Pentagon confirms drone crash in Somalia

Politico
Wednesday, May 29, 2013

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The Pentagon has confirmed that a U.S. reconnaissance drone crashed off the coast of Somalia on Monday, but defense officials deny it was shot down by fighters loyal to the al-Shabab insurgency.

The Al Qaeda-affiliated militant group posted several pictures to its Twitter account that it claimed are parts of a drone it shot down with the message: “This one will no longer be able to spy on Muslims again. So much for the empty rhetoric on the drone program!”

U.S. military officials said it’s “highly unlikely” that the drone was shot down, especially since the aircraft fly at such high altitudes.

“During the course of a routine surveillance mission along the coast of Somalia on May 27, a military remotely piloted aircraft crashed in a remote area near the shoreline of Mogadishu,” a defense spokesman told POLITICO on Tuesday.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. The Pentagon declined to identify what kind of drone had crashed. American surveillance drones are believed to operate from the U.S. base in Djibouti, from an airport in the Seychelles and smaller drones fly from U.S. warships at sea.

Lower Shabelle region governor Abdikadir Mohamed Nur told Reuters that al-Shabab militants had shot at the aircraft over the town of Bulamareer for several hours before it crashed.

“Finally, they hit it and the drone crashed,” Nur said, per the wire report.

Local residents said the fighters kept them away from the crash site.

“Al-Shabab fighters surrounded the scene. We are not allowed to go near it,” resident Aden Farah told Reuters.

Al-Shabab has been trying to hold on to territory in Somalia after being driven out of the capital of Mogadishu, and have taken to fighting in more remote regions of the country.

Although President Barack Obama said last week that he wants the U.S. to use higher standards before targeting terrorists with lethal drone strikes, he placed no restrictions on their use in nonlethal reconnaissance flights. Africa Command has been beefing up its unarmed drone presence in Africa to help stop nations like Somalia and Yemen from becoming havens for terrorists to launch attacks. The Defense Department recently signed an agreement with Niger to operate a drone base there.

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