Syria Shoots Down US Drone Along Latakia Coast

Military Determined Surveillance Drone Was Hostile

While the Syrian military has mostly left the US coalition warplanes alone in their campaign against ISIS, today Syrian officials confirmed the shootdown of a US surveillance drone over the Latakia coast.

The US has confirmed the loss of the drone over Syria, but said they couldn’t confirm if it was shot down or not yet. This would be the first downing of an American craft by Syrian forces.

While the US coalition never made a formal deal with Syria on airstrikes, they’ve had a tacit understanding about them. The surveillance drone at question today was apparently not armed, and Syrian officials believed it was surveilling them with an eye toward hostile actions.

The US had threatened to attack Syrian forces if they fired on any warplanes in their territory, though it’s unclear if the drone will count, especially since it appears to have been targeting Syria in the first place.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.