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An American F-16 fighter jet shot down a Turkish navy drone on Thursday that entered a restricted zone in northeastern Syria and got here inside about 550 yards of U.S. floor forces, in keeping with Pentagon officers.
No American troops have been harmed within the incident, U.S. officers stated.
“Turkey is certainly one of our strongest and most valued NATO allies, and that partnership continues and can proceed,” Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, informed reporters. “So that is actually a regrettable incident.”
A number of Turkish armed drones carried out airstrikes in a restricted U.S. zone round 7:30 a.m. native time on Thursday, Basic Ryder stated. At 11:30 a.m., one of many drones re-entered the realm, and U.S. troops went into bunkers for defense. Ten minutes later, an American pilot flying an F-16 shot down the drone.
The places of such zones, the overall stated, are shared with a number of governments and actors within the area — together with Turkey — and outline areas the place U.S. forces might take defensive measures to guard themselves.
America, which has lots of of troops in Syria, has labored for years with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia in northeastern Syria, to combat the Islamic State in Syria. However that partnership has angered Turkey, which views Syria’s Kurdish fighters as a part of the Kurdistan Employees’ Occasion. That group has fought a bloody, decades-long insurgency in opposition to the Turkish state aimed toward gaining independence or larger autonomy.
It’s unclear what the drone was focusing on on Thursday, although the Turkish navy has sometimes launched assaults in opposition to Kurdish forces within the space.
U.S. forces in Syria have been threatened by aerial weapons up to now. In March, an American contractor was killed in a drone assault in the identical space, close to the city of Hasaka. One other contractor and 5 American troops have been wounded within the assault.
Hasaka, which is in a Kurdish-controlled area of Syria, is residence to al-Sinaa Jail, which housed 3,000 Islamic State fighters and was the positioning of an intense battle to free them in January 2022.
Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III spoke together with his Turkish counterpart on Thursday concerning the drone incident.
“The secretary reaffirmed that the USA stays in Syria completely in assist of the marketing campaign to defeat ISIS,” Basic Ryder stated. “The secretary additionally acknowledged Turkey’s legit safety issues and underscored the significance of shut coordination between the USA and Turkey to forestall any danger to U.S. forces or the worldwide coalition to defeat ISIS.”
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, additionally spoke together with his Turkish counterpart, Gen. Metin Gurak, on Thursday. They mentioned the necessity to observe shared protocols “to make sure the security of our personnel in Syria,” stated Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for the Joint Workers.
An American protection official stated that U.S. commanders made a dozen calls to Turkish navy officers saying that American forces have been on the bottom within the space and offering an in depth location of these forces.
Turkish officers have been warned that the U.S. forces would interact in self-defense if the drone didn’t go away the realm, in keeping with the official, who was not approved to talk publicly concerning the incident and spoke on the situation of anonymity.
Charles Lister of the Center East Institute in Washington stated the Turkish overseas minister had warned on Wednesday that his nation would goal “third events” that bought in the best way of Turkish assaults on the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F.
The U.S. resolution to shoot down the drone was meant to ship a message to Turkey to cease its marketing campaign in opposition to the S.D.F. and to steer clear of U.S. bases, he stated, and the telephone calls between Mr. Austin and his counterpart in Ankara have been meant to de-escalate any tensions.
“There’s clearly no need to see this get any worse and it received’t,” Mr. Lister stated. “It’s an unmanned drone. That is the benefit of drones. We are able to ship a message right here with out inflicting any human fatalities and with out risking these sorts of escalatory steps.”
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