American Warplane Shoots Down Iranian-Made Drone Over Syria

The official added the USA has "repositioned" its air forces in Syria in the wake of the US downing of the Russian-made Syrian jet.

Pentagon spokesperson Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the U.S.is not aware of who was manning the drone, but noted that Iran has sold the Shaheed-129 drone to the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Just before the shooting down of the Syrian bomber, U.S. officials say there was a movement of regime ground troops with tanks and artillery towards two towns near Raqqa that were held by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The statement said the location was close to where another "pro-regime" drone - which intelligence sources separately identified as Iranian - was shot down on June 8 after dropping bombs near coalition forces.

Murphy's remarks came two days after a U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane for the first time, prompting Russian Federation to issue a threat against American airborne assets over Syrian airspace.

The Syrian plane destroyed on Sunday, a Su-22 fighter bomber, was hit after reportedly dropping bombs near the town of Tabqa in Raqqa province.

In response, Russian Federation said its surface-to-air missile systems in Syria would track aircraft from the USA -led coalition as targets if they go west of the Euphrates River.

What the recent incidents "indicate is a complicated and complex battlespace, and we continue to try to operate transparently and to communicate intentions around our actions so it is clear we are focusing on the defeat of ISIS in Syria", US Central Command spokesman Colonel John Thomas said on Monday.

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, the spokesman for the US -led air war command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, said the hotline had not been interrupted. USA officials said the plane was armed and flying "erratically".

The area falls in a part of Syria that was recently identified as a military priority by Damascus, and is seen as strategically important for Iran as it seeks to secure a land corridor between forces it backs in Syria and Iraq.

Australia has six fighter jets based in the United Arab Emirates that strike targets in Syria and Iraq.

"The chance for a catastrophic error is higher now than ever before in the six-year-old civil war", USA -based intelligence advisory firm The Soufan Group noted Tuesday.

Also on June 18, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it had deployed several "ground-to-ground, mid-range missiles" from a base in western Iran at ISIS forces in the Deir Ezzor region, marking the first time Iran had fired rockets at another country in three decades and a significant escalation of its military involvement in Syria's civil war. The extremists increasingly have fled to Deir el-Zour as the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa has come under punishing US -led airstrikes.

The U.S. could increasingly find itself engaging Syrian regime, Iranian, or even Russian military assets as the campaign to retake the Islamic State's capital of Raqqa escalates.

Sunday's incident marks the latest in a series of United States attacks on pro-regime forces.

The communications channel has been repeatedly used to avoid air mishaps and to relay messages of concern when hostile forces approach the deconfliction zones.

No Americans or USA allies were wounded in either incident, officials said. "That would be another mistake on the scope of the Iraq War", he said.