The Pentagon stated that US F-16 warplanes shot down a drone belonging to NATO partner Turkey that was judged a possible threat to American forces in Syria on Thursday.
The incident occurred as Turkey conducted strikes against Kurdish forces in the area in response to a suicide bombing in Ankara on Sunday claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey and its Western allies consider a terror.
On Thursday morning, US soldiers spotted drones carrying out air strikes in northeast Syria, some of them inside a restricted operating zone (ROZ) near Hasakah, just a kilometre (less than a mile) from American troops, according to the Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder.
A Turkish drone returned to the ROZ a few hours later, moving toward US forces.
“US commanders assessed that the UAV, which was now less than a half kilometre from US forces, to be a potential threat and US F-16 fighters subsequently shot down the UAV in self-defense”, he claimed, abbreviating for the unmanned aerial vehicle.
The US has around 900 troops stationed in Syria as part of international efforts to combat the Islamic State (IS) group and it conducts periodic raids against the jihadists.
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