US warplanes have bombed a small drone used by Islamic State extremists in Iraq, marking the first time American-led forces had targeted an unmanned aircraft flown by the jihadists, officials said Wednesday.
The strike took place on Tuesday near the western city of Fallujah, destroying “a remotely piloted aircraft” and a vehicle with the IS forces, according to a statement from the US military command overseeing the campaign against the group.
The drone, used for battlefield surveillance, was “small-scale” and not a sophisticated aircraft equivalent to some US-made robotic planes that can fly at high altitudes or launch missiles, US defense officials said.
After flying the drone for a short period, Islamic State militants placed it on a vehicle. American aircraft then struck the vehicle near Fallujah, officials said.
The airstrike on the IS drone was among 11 carried out by US-led aircraft in Iraq and two conducted in Syria on Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
The strikes included five air raids near the western town of Ramadi in Iraq, with two IS-held bridges targeted along with a sniper position, an excavator and an IS “tactical unit,” the military statement said.
Photo: An EA-18G Growler launches March 3 from the flight deck of aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in the Arabian Gulf – MC2 John Philip Wagner Jr./US Navy
Source: Defense News
Let me get this straight, the US announced that one of its aircraft (carrier launched?) destroyed a model type RC drone and the truck it was being stored in using a very expensive air to ground guided missile or smart bomb, while at the same time also admitting that it’d lost one of its own Preditor drones somewhere over Syria. Sounds
like a fair exchange to me.
Haha did they have a DJI Phantom?