Tensions over the war in Syria increased on Tuesday after the United States shot down an Iran-made armed drone, just days after it brought down a Syrian fighter plane in the region.
The US-led coalition fighting Islamic State in the region confirmed that the drone had been shot down in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the south of the country.
Also on Tuesday, a Russian fighter jet came within five feet of a US warplane over the Baltic Sea, a further sign of tensions between the two countries, as Nato and Russia operate in close proximity.
Russia reacted with fury to the shooting down of the Syrian plane, threatening to suspend a hotline used by the United States and Russia to avoid collisions in the airspace over Syria.
The United States targeted the plane after it dropped bombs near American-backed fighters battling Islamic State.
The targeting of the Iran-made drone threatens to further strain relations in the region, where the United States and Russia are backing opposite sides in the Syrian civil war. Iran is allied with Russia in the conflict.
The developments came as the White House confirmed in recent days that it was ceding greater power to defence secretary James Mattis and the Pentagon to decide on troop numbers in Afghanistan –part of a broader move by the US president to delegate responsibility for various foreign missions.
Press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was being briefed on the situation in Syria and the United States was keeping “lines of communication open” with Moscow.
Geopolitical tensions were also reignited by the death of American student Otto Warmbier on Monday, following his release by North Korea last week. Mr Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested in North Korea in early 2016 and detained for almost 18 months. He had travelled to the closed communist country as part of a trip arranged from Beijing.
Medical centre
Mr Warmbier, who was being treated at the University of Cincinnati medical centre since returning to the United States in a coma, died on Monday afternoon.
President Donald Trump said that what had happened to him was “a total disgrace”. “It should never, ever be allowed to happen,” he said, “and frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different”.
Relations between Washington and Pyongyang have been strained since Mr Trump’s inauguration, with US security officials concerned with the potential nuclear build-up by the Asian state, particularly the possible development of technology that could allow North Korea to reach the mainland of the United States with a nuclear missile.
Meanwhile, results of a closely-watched special election in Georgia were expected to come in late on Tuesday night, as voters in the sixth congressional district of Atlanta went to the polls to elect a replacement for Tom Price, the former congressman who was appointed by Mr Trump as health and human services secretary earlier this year.
The election is seen as a barometer of public feeling ahead of the next set of mid-term elections in November 2018, when Democrats are hoping to win back control of the House of Representatives.
Though Republicans have held the seat since 1979, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, a relative political unknown who is challenging Karen Handel (55) for the seat, was slightly ahead in the polls.
Mr Ossoff garnered 48 per cent of the vote in the first round of elections in May.
Mr Trump performed poorly in the district during last year’s presidential election, winning by just 1.5 percentage points, compared with Mitt Romney’s 23-point victory in 2012.
Mr Trump weighed in on Twitter on the eve of the election, urging voters to back Ms Handel and tweeting that Mr Ossoff wanted to “raise taxes and kill healthcare”.
