A U.S. F-15 fighter aircraft shot down an Iranian-made drone over southern Syria on Tuesday, a US defense official said, marking the second time in just as many days that the USA military has taken a pro-Syrian government aircraft out of the sky.
On several occasions in recent weeks, warplanes of the USA -led coalition have also struck pro-government forces to prevent them advancing from the Al Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria at a spot where the country's borders join Iraq and Jordan.
The armed Shahed-129 drone was destroyed by a U.S. F-15 fighter jet around 12:30 a.m. local time.
Earlier this month, the US shot down another pro-regime drone in the same area after it dropped munitions near coalition forces.
The United States has moved quickly to contain an escalation of the situation after the jet was downed on Sunday evening when regime forces targeted the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters battling IS.
That led Russian Federation, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, to warn that it would target USA -led coalition planes flying west of the Euphrates River.
That incident prompted the Russian ministry of defense to announce that it would suspend the de-confliction hotline with the coalition which is created to prevent any accidents in the skies over Syria. In Canberra, a Defense Department statement said on Tuesday that "Australian Defense Force protection is regularly reviewed in response to a range of potential threats".
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While Russia has demanded an accounting of the weekend incident, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov asserted on June 20 that the presence of USA forces in Syria was "absolutely illegal".
This is the second such incident in two weeks.
A USA military official told AFP the drone was "on a run towards our folks to drop a munition on them" and was shot down in self-defence. ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State terror group.
Operating in both Syria and Iraq, the force includes about 780 personnel, including 300 service members who work in its air group.
The UK, another key coalition ally, said it would continue to take part in air operations despite Russia's warning.
Two days earlier, an American FA-18 shot down a Syrian SU-22 warplane that had dropped bombs near American-backed fighters combating the Islamic State. "We expect that it will be provided", he said.
The U.S. -led coalition's actions were further complicated by Iran, which over the weekend launched strikes on ISIS targets in Eastern Syria - Iran's first missile strikes into the country.
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