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The Syrian military had shot down an American MQ-4C Triton high-altitude long endurance surveillance drone over the countryside of the northern governorate of Aleppo, the U-News reported on August 4.
An informed source told the news agency, which is known to be close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Syrian state, that the drone was shot down with a missile fired by a Russian-made Buk-M2E air-defense system of the Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces (SyAADF).
“The American plane took off from Martyr Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in the Azraq region in northern Jordan,” the unnamed source said.
U-News didn’t specify when the incident took place. Nevertheless, Syrian sources reported the shot down of a large drone over the western countryside of Aleppo on August 2. Footage showing the drone failing from sky in a ball of flames were shared online.
The US military has not commented on U-News claims, so far. If confirmed, this will be the first time a MQ-4C was shot down.
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On June 20 of 2019, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a BAMS-D drone over the Strait of Hormuz. The drone is a prototype version of the RQ-4A that was developed by Northrop Grumman as a part of the MQ-4C development program.
U-News claims were met with much specialism, mainly because the MQ-4C was developed to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions (ISR) over vast ocean and coastal regions.
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Furthermore, the news agency shared footage showing the wreckage of a Russian Forpost drone which crashed in the western Aleppo countryside, reportedly as a result of a technical failure, on August 3. The agency falsely claimed that the wreckage belonged to the downed MQ-4C.
While there is sufficient evidence to confirm that the SyAADF shot down a large drone over the countryside of Aleppo on August 2, the type of the aircraft and the identity of its operators are yet to be confirmed.
