THE US shot down a Turkish drone over Syria today after it came within 500 yards of its troops.

Turkey launched a series of bombing and drone raids on targets in the Kurdish-controlled north-east, “destroying caves, bunkers, shelters and warehouses,” according to its Defence Ministry.

It said it was targeting locations used by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Ankara last Sunday that wounded two policemen, and its ally the People’s Protection Units (YPG). 

The United States has 900 soldiers in north-east Syria allied to the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, supposedly to prevent a resurgence of the Isis terror group, though former president Donald Trump said the troops were there “for the oil” and Syria says the US illegally exports 80 per cent of the country’s oil output daily via Iraqi Kurdistan.

Though the US shot down the drone approaching its own soldiers, it made no move to defend its supposed allies in the YPG from the Turkish bombing raids. Turkey is also a US ally as a member of the Nato alliance. 

Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brigade General Patrick Ryder said Washington did not believe Turkey had deliberately targeted its troops, and that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown had phoned their Turkish counterparts immediately to assure them they continue to value co-operation with the country.

Kurdish authorities said 11 people had been killed in the bombings.