American Warplane Shoots Down Iranian-Made Drone Over Syria
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, who commands the coalition-led air campaign over Syria, said on Monday
that the United States would reposition its aircraft to minimize the risk from Syrian and Russian air defenses but would continue its strikes against the Islamic State in Syria.
The episode was a fresh indication that the air war between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria
and the American military is likely to continue, and perhaps even escalate, even as the United States has sought to keep its focus on defeating the Islamic State militants operating in Syria and Iraq.
By MICHAEL R. GORDONJUNE 20, 2017
WASHINGTON — An American F-15E fighter jet shot down an Iranian-made armed drone on Tuesday over southeast Syria
that was flying toward American-backed Syrian fighters and their advisers, Pentagon officials said.
American officials said that the aircraft was a Shahed 129, the same type of Iranian drone
that an American warplane blasted on June 8 after it dropped a bomb near American-supported Syrian fighters and their coalition advisers.
Though Russia also announced on Monday that it would suspend the use of a hotline set up for the two sides to avoid unintended confrontations in the skies over Syria,
Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, the spokesman for the American-led air war command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, said that the hotline had not been interrupted.
Two days earlier, an American F/A-18 shot down a Syrian SU-22 warplane
that had dropped bombs near American-backed fighters combating the Islamic State.
