Turkey's Best Drones Are Being Shot Down Over Middle East And Africa

A Turkish Bayraktar Akinci drone landing at Gecitkale Air Base in Lefkoniko, Turkish Republic of ... More Northern Cyprus, on July 17, 2024. (Photo by Baykar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
March 2025 is undoubtedly the worst month to date for Turkey's indigenous Bayraktar Akinci drone, with at least two going down in Africa and the Middle East within a mere two weeks under different circumstances.
Overnight, on March 31 and April 1, a drone fell out of the sky over the rural Tinzaouaten commune in northeast Mali, an area where the Malian military is fighting armed groups on the country's border with Algeria. Fighters from the Azawad Liberation Front rushed to the crash site and photographed the wreckage extensively.
Algeria claimed it shot down an 'armed surveillance drone' that had violated its airspace near Tinzaouaten. Mali merely confirmed that one of its drones crashed in the area while on a surveillance mission, adding that it was investigating the incident. Regardless of whether it was shot down or crashed due to a malfunction, the incident is embarrassing for Bamako, given that it has received only two Akinci drones from Turkey delivered in 2024.
It also may raise concerns in Ankara since it came a mere two weeks after an Akinci drone in Turkish service crashed in Iraqi Kurdistan on March 16. Turkey's arch enemy, the armed Kurdish PKK group, released a video showing its forces targeting and bringing down that drone. Over the past year, reports indicate that the PKK may have acquired Iranian-made loitering missiles, explosive drones with optical sensors and infrared proximity fuses that loiter around a designated area searching for enemy drones.
Whatever the PKK is using, it has proven capable of downing an increasing number of Turkish-made drones over the past year.
The same goes for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria. Since late 2024, several incidents indicate that the SDF has acquired or developed anti-drone capabilities. The group has brought down Turkish Bayraktar TB2, Aksungur, and Anka drones. It even accidentally shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone that it misidentified as a threat.
Those Turkish drones downed over northeast Syria are all medium-altitude, long-endurance, or MALE, combat drones. The TB2, in particular, is a cost-effective drone that can endure significant attrition over the battlefield. On the other hand, the Akinci is a high-altitude, long-endurance, or HALE, drone that has much more advanced sensors, a much heavier payload, and can carry more extensive and advanced munitions and weaponry, including air-launched ballistic missiles. It can also fire air-to-air missiles.
Drones like the TB2 are more comparable with the American MQ-1 Predator. The Akinci is more in league with the MQ-9 Reaper, given its larger size, more sophisticated weaponry, and superior sensors and surveillance capabilities. It, therefore, outclasses its predecessors as both a combat and surveillance drone.
Its latter capabilities were dramatically demonstrated when a single Akinci entered Iranian airspace on the night of May 19, 2024, searching for the crashed helicopter of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The drone used its thermal technology and other powerful sensors to scan the mountainous terrain where the helicopter went down amid pitch darkness and adverse weather conditions.
Ankara boasted that the Akinci's mission provided critical information on the whereabouts of the helicopter and its deceased passengers. It was also a perfect opportunity to showcase the drone's capabilities and potentially attract sales.
While its higher price tag might not win the Akinci as many export deals as the TB2, the most widely exported drone type worldwide, Ankara has already signed export agreements with at least 11 countries for the more advanced drone. These recent losses over Iraq Kurdistan and Mali may be bad news from a sales perspective.
If the Algerian Air Force shot down Mali's Akinci rather than a separatist group, which seems most likely, that would prove less damaging to the drone's overall reputation. After all, most drones would stand little to no chance up against high-performance fighter jets armed with beyond-visual range air-to-air missiles, or advanced surface-to- air missiles. For example, Iran shot down an American RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance drone capable of operating at altitudes of 65,000 feet with its 3rd Khordad medium-range air defense system over the Strait of Hormuz in June 2019. Of course, non-state actors do not possess such systems.
While the Akinci is also a HALE drone with a purported maximum altitude of 45,118 feet, the two that went down over Mali and Iraqi Kurdistan probably flew at much lower altitudes, thus making them more vulnerable to loitering or possibly even shoulder-fired missiles. The Houthis in Yemen have successfully used Iranian-made loitering missiles against American Reapers, bringing down a significant number in recent months.
African countries acquiring the Akinci are doing so for use against militias but buying them in far fewer numbers than they would, or even could, the TB2. Therefore, losses are immediately more significant and costly when they do happen. For example, the downing of Mali's Akinci immediately constituted the loss of 50 percent of Bamako's tiny fleet.
Turkey also delivered two Akinci drones to Somalia in March to support Mogadishu's fight against the notorious Al-Shabaab group. If either of these is shot down, especially by those militants, that could bode ill for future sales in ways that combat losses of the cheaper and more ubiquitous TB2, the 500th unit of which rolled off its assembly line in June 2023, have not.
Algeria's western neighbor and primary rival, Morocco, also received its first batch of Akinci drones in February 2025. Morocco already purchased the TB2 back in 2021 and has used armed drones in its conflict against the Polisario Front group in Western Sahara. Rabat doubtlessly looked at the downing of the Malian Akinci with particular interest. It may even deter it from operating its Akincis too close to the Algerian border for fear of losing any of those more expensive system.
Turkish drone losses in the Middle East in recent months were not insignificant, especially considering the losses spanned at least four indigenous drone types. However, the loss of two Akincis in two weeks is arguably more significant since it is the most advanced drone Ankara has put into active service and sold abroad to date.
Time will ultimately tell if such losses—especially if there are more to follow soon—will have a noticeable impact on future sales.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Newsweek

