Two US Drones Collide, Crash Over Syria’s Idlib

The alleged collision took place over Idlib province on Tuesday, an anonymous military official told the Times, though offered few other details about the mishap, declining to confirm what caused the crash or what type of drones were involved. Whether the aircraft were fired upon at any point during the incident is also not known, the official added.

Photos and videos circulating online – which show debris falling from the sky and flaming wreckage on the ground – indicate that at least one of the craft was an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, used for both espionage and armed missions.

With no official explanation for the incident, however, speculation was rife on social media, with some suggesting the drones were shot down by Turkish-backed militants, while others posited that a Russian drone had been downed, despite the Times report pinning both craft as American.