It’s just breaking that the US had to shoot down one of our ally’s drones over Syria when it was deemed a threat to US forces.
A US fighter jet shot down a Turkish drone. US officials said they knew the drone was Turkish:
NEW: A U.S. jet fighter shot down a Turkish drone in Syria after it was deemed a threat to U.S. forces in northeast Syria, a person familiar with the episode told WSJ
• A US official said they were aware that it was a Turkish drone pic.twitter.com/FNnRxCuCr3
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) October 5, 2023
Here’s more via the WSJ:
A U.S. jet fighter shot down a Turkish drone on Thursday after it was deemed a threat to U.S. forces in northeast Syria, a person familiar with the episode said.
The episode comes as Turkey has been mounting air attacks against Kurdish militants it blames for a bombing attack in Ankara on Sunday.
There are roughly 900 U.S. troops based in Syria, who have been working with Kurdish-led fighters to battle Islamic State.
The Turkish Defense Ministry said that the drone didn’t belong to the Turkish armed forces, Reuters reported.
But one American official described it as an armed Turkish drone and said that the U.S. was aware of that before it acted.
If Turkey is denying it was one of their official drones, then maybe this isn’t a big deal to Erdogan and the Turkish government. But we’ll see if any of that changes.