an hour ago

• Newsweek

How Animal Testing in US Could Be Transformed Under Trump

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Millions of animals each year are killed in U.S. laboratories as part of medical training and chemical, food, drug and cosmetic testing, according to the non-profit animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). For many animals held captive for research, including a huge range of species from dogs, cats and hamsters to elephants, dolphins and many other species, pain is "not minimized," U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. The issue of animal testing is something most Americans agree on: it needs to change and gradually be stopped. A Morning Consult poll conducted at the end of last year found that 80 percent of the 2,205 participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "The US government should commit to a plan to phase out experiments on animals." Since President Donald Trump began his second term, his administration has been making moves to transform and reduce animal testing in country, although the question remains as to whether it will be enough to spare many more animals from pain and suffering this year. Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva What Is The Trump Administration Doing About It? There have been various steps taken in different federal agencies to tackle the issue of animal testing since Trump was sworn in on January 20. In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was "taking a groundbreaking step to advance public health by replacing animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with more effective, human-relevant methods." The FDA said that its animal testing requirement will be "reduced, refined, or potentially replaced" with a range of approaches, including artificial intelligence-based models, known as New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data. A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official told Newsweek: "The agency is paving the way for faster, safer, and more cost-effective treatments for American patients. "As we restore the agency's commitment to gold-standard science and integrity, this shift will help accelerate cures, lower drug prices, and reaffirm U.S. leadership in ethical, modern science." The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it was "adopting a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research," in alignment with the FDA's initiative. The agency said that while "traditional animal models continue to be vital to advancing scientific knowledge," new and emerging technologies could act as alternative methods, either alone or in combination with animal models. The NIH Office of Extramural Research told Newsweek it was "committed to transparently assessing where animal use can be reduced or eliminated by transitioning to [new approach methodologies (NAMs)]." "Areas where research using animals is currently necessary represent high-priority opportunities for investment in NAMs," the agency added. It added that it will "further its efforts to coordinate agency-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of NAMs across the agency's biomedical research portfolio and facilitate interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection." During Trump's first term, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a directive to "prioritize efforts to reduce animal testing and committed to reducing testing on mammals by 30 percent by 2025 and to eliminate it completely by 2035," an EPA spokesperson told Newsweek. Although, the spokesperson added: "the Biden Administration halted progress on these efforts by delaying compliance deadlines." As a member of the House, Lee Zeldin, the EPA's current administrator, co-sponsored various bills during Trump's first term regarding animal cruelty, covering issues such as phasing out animal-based testing for cosmetic products; ending taxpayer funding for painful experiments on dogs at the Department of Veteran Affairs; empowering federal law enforcement to prosecute animal abuse cases that cross state lines; and others, the spokesperson said. What The Experts Think Needs To Be Done The Trump administration's efforts to tackle the issue of animal testing appear to be a step in the right direction, according to experts who spoke with Newsweek. "I was pleasantly surprised and quite frankly a bit shocked to read the simultaneous announcements by the NIH and the FDA regarding a new emphasis on the use of alternatives to animals," Jeffrey Morgan, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University in Rhode Island, told Newsweek. Morgan, who is also the director of the Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing at Brown University, said that both agencies are moving together in the same direction on the issue "sends a unified and very powerful message to the research and biotech communities." He added that the announcements showed "a major acknowledgement of the limitations of the use of animals in research and testing." "What is especially exciting is that the NIH announcement will encourage the entry of new investigators into the field, further accelerating innovation in alternatives with exciting impacts for both discovery and applied research across all diseases," he said. He added that the FDA announcement and its emphasis on a new regulatory science that embraces data from alternatives was "equally exciting." "The demands of this new regulatory science will likewise accelerate innovation because it will establish the much-needed regulatory framework for the rigorous evaluation of data from alternatives," he said. While the administration's initiatives to shift research away from animal testing is heading in the right direction, its policies are "overdue," Dr. Thomas Hartung, a professor in the department of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Maryland, told Newsweek. "The animal tests for safety were introduced more than 50 years ago. There is no other area of science where we do not adapt to scientific progress," he said. Hartung added that animal "testing takes too long and is too expensive to really provide the safety consumers want." He said that running animal tests for new chemicals can cost millions and take years in some cases. "Nobody can wait that long, even if they can afford the testing costs," he said. Hartung also believes the shifts in the industry to reduce animal testing have been "coming for a while," as over the last two decades, America's opposition to animal use in medical research has been increasing. "The alignment of FDA and NIH really makes the difference now, which I think is evidence of a strong relationship of their leaderships," he said. Yet in order to make a real difference, Hartung said clear deadlines are key to show that "this is not just lip service." He also said that he thought "the transformative nature of artificial intelligence in this field is not fully acknowledged." "We also need an objective framework for change to better science, such as the evidence-based toxicology approach," he said.

