US airstrikes shoot down drone, kill 17 civilians in Syria

US warplanes continue their unauthorized strikes in Syria, shooting down a pro-Syrian drone near the Jordanian border and killing 17 civilians in the northern province of Raqqah.

According to Colonel Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the US-led coalition in Syria, a US airstrike hit the drone near the coalition’s al-Tanf garrison close to the Jordanian border on Thursday.

Dillon said although the missile the drone had fired hit only dirt and no one was hurt, it was meant to target coalition forces patrolling outside a so-called “deconfliction zone.”

The drone was about the same size as a US MQ-1 Predator and it is not immediately clear who owned the aircraft, Dillon pointed out.

The US has declared the surrounding 55 kilometers around the town of al-Tanf a deconfliction zone, in which only forces allied to Washington are allowed entry. The US has not received any permission from Damascus for the move.

It was the third time in less than a month that the US-led forces struck pro-Syrian forces near al-Tanf.

The US decision to establish the deconfliction zone comes as Russia, with backing from Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran, brokered a deal for establishing “de-escalation zones” in mainly militant-held areas of Syria during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital city of Astana in early May.