The United States shootdown of an armed Turkish drone over Syria on Thursday was the first incident of its kind. It was not, however, the first time the U.S. military responded decisively to threats against its troops and its local allies in the war-torn Middle Eastern country.
A U.S. Air Force F-16 shot down the drone after it entered a designated restricted zone in northeast Syria within 550 yards of U.S. troops, forcing them to take cover in a bunker for protection. Turkey has carried out several lethal drone attacks against the U.S.-allied Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria in recent years, many of which have caused civilian deaths.
The incident occurred after Turkey ramped up airstrikes against Kurdish adversaries in Syria and Iraq following the Oct. 1 Ankara suicide bombing claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey views the SDF and its backbone, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), as indistinguishable from its PKK arch-enemy.
The day before the shootdown, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recommended “that third parties stay away from facilities and people belonging to the PKK and the YPG.” His mention of “third parties” was widely interpreted as a warning to U.S. and other foreign troops in Syria against cooperating with the SDF.
Thursday’s drone incursion may have been accidental or an attempt by Turkey to signal its staunch opposition to the continued U.S. partnership with the SDF/YPG, forged nine years ago to combat the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.
Whatever the case, this isn’t the first time Turkey and its Syrian militia proxies have almost clashed with the U.S. military in Syria.
In April 2017, for example, U.S. military officials expressed their dismay after Turkey gave the U.S. and other coalition forces less than an hour warning in advance before carrying out deadly airstrikes against the SDF. American special forces were only a few miles away from the targeted areas.
U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian unequivocally declared that the lack of adequate warning was “not coordination as you would expect from a partner and an ally in the fight against ISIS.”
Subsequent comments from Turkish officials did not help matters. In May 2017, the Turkish president’s chief advisor on Kurdish affairs suggested Turkey would even risk accidentally hitting American troops with rocket fire if they remained embedded with the Syrian Kurdish-led forces.
The following January, Erdogan expressed his willingness to risk confronting the United States military in Syria.
In October 2019, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump infamously ordered U.S. troops in northeast Syria to draw down, Erdogan launched an incursion against the SDF. During that offensive, U.S. troops “came under artillery fire from Turkish positions,” and the U.S. deployed F-15 fighters and AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships in a “show of force” against Turkey’s militia proxies when they threatened U.S. troops.
In light of these recurring tensions, Thursday’s incident, while unprecedented, hardly comes as a surprise.
Although a U.S. ally and fellow NATO member, Turkey agrees with America’s adversaries — Russia, Iran, and the Syrian regime — that the U.S. should fully withdraw from Syria.
Since the U.S. launched its first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria in September 2014, it has taken measures to ensure the protection of its forces against potential attacks from other groups and states. The fighters that launched those first airstrikes over nine years ago carried High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles as a precaution in case Syrian air defenses fired at them.
While Syria did not interfere with initial operations, American and Syrian regime forces did clash in the ensuing years. In June 2016, after Syrian Su-24 bombers struck Kurdish positions in Hasakah near U.S. positions, U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors swooped in and successfully deterred follow-up strikes.
A year later, a U.S. Navy F/A-18E shot down a Syrian Su-22 Fitter after it bombed the SDF in Raqqa province. It marked the first air-to-air shootdown of its kind by a U.S. fighter jet since the Kosovo campaign in 1999.
Russia has also intermittently interfered with U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition operations. For example, Russian jets harassed a U.S. MQ-9 drone the same day that drone successfully assassinated an ISIS leader in eastern Syria. Earlier this year, Russian fighter jets in Syria began flying aggressively and dangerously close to U.S. aircraft in several incidents that alarmed U.S. officials. The U.S. responded by to redeploying F-22s to the region to deter them.
Russia had previously conducted unsafe and erratic flying in the vicinity of U.S. aircraft in 2017. In June 2016, Russian Su-34 Fullback attack jets even bombed U.S.-allied anti-ISIS militiamen in the Al-Tanf base in southern Syria using cluster munitions.
But the biggest and most notable confrontation between American and Russian forces occurred in February 2018 when an estimated 500 pro-regime Syrian militiamen and Russian Wagner mercenaries attacked a U.S.-SDF position in the country’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. The attack sparked the so-called Battle of Conoco Fields, “the first deadly clash between citizens of Russia and the United States since the Cold War.”
In the end, decisive and deadly U.S. strikes killed at least 100 attackers and foiled their operation. The American troops or SDF fighters on the ground suffered zero casualties.
Aside from clashing with Russian and regime forces, the U.S. also intermittently clashed with Iranian-backed forces in Syria. A notable escalation occurred this March when an Iranian-built loitering munitions (one-way, explosive drone) targeted a U.S. base near Hasakah, killing an American contractor. F-15Es bombed militia positions in response, killing at least eight.
In August 2022, the U.S. retaliated to militia attacks by killing four militiamen using Apache helicopters, AC-130 gunships, and M777 howitzers.
U.S. fighters have also shot down Iranian-made drones, including a Shahed-129, over Al-Tanf.
Similar incidents will undoubtedly emerge in the future so long as the U.S. maintains its military presence in the country.
As these numerous incidents aptly demonstrate, those attempting to interfere with U.S. anti-ISIS operations or pressure its troop presence — through Iranian-sponsored drone and rocket attacks, erratic Russian flying, and now armed Turkish drone overflights — will face swift interdiction or even firm retaliation.
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