The U.S. military believes that an unarmed American drone reported lost near Libya's capital last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses and it is demanding the return of the aircraft's wreckage, U.S. Africa Command says.
Such a shootdown would underscore Moscow's increasingly muscular role in the energy-rich nation, where Russian mercenaries are reportedly intervening on behalf of east Libya-based commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya's civil war.
Haftar has sought to take the capital Tripoli, now held by Libya's internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).
U.S. Army General Stephen Townsend, who leads Africa command, said he believed the operators of the air defenses at the time "didn't know it was a U.S. remotely piloted aircraft when they fired on it."
"But they certainly know who it belongs to now and they are refusing to return it. They say they don't know where it is but I am not buying it," Townsend told Reuters in a statement, without elaborating.