One of the 28 bundles of weapons and medical supplies airdropped by U.S. forces to Kurdish fighters in Syria most likely fell into enemy hands, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday, October 22, but a majority reached their intended recipients.

"We still know that the vast majority of resupply bundles that we dropped went to friendly forces and were received by friendly forces," Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters. "There is always going to be some margin of error in these types of operations. We routinely overload these aircraft because we know that some bundles may go astray."

The pallet was dropped by US C-130 aircraft on sunday night Oct. 19 to resupply Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in the border town of Kobani. U.S.

“One bundle worth of equipment is not enough equipment to give the enemy any type of advantage at all,” Warren told reporters. “It’s a relatively small amount of supplies. This is stuff ISIL already has.”

The weapons, ammunition and medical supplies being dropped to besieged Kurdish forces defending Kobani are being supplied by Kurds in neighboring Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve aimed at eliminating ISIL terrorists who hold significant portions of Northern Iraq and Syria.

A second airdropped bundle with similar contents also went off course, Warren said, but it was destroyed by fighter aircraft soon after it hit the ground. It’s possible that wind could have driven the packages off course, he said.

The US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said Wednesday, Oct. 22, that Washington thinks the weapons airdrop mission in Syria was necessary to protect the besieged city of Kobani and thus successful, even though part of US’ arms ended up in the hands of Islamic State (IS) militants.

"All military missions incur some risk. But the alternative of doing nothing, of not making sure the fighters pushing back ISIL [IS] on the ground in and around Kobani have the weapons and ammunition they need, and the medical supplies they need, we don’t think is a viable option,” Harf said at the State Department press briefing.

Earlier the same day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized US’ actions, stressing that now it was clear, who Washington’s support was for.

In response, Marie Harf said the people, fighting IS on the ground, should have the supplies they need.
“They are responding to repeated ISIL attacks upon their city and, you know we’ll let the Turkish government speak for itself, but allowing ISIL to seize more territory along the border with Turkey could endanger more Syrian communities and threaten our shared interest with Turkey in defeating ISIL and strengthening the moderate opposition,” Harf added.

A Youtube video, uploaded on Tuesday, Oct. 21, showed IS fighters, examining a bundle the group claimed was dropped by US aircraft. The Pentagon conceded the video could be valid but needed more time to verify.