Turkish Military Shoots Down Apparent Russian Drone Near Syria: Officials

Oct. 16, 2015, 1:12 PM UTC / Updated Oct. 16, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

By Jim Miklaszewski

An unarmed drone that appears to be Russian was shot down by Turkish forces near the Syrian border on Friday, U.S. defense and military officials said.

The drone was flying a mile inside Turkish territory, the officials said. The Associated Press cited the Turkish military saying the drone was shot down after it ignored three warnings to leave.

The U.S. officials told NBC News the unmanned aircraft was an exact match for similar models shot down and recovered in Ukraine over the past year.

The Russians claim all their aircraft and drones have returned safely from Friday flight missions over Syria.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier this month that repeated violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets were "unacceptable" and appeared to be deliberate.

Russian jets have begun airstrikes in Syria, which neighbors Turkey to the south, in support of the country's President Bashar Assad. It says it is targeting ISIS. But Western countries that are also bombing the Islamist extremists, including the U.S., have claimed Moscow has been bombing more moderate rebels.

Jim Miklaszewski

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News. On 9/11, he was the first at the scene to report that the Pentagon had been attacked and has since led the network's coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Since joining NBC in 1985, Miklaszewski was a White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, covering President Clinton's transition from Little Rock, his many trips abroad including Moscow and the Middle East and his reelection. He was also an NBC floor reporter at the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1996 and 2000.

In the Bush White House, Miklaszewski reported on the Gulf War with Iraq, summits with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and the Bush reelection campaign in 1992.

Miklaszewski has logged considerable foreign experience with battlefront coverage of wars in Lebanon, El Salvador and the Falkland Islands. He also covered the United States air raid on Libya, and the "tanker wars" in the Persian Gulf.

The Associated Press contributed.