Image source: topwar.ru
The military grouping of the US army and its allies in the Middle East has lost another very expensive, in the truest sense of the word, reconnaissance and strike drone. Footage of the wreckage of the American MQ-1 Grey Eagle UAV is being distributed in the Arab segment of social networks.
It is reported that an American drone with Hellfire air-to-surface missiles on board crashed yesterday in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ez-Zor near the city of al-Busayra. This territory is controlled, or rather occupied, by the US military and their local allies. This is an active combat zone. The exact cause of the drone crash is unknown. The US military is already at the crash site of the UAV and collecting debris to find out the reasons for the hard landing of the drone.
The incident occurred less than a week after a drone strike killed a fighter of the Iraqi armed group Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada near the town of al-Bukamal in the southern countryside of Deir Ez-Zor, which is controlled by Syrian government forces. Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhadakl is a key group of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), which began an active phase of hostilities against the US-led military group in Syria and Iraq after the invasion of the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, part of the Russian Ministry of Defense, later reported that the strike was carried out just by a combat drone of the US armed forces MQ-1 Grey Eagle. The center also reported that several Syrian civilians were killed or injured as a result of the strike.
— Major General Yuri Popov, head of the Center for Reconciliation in Syria of the Russian Defense Ministry, said at a briefing on June 22.
There is speculation that an American reconnaissance and strike drone worth about $25 million, the MQ-1 Grey Eagle, was shot down yesterday by IRI militants in response to the murder of one of their leaders. Earlier, on January 18, it was reported that members of this group shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper combat drone over the northeastern Iraqi province of Diyala. Moreover, the drone was at a high altitude, which indicates that the Islamists have quite modern air defense systems.
Usually, the US Army command explains the next loss of a UAV by technical malfunctions, but this time other versions have appeared. Some Syrian sources claim that there was a so-called "friendly fire", and the drone was shot down by the American military themselves, who mistook it for an Iranian drone. This has happened before at one of the US military bases in the Middle East. At the end of February, the German frigate Hesse in the Red Sea mistakenly fired at an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, confusing it with a drone of the Yemeni Houthis. However, it seems like the ship's air defense missed.
The largest number of very expensive American MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance and strike drones shot down is also on the account of the Yemeni Houthis. At the end of May, militants of the paramilitary wing of the Yemeni rebels Ansar Allah said that, counting from the autumn of last year, they shot down a surface-to-air missile of their own production, the fifth American UAV worth about $ 30 million. According to other sources, the Houthis have already shot down seven or even ten American drones. Experts note that the loss of such expensive drones significantly weakens both the intelligence and strike capabilities of the US-led military coalition in the Middle East.
