US shot down Turkish drone in Syria, military base was 1 kilometer away

The United States shot down an armed Turkish drone operating near its troops in Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said. This is the first time Washington has shot down an aircraft of NATO ally Turkey. A Turkish Defense Ministry official said the drone that was shot down did not belong to the Turkish Armed Forces, but did not specify whose property it was. Turkey’s national intelligence agency struck Kurdish militant targets in Syria following a bomb attack in Ankara last weekend, a Turkish security source said on Thursday.

Turkish military air strikes on Thursday night destroyed 30 Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria, including an oil well, a storage facility and shelters, and neutralized several militants, the Turkish Defense Ministry said. Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Turkish drones were seen Thursday morning conducting airstrikes about 1 kilometer away from US troops in Hasakah, Syria. A few hours later a Turkish drone came within less than half a kilometer (0.3 mi) of US troops and was deemed a threat and was shot down by F-16 aircraft.

Ryder told reporters that we have no indication that Turkey was deliberately targeting US forces. Hasakah is in northeastern Syria and is home to the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main ally of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, also known as Daesh.