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“The incident is under investigation,” the official told AFP.
Officials declined to comment on what type of unmanned aircraft had crashed, whether it was armed and why it had gone down.
Somalia’s Shebaab insurgents said late on Tuesday their fighters had recovered the wreckage of what they said was a crashed surveillance drone.
“This one is off the scrap yard,” the Shebaab said in a message on Twitter alongside photographs it said were “wreckage of a crashed US drone”.
“This one will no longer be able to spy on Muslims again,” the Shebaab said.
“So much for the empty rhetoric on the drone programme,” they added, an apparent reference to a recent speech by US President Barack Obama on the use of the unmanned, robotic planes.
The Shebaab said the drone crashed near the southern Somali village of Bulo Marer in the Lower Shabelle region, an area held by the extremists.
French commandos had raided the village in January in a failed bid to free a kidnapped colleague.
The sound — or sight — of surveillance drones are common in southern Somalia, and missile strikes also have reportedly been carried out.
The United States reportedly has drone bases in the region, including an airfield in Djibouti. — AFP.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter