Turkey’s military said its jets shot down an unidentified drone in Turkish air space near Syria on Friday.
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Moscow has blamed navigational error for a few of the intrusions, but a few Western officials have said the violations are deliberate.
The incident underlined the potential dangers of clashes involving Russian, Syrian and U.S.-led coalition planes in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria. It didn’t specify how it had relayed the warnings to the operators of the drone. It was not clear which country the drone belonged to.
The US, Russian Federation and the Syrian government all operate drones in the region.
“We are now seeing a coordinated effort between Iran and Russian Federation to assist Assad with fighting opposition groups”, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A MiG-29 fighter jet, whose military insignia couldn’t be determined, locked radar on Turkish F-16 warplanes for four minutes and 30 seconds along the Syrian border on October. 5, Turkey’s military said in a website statement last week.
The nationality of the pilotless aircraft, which flew three kilometers (1.9 miles) inside Turkey’s border, can’t be identified yet, interim Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu said. Rebels had hit one army tank with a U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missile.
Russian Federation began its huge bombing campaign in a desperate bid to prop up the regime of brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad – a long-time ally of Mr Putin in a region dominated by regimes friendly to the West. There and in the surrounding countryside the front lines have always been static.
Ankara, which supports Syrian rebels, has strongly criticized Russia’s military intervention. He added that troops now control of all hills that overlook Harasta and the nearby suburb of Douma, a stronghold of Islam Army rebel group.
The Observatory said the death toll from Thursday’s fighting and air strikes north of Homs had risen to 60, including 30 women and children.
He told a meeting of former Soviet nations in Kazakhstan that Russian airstrikes have succeeded in obliterating jihadis where the West has failed.
“Dozens of control facilities and ammunition depots, hundreds of terrorists and a large number of weapons have been destroyed”, he said.
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“Now the Russians have come in and Iran is going to send more people in, but it’s also not going to work because they are trying to support a regime that in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the Syrian people is not legitimate”.
