The reports came as Turkish forces pounded strategic economic installations today in the Kurdish-run zone, including oil installations and power stations.
A US F-16 fighter jet has downed an unmanned Turkish drone close to a coalition facility in northeastern Syria, where 900 US special operation forces are deployed, a move that is likely to escalate tensions between the two NATO allies, the Pentagon has confirmed.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler to discuss the matter on Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters. Ryder called the shootdown of the Turkish drone near the Syrian town of al-Hasakah “a regrettable incident.” He added that no US forces were injured and that there were “no indications that Turkey was intentionally targeting US forces,” but that Turkish drones had been “conducting airstrikes inside a declared US-restricted operating zone” prior to the shoot-down.
A US F-16 downed the armed drone after multiple warnings to the Turkish military to move it away from the area, Al-Monitor’s sources said. The initial assessment was that it was not a military drone, but that it belonged to Turkey’s national spy agency, MIT, which has been carrying out targeted assassinations of Kurdish militants in the area.
Ryder said the F-16 shot down the drone around 11:40 local time after US forces first detected multiple Turkish UAVs flying in the vicinity of a US position at Tell Beder some three hours prior. US personnel contacted Turkish officials to warn them to pull the drones away from the area, and they appeared to comply, US military officials said, adding that the drones were not flying directly above the US base.
“They did stand down,” one military official told Al-Monitor. But one drone later returned to the vicinity of the US base, leading to the decision to shoot it down.
At least one of the drones in the initial group was engaged in air-to-ground strikes. “They weren’t targeting US personnel,” the official said, adding that it was unclear whether SDF forces were co-located with US forces at that time.
Ankara has yet to issue a formal statement. Turkish Defense Ministry sources denied the claim to Turkish media outlets, saying no drones belonging to the Turkish military had been destroyed. The rebuttal may indicate that Ankara does not want to escalate with Washington, or it may simply confirm that the drone belonged to MIT. Much hinges on how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decides to respond. He will likely come under intense pressure from his nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli, to take a firm stance, though the fact that the drone was unmanned and no Turkish lives were lost is likely to make things easier.
A spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the United States’ top ally in the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State, confirmed earlier that an unmanned drone had been shot down but did not specify where or by whom.
SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami told Al-Monitor via Whatsapp, “For the Turkish UAVs, we confirm that one UAV was shot down, but we currently do not possess sufficient information to provide further details.”
Observers say the downing of the Turkish drone makes it even less likely that Turkey will approve Sweden’s NATO membership, for which Washington has long been pressing. Turkey has been stalling, saying it expects Sweden to take concrete action against alleged PKK terrorists operating on its soil. Ankara’s main ask, however, is for the United States to sell $20 billion worth of F-16 fighter jets and upgrade kits that are being held up by Congressional sanctions.
The sanctions were imposed in part by Turkey’s 2019 invasion of a chunk of Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria that was under US protection.
Hopes of a breakthrough grew when US Sen. Bob Menendez was forced to step down earlier this month as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee amid bribery charges. The New Jersey Democrat is the fiercest opponent of the easing sanctions on Turkey.
Gonul Tol, director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, told Al-Monitor that it had been only a matter of time before the United States would respond to Turkish aggression that placed its forces at risk. In April, a Turkish drone struck near a convoy carrying SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazlum Kobane to Sulaimaniyah airport in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two US military officials were in the vehicle at the time of the attack.
The US F-16 likely took off from a squadron based in Azraq, Jordan.
Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Democratic Unity Party, which shares power in the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, told Al-Monitor that an unmanned aerial vehicle had been shot down near Tell Beder, which lies 30 kilometers (18 miles) northeast of the city of Al-Hasakah. Muslim said it was unclear whether coalition or local forces had downed the drone, but confirmed the coalition has a base in Tell Beder. “If the coalition did shoot it down, it was to warn Turkey that it had gone too far and was imperiling their forces,” Muslim said.
The reports came as Turkish forces pounded strategic economic installations today in the Kurdish-run zone, including oil installations and power stations. Local sources in Kobani, the Kurdish town on the Turkish border where the United States and the SDF first struck their alliance, said Turkish drones had also struck in the nearby countryside, killing at least two people.
Shami said so far one power station, three oil fields, the perimeter of a dam, two military facilities and several civilian facilities had been struck by Turkish UAVs. “In the unfortunate events, we have suffered a total of nine casualties, comprising three civilians and six members of the internal security forces who were guarding the targeted facilities,” Shami noted.
The United States’ partnership with the SDF is among the greatest sources of friction with NATO ally Turkey. Ankara insists that the SDF is no different from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish rebel group that is waging an armed campaign against the Turkish army and is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. US officials privately acknowledge the links between the two outfits but have refused to succumb to Ankara’s demands.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that Kurdish militants’ facilities and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq were “legitimate targets” following a suicide bomb attack near the Turkish Security Directorate in Ankara by PKK militants over the weekend.
Fidan, who headed MIT before becoming foreign minister in May, is the architect of the country’s drone attacks against the PKK and their top cadres in Iraq and Syria.
“From now on, all infrastructure, superstructure and energy facilities of the PKK and YPG, especially in Iraq and Syria, are the legitimate targets of our security forces, armed forces and intelligence units,” Fidan said. YPG is the acronym for the PKK’s Syrian franchise, the People’s Protection Units.
Fidan said Turkish authorities had established that the two assailants who carried out Sunday’s attack were trained in Syria and had traveled to Turkey from there.
The bombing, which left the two assailants dead and two police officers wounded, struck outside the national headquarters of Turkey’s police on Sunday and was the first to be claimed by the PKK inside Ankara since 2016.