predator drone
© US Airforce
Facts available to the Russian Defense Ministry prove unambiguously a US Predator drone from Turkey's Incirlik airbase was present in the zone of attack on the UN humanitarian convoy in Syria, Gen Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday.

He said it in a comment on the claim by the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Joseph Dunford who told members of a Senate committee the US military did not have proof to support the suppositions that the convoy had been bombed by Russian warplanes.

"This hasn't been concluded but my judgment would be they did it," Gen Dunford said.

"Unlike the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, we do have facts or the information from air data recorders on the situation in the Aleppo zone on September 19," he said. "And this information proves very unambiguously a US attack drone Predator from Incirlik airbase was present in the zone of location of the humanitarian convoy near the town of Urum al-Kurba."

"What the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Secretary of Defense have at their disposal - and it's clear to everyone now - is their personal opinions and fear for a yet another error or a purported provocation," Gen Konashenkov said.

"Generally speaking, if the US Army plans its combat operations and makes reports to the President on the basis of personal opinions instead of verified intelligence data, is it a surprise then that the US military regularly make the blunders, which claim the lives of hundreds of innocent people around the world?" he said.