|
Russian fighter jet strikes US drone over Syria in sixth incident this month
[An Nahar] A Russian fighter jet has fired flares and struck another U.S. drone over Syrian airspace, the White House said, in a continued string of harassing maneuvers that have ratcheted up tensions between the global powers.It's the sixth reported incident this month, and the second in the past 24 hours, in which the United States has said Russian warplanes have flown dangerously close to American manned and unmanned aircraft, putting crews and the planes at risk and raising questions as to what the U.S. may need to do in response. Two U.S. officials confirmed that the strike damaged the MQ-9 Reaper drone. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. "We've seen the reports, the early reports, of a second Russian fighter aircraft this week flying dangerously close to our drone" on a mission to counter Islamic State  ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... murderous Moslems in Syria, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. She did not provide other details, but said Russia's "close approach to and deployment of flares over U.S. drones during a routine mission" violates international norms. In the incidents over the past two days, Russian warplanes have fired flares that struck U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones. On Tuesday, the flares damaged a drone's propeller; on Wednesday, Russian-dropped flares hit a drone. In previous incidents, Russian jets have intercepted the U.S. planes at dangerously close distances, including one instance with a manned aircraft that the U.S. said put the lives of the four American crewmembers at risk. A senior Russian military leader blamed the U.S. for the latest incident, and charged that aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Syria violated deconfliction protocols with Russia 10 times in the past 24 hours. Rear Adm. Oleg Gurinov, the head of the Russian military's Reconciliation Center in Syria, said that the U.S. drone flew dangerously close to a pair of Russian warplanes in the skies over Syria early Wednesday. Gurinov said that onboard systems of the Russian Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft spotted the aircraft being targeted and triggered the automatic release of flares. "The United States are continuing to disinform the public about unlawful flights of its drones in the Syrian air space that have failed to undergo deconflicting procedure while accusing the Russian side of dangerous maneuvering," Gurinov said in a statement carried by the Interfax news agency. Posted by: Fred 2023-07-28 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=673868 |