U.S. Jet Shoots Down Turkish Drone Over Syria

WASHINGTON—A U.S. F-16 fighter shot down a Turkish drone on Thursday after it flew near U.S. forces in northeast Syria, heightening tensions between two allies already at odds over an array of security challenges.

U.S. officials mounted a full-court press to ease relations with its fellow NATO member. The U.S. and its allies need Turkey’s cooperation to secure Sweden’s entry into the Western alliance, potentially carry out future diplomacy over Ukraine and grapple with terrorist threats in the Middle East.

U.S. officials said they have no reason to think Turkey was attempting to target American forces. Yet they acknowledged that a Turkish drone was armed, flew within half a kilometer of U.S. troops and ignored repeated warnings to stay away.

At one point several drones were operating in an area designated by the U.S. for its military operations. The drones left after American warnings, a U.S. official said, but then one returned, prompting the F-16 to take action.

Roughly 900 U.S. troops are based in Syria, working with Kurdish-led fighters to battle Islamic State.

Turkey has long complained that these Syrian Kurds are militants who pose a threat to Ankara. The U.S. insists that its longtime Syrian partner, Gen. Mazloum Abdi of the Syrian Democratic Forces, is focused on combating Islamic State terrorists and isn’t pursuing an anti-Turkish agenda.

That dispute has cast a shadow over American operations in Syria and intensified after a bombing attack in Ankara on Sunday.

In a phone call to Turkish Minister of National Defense Yasar Guler, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “acknowledged Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Thursday.

Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also called his Turkish counterpart, Gen. Metin Gürak, chief of the Turkish General Staff.

The two military commanders discussed how to deconflict U.S.-led operations with the Turkish military, a spokesman for Brown said.

Turkey acknowledged the loss of the drone a day later, in a statement that appeared to downplay the incident, paving the way for a possible de-escalation of tensions.

“During operations, one UCAV was lost due to different technical assessments in the deconfliction mechanism with third parties,” the Turkish foreign ministry said Friday.

Turkish officials say they had information that the perpetrators of the Ankara bombing crossed into Turkey from Syria.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization carried out strikes against facilities in Iraq and Syria it says are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, a Turkish security official said on Thursday. The targets of the strikes included weapons and ammunition stockpiles and the militant group’s “executive staff,” the official said.

The Syrian force the U.S. is working with denies it had any involvement with the Ankara attack.

“The perpetrators of the Ankara attack did not pass through our region as Turkish officials claimed,” Abdi said in a statement. “We are not a party to the civil conflict in Turkey and we do not encourage the escalation of this conflict.”

Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on Wednesday that all facilities in Iraq and Syria under the control of the PKK, which Ankara blames for carrying out the Sunday bombing attack, would be considered legitimate targets for the Turkish military.

He also warned “third parties” to stay away from those targets, an apparent reference to U.S. personnel in Syria.

The Pentagon said some of the Turkish drone strikes carried out Thursday near Al-Hasakah were about a kilometer away from U.S. forces, prompting the American troops to go into bunkers for their safety. 

The Turkish Defense Ministry didn’t address that episode, but said it had destroyed oil wells, shelters and warehouses linked to the PKK in the Tal Rifaat, Jazira and Al-Malikiyah regions.

Middle East analysts said Turkey was unlikely to pull back from its drone attacks despite the calls from top U.S. military officials.

“It’s not every day that the U.S. takes down another NATO member’s drone,” said Charles Lister, director of the Syria counterterrorism programs at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. “This should only be read as an American message to Ankara to quit. But I don’t think the message will be received that way. Turkey sees the PKK as an existential threat, and they will continue to press on this issue.”

Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at Washington’s Institute for Near East Policy and a former Syria director on the White House National Security Council, said that it would be challenging for the U.S. to smooth relations with Turkey.

“The Turks are not going to take the downing of one of their drones lightly,” Tabler said. “The status quo in Syria is deteriorating all over the place. External parties are going to continue to intervene militarily in that space.”

In April, Turkey carried out a drone strike in northern Iraq that came close to a convoy transporting Abdi. Three U.S. military personnel were in the convoy with the leader at the time of the attack, but there were no casualties.

A major challenge for the U.S. is to prevent differences between Washington and Ankara from spilling over into other areas.

Last month, Turkey said it would support Sweden’s bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if the U.S. sold Ankara F-16 jet fighters, the latest challenge to Sweden’s NATO membership.

Erdogan dropped his opposition in July to Sweden’s bid to join NATO after talking with President Biden. But Erdogan’s decision still must be approved by Turkey’s parliament. Sweden has said it has addressed Turkey’s objections, including passing a new antiterrorism law, and is awaiting approval for membership.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com, Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s name was misspelled as Erodogan in one instance in an earlier version of this article. Also, a photograph with this article depicts smoke rising from a car after an alleged Turkish strike on Hasakah, Syria. An earlier caption incorrectly said the photo depicted remnants of the U.S. strike on a Turkish drone.