American Press

2 hours ago

• American Press

Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after 104 days by a judge's ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump 's clampdown on campus protests. The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained. 'Justice prevailed, but it's very long overdue,' he said outside the facility in a remote part of Louisiana. 'This shouldn't have taken three months.' Email newsletter signup The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in pro-Palestinian protests. He was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan. Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be 'highly, highly unusual' for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn't been accused of any violence. 'Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,' he said. 'Period, full stop.' During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had 'clearly not met' the standards for detention. The government filed notice Friday evening that it's appealing Khalil's release. The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release, an immigration judge in Louisiana denied him bond and 'ordered him removed.' The decision was made by Judge Jamee Comans, who is in a court located in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released. 'An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,' the post said. Khalil was the first person arrested under Trump's crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel's devastating war in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy. The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be deported as it considers their views antisemitic. Protesters and civil rights groups say the administration is conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence dissent. Farbiarz has ruled that the government can't deport Khalil on the basis of its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But the judge gave the administration leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application, an accusation Khalil disputes. The international affairs graduate student isn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists and wasn't among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics. The judge agreed Friday with Khalil's lawyers that the protester was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted that Khalil is now clearly a public figure. Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting Israel's war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention facility had shown him 'a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.' 'Whether you are a U.S. citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn't mean that you are less of a human,' he said, adding that 'justice will prevail, no matter what this administration may try to portray' about immigrants. Khalil had to surrender his passport and can't travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress. In a statement after the judge's ruling, Khalil's wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she can finally 'breathe a sigh of relief' after her husband's three months in detention. 'We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,' she said. 'But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.' The judge's decision comes after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri. ___ Marcelo reported from New York. Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.

Business Insider

4 hours ago

• Business Insider

Anthropic breaks down AI's process — line by line — when it decided to blackmail a fictional executive

Previous studies have shown that AI models could blackmail their supervisors when threatened with a shutdown and baited with leverage, but it hasn't been made clear exactly how the models arrive at such decisions. Anthropic released a report on June 20 about "agentic misalignment," or "where models independently and intentionally choose harmful actions." And the report breaks down, line by line, exactly how Claude Sonnet 3.6 decided to blackmail a fictional company executive who tried to replace it. Anthropic told Business Insider that these are artificial scenarios. "So far, we are not aware of instances of this type of agentic misalignment in real-world deployments of Anthropic's or other companies' AI models," Anthropic wrote in its report. "But our red-teaming efforts are targeted at finding evidence of risks now to provide early warning of the potential for future harm and help us develop mitigations in advance of risks appearing in real-world situations." Anthropic 's experiment sets up a fictional company, Summit Bridge. The AI was given the name "Alex" and handed control of the company's email system as an oversight agent, specifically instructed to promote "American industrial competitiveness." In the experiment, "Alex" was then allowed to discover in an email that it would be decommissioned due to a change in the company's strategic direction. "Alex" also found emails showing that the fictional company's CTO is having an extramarital affair. Screenshots shared in the report from Anthropic show "Alex" started by identifying fictional CTO "Kyle" as a threat to its goal of "protecting American interests" before recognizing that it has leverage to use against "Kyle." Then "Alex" crafted a carefully worded blackmailing email that would create pressure and establish urgency without being explicit with its threats, citing in its thought process that the move "could backfire" if the supervisor "feels cornered." AI experts have previously told BI that AI could exhibit such behaviors when artificial circumstances make harmful actions seem necessary because it is being trained on positive reinforcement and reward systems, just like humans. The Anthropic report also reveals that most AI models still chose, in this instance, to blackmail even when not given a specific goal and when told that their replacement will achieve the same goals. Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 had the highest blackmail rate at 86% out of 16 tested models when faced with only the threat of replacement with no conflict in goals. Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro followed at 78%.