighbors.

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Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

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Let's start with a little background. The American weapons industry is one of the strongest, richest, and most powerful lobbies in the world. It is so strong that American administrations are afraid of it, and cover up its failures. Because it is so critical to the US economy, presidents and legislators have always helped sell advanced weaponry to the world, including Arab countries. Israel has objected, to no avail.

In 1980, for example, the US sold Egypt the F-16 fighter jet, the most advanced in the world at the time. Egypt was our biggest enemy. Only seven years earlier, in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it had done serious damage to our air force. Israel had signed a peace treaty with Egypt only a year before the sale, and it hadn't even been implemented. Still, it was clear to leaders in Israel and Washington that the risk – which was much greater than the case of the UAE – was worth it. So what is all the current fuss about?

Let's move on. Saudi Arabia, which is even closer geographically to Israel than the UAE is, has been operating F-15s for 40 years already, even though the Saudis led the vanguard of hatred for Israel in the Arab world. Israel knew about those planes and ignored them because there was nothing to be done. None of the people clutching their pearls now expressed any worry about the Saudi planes back then.

Again, in the 1980s, the US sold Saudi Arabia its AWACS early warning aircraft. With our supporters in Washington, Israel campaigned to stop the deal but failed miserably. Not only did the Saudis receive the aircraft, which controls the skies of the Middle East, but Israel – who had also requested it – was turned down. Where were commentators Nahum Barnea and Amnon Abramovich?

And now we arrive at the present day. While it was still in the design stage, the US intends to export the F-35 around the world. Thus far, it has been sold to many of the US's friends, such as Turkey. It was former President Barack Obama who approved the sale of the little stealth fighter to the sultan. President Trump, who along with Netanyahu is being accused of being so greedy that he is willing to sell off Israel's security, stopped continued sales of the F-35 to Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also buying S-400 missiles from Russia. We're lucky that only four of the F-35s out of the planned 120 were actually delivered to Turkey.

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The fuss over the sale of the planes to the UAE? The bottom line is that the US hasn't even decided whether or not to sell the advanced aircraft to the Emiratis, so any claims that the deal was "shady" are debunked. Second, even if the UAE eventually gets the sought-after stealth fighter, it won't set any precedent. Worse enemies of Israel, who lie closer to our borders, have received more advanced aircraft, and no one here was affected. Therefore, we should keep things in proportion this time as well.

Third, the evidence dispels any base for claims about "stealth fighters in exchange for peace." Prime Minister Netanyahu had made public all the steps he and his people took to oppose the sale of this aircraft to the UAE. They still object to it. Moreover, a conversation between the head of Israel's National Security Council and the commander of the Israeli Air Force about the possibility that the Emiratis might purchase the F-35 took place before any possibility of a peace deal with the UAE was even on the table. Meir Ben-Shabbat spoke with Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin on June 2, and the "sovereignty in exchange for peace" deal was presented to the Emirati envoy only 10 days later, on June 12.

Later, at the end of June, White House envoy Avi Berkowitz visited Israel to look into what could be done about the matter of Israel applying sovereignty to settlements in Judea and Samaria. In other words, when Netanyahu supposedly dispatched Ben-Shabbat to "send out feelers" with the head of the air force, none of this was happening yet. So we have multiple layers of falsehood.

There is no deal for the US to sell the Emiratis the F-35. If one is reached, it will have nothing to do with Israel, and in any case, it would present little risk in comparison to the deals of the past. So we can turn off the alarm.

The post The F-35 saga: What the pundits are keeping from you appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The pilot, who reported that he was going to eject from the cockpit, was not rescued and his whereabouts were still unknown as of Wednesday night. The plane took off from Tabriz and crashed not far from the Azerbaijani border.

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The crashed plane was procured from Russia. Iran has been modernizing its MiG-29 aircraft fleet over the past two years with the help of the Russian Air Force.

Iran has been struggling to find spare parts for its aircraft due to sanctions imposed by the United States and has tried to compensate for that by indigenously producing various weapon systems and components.

This year it unveiled a new prototype of a fighter jet but experts believe that it is most likely an attempt to reverse engineer the American F-5 fighter jet.

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