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The Iraqi military announced on August 29 that it had shot down a Turkish combat drone over the northern city of Kirkuk.
“A Turkish drone which penetrated Iraqi airspace has been shot down,” the deputy air defense commander for Kirkuk, General Abdel Salam Ramadan, told a press conference at the site of the downing.
The drone had come “from the direction of Sulaimaniyah,” the second largest city of the Kurdish autonomous region to the north, Ramadan said.
Falling debris from the interception damaged a house in the city center. However, there were no reports of any direct casualties.
The downed drone was later identified as a Turkish Aerospace Industries’ Aksungur, one of the largest models currently in service with the Turkish military.
The Aksungur was first introduced into service in 2021. The drone has an operational range of 6,500 kilometers and an endurance of up to 49 hours. It can be armed with a wide range of weapons, including precision-guided glide bombs with a stand-off range.
Videos posted to social networks indicate that the drone was shot down over Kirkuk by a Russian-made Pantsir-S short-range air defense system with a single missile.
Russia delivered at least 24 Pantsir-S systems to Iraq by 2016. These systems make up the bulk of the country’s small air defense network. Iraqi plans to acquire more Pantsir-S and other types of air defense systems are yet to materialize due to financial and political obstacles.
The Pantsir-S, which is armed with missiles and guns with a top engagement range of 15 kilometers, has proven its worth against Turkish-made drones more than once in the last few years, from Libya to Syria, Armenia and Ukraine.
It’s worth noting that the Turkish military expanded its operations against the PKK in Kurdistan in recent months. However, this didn’t lead to any tensions with Iraq. The downing of the drone over Kirkuk will not likely cause a crisis, although it reveals disagreements between the two countries.
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