World
The United States lost one of its Predator drone aircraft over northwest Syria on Tuesday, U.S. officials said, as Syrian state media reported its air defenses brought down the spy plane in the government-controlled Latakia province.
If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces took down the U.S. aircraft - something U.S. officials said was not immediately certain - it would raise the stakes in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic State militants that began in Syria in late September, writes Reuters.
The United States has previously described Assad's air defenses as "passive," meaning they have not engaged the U.S.-led coalition's aircraft as American and other planes carry out strikes against militants. The U.S. airstrikes have not targeted Assad's forces or military infrastructure.
Tuesday's incident took place sometime around 7:40 pm in Syria, when the United States lost contact with an unarmed MQ-1 Predator aircraft operating over northwest Syria, a U.S. official said.
A second U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft took off from a base in Turkey and a third official confirmed it was operating over Latakia province.
A fourth U.S. official said the aircraft was destroyed but U.S. officials were not ready to say what happened - much less whether Assad's forces might have engaged the aircraft. They said the cause of the incident was unclear.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports, Syrian activists have accused government forces of using chlorine in an attack in the north-western province of Idlib late on Monday. Two groups reported that three children were among six people killed when aircraft dropped barrel bombs filled with the toxic chemical on Sarmin.
The Syrian military has denied the claim, describing it as propaganda. A local activist said barrel bombs were dropped on two locations in Sarmin Chlorine is a common industrial chemical, but its use as a weapon is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Syria signed the treaty after the nerve agent sarin was used in an August 2013 attack on several suburbs of Damascus that killed hundreds of people.
Western powers said only the government could have carried out the attack, but it blamed the rebels. In January, international investigators concluded that chlorine gas had been used in air raids on three villages that were blamed on the government.
Earlier this month, the UN Security Council approved a resolution that condemned the use of toxic chemicals such as chlorine in Syria, and threatened military action in case of further violations.
