US spy drone crashes in Somalia

An unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US military has crashed in southern Somalia near the Indian Ocean, Press TV reported. An American remote-controlled reconnaissance drone went down on the outskirts of Kismayo, a strategically important port city on Somalia's Indian Ocean coast located some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the Somali capital Mogadishu, on Monday. Local residents said that they heard a massive explosion after the aircraft crashed and caught fire. They added that that the remains of the spy drone were collected by al-Shabab fighters. Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used assassination drones to launch deadly missile strikes. The US military has also used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia. "The US has unarmed and unmanned aircraft at a facility there (Ethiopia) to be used only for surveillance as part of a broad, sustained integrated campaign to counter terrorism," said Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby. The confirmation appeared a day after The Washington Post revealed in a report that the US flies “armed” drones from an airfield in Ethiopia's southern city of Arba Minch. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.