Syria downed US drone over ‘spying’ fears
UAE recalls envoy to Sweden
STOCKHOLM: The United Arab Emirates has recalled its ambassador to Sweden, a Swedish government source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday, a week after Saudi Arabia made the same move.
The source did not say why the UAE had withdrawn its envoy or provide other details. Last week the UAE’s larger neighbour Saudia Arabia recalled its own envoy to Stockholm after branding Swedish criticism of its human rights record as “interference in its internal affairs”.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry declined to comment yesterday on the UAE envoy, referring questions to Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s spokesman who was not immediately available for comment.
Sweden’s government said yesterday it would hold urgent talks with business leaders to discuss concerns over trade with Gulf countries following a deepening diplomatic row with Saudi Arabia and criticism from the Arab League.
“We’ve invited company leaders who have business in the Gulf region to a meeting because of the fact that Sweden ended its military cooperation agreement with Saudia Arabia,” a spokeswoman for the Enterprise Ministry, Ann Wolgers told AFP.
“There are a lot of questions around what happens now and there’s a certain amount of concern among business leaders... When the (Enterprise) Minister Mikael Damberg saw this he decided to organise a meeting so they can ask questions.”
The meeting was reportedly scheduled for today. Wallstroem is also expected to attend. Sweden’s relations with Saudi Arabia hit an alltime low last month after Wallstroem described the Gulf state as a “dictatorship” that violates women’s rights and whips bloggers.
The Swedish foreign minister later came under fire from the League’s members for her criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record in the Swedish parliament, which they viewed as an affront to Sharia law.
Swedish business leaders had warned the government that ending its 10-year-long military cooperation with Saudi Arabia-Sweden’s third largest non-Western destination for arms salescould have far-reaching consequences. Some of them openly questioned the government’s handling of the issue.
“If you make an enemy of the Arab League it can cause very major damage,” Leif Johansson, chairman of telecoms group Ericsson, told business daily Dagens Industri. —AFP DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said yesterday it downed an American drone over suspicions it was spying, in what would be its first attack on an aircraft in the US-led coalition battling jihadists. A military source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the drone was not immediately identified as being American but was shot down as a hostile aircraft.
“As soon as it entered Syrian air space, we considered it to be gathering security and military information on Syria’s territory,” the source in Damascus said. “The aircraft entered areas where Daesh is not present,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.
Syrian state media reported late Tuesday that air defences had targeted a US surveillance aircraft over Latakia province, a coastal stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad.
Without specifying a location or timing for the incident, state media published a series of close-up photos showing what they said was the mangled wreckage of a small aircraft.
The US military confirmed losing communication with a Predator drone over Syria on Tuesday and said it was looking into claims the aircraft was shot down. At about 1740 GMT, “US military controllers lost contact with a US MQ-1 Predator unarmed remotely piloted aircraft operating over northwest Syria”, a US defence official said in an email. “At this time, we have no information to corroborate press reports that the aircraft was shot down. We are looking into the incident and will provide more details when available.”
If confirmed, the incident would be the first time Syrian forces have attacked a US aircraft since the international coalition began its raids against IS in Syria in September.
Damascus is not participating in the coalition’s strikes, although its own aircraft also target IS, but has so far refrained from taking action against the foreign planes involved in the operations.
It has been critical of the coalition, warning before the strikes began that it would consider them an attack on Syria if they went ahead without government consent.
After the first raids on September 23, Damascus said it was notified ahead of time, though Washington has ruled out actively cooperating with Assad’s government on the attacks. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said last year that Washington had pledged its raids would not hit the Syrian army, though he added that Damascus was sceptical of the commitment.
“Do we trust this commitment? For now, we realise that President Barack Obama, for domestic reasons, wants to avoid war with Syria,” he told Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper. “But we do not know how Obama will act under mounting pressure.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the drone was shot down in Al-Maqata, a village near the provincial capital of Latakia. “There are no opposition fighters or jihadist groups anywhere in that area, but there is a large presence of regime forces,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. —AFP