US Drone Crashes in Somalia

An American drone has crashed in Somalia, a US official said Tuesday, after al-Shabaab militants claimed to have recovered the wreckage.

“I can confirm an RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) crashed in a remote area of the Somali coastline south of Mogadishu,” said the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The incident is under investigation,” the official told media.

Officials declined to comment on what type of unmanned aircraft had crashed, whether it was armed and why it had gone down.

Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents said late Tuesday their fighters had recovered the wreckage of what they said was a crashed surveillance drone.

“This one is off the scrap yard,” the Shebab said in a message on Twitter alongside photographs it said were “wreckage of a crashed US drone”.

“This one will no longer be able to spy on Muslims again,” the Shebab said. “So much for the empty rhetoric on the drone programme,” they added, an apparent reference to a recent speech by US President Barack Obama on the use of the unmanned, robotic planes.

Al-Shabaab said the drone crashed near the southern Somali village of Bulo Marer in the Lower Shabelle region, an area held by the extremists.

French commandos had raided the village in January in a failed bid to free a kidnapped colleague.

The sound — or sight — of surveillance drones are common in southern Somalia, and missile strikes also have reportedly been carried out.

{NMG}