Well, actually, I thought they violated Turkish airspace. That means they went the long way around. Also, the Syrians might have not been expecting them to come from that direction. So, I’ll stick with the “IF”.
Bottom line: until there is an official story, we don’t know what happened. It is mostly rumor and speculation at this point. But that can be fun too...
Actually, we do know what took place...it’s not speculation in the least. Dr. Wheeler wrote an article on it...Wheeler is the author of the Reagan Doctrine and continues to have insider info especially in the Pentagon. That’s a piece from his article.