BAGHDAD: Defence systems at Iraq’s Ain Al-Asad airbase, which hosts US forces, shot down a drone near the base on Sunday, with Iraqi military sources and the US-led international military coalition offering confliciting accounts of the incident.

The US-led international military coalition said in a statement that it had conducted “an operational exercise…that involved engaging an Unmanned Aerial System” at Ain Al-Asad base as part of a training exercise.

RIYADH: The Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf met with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani in Manama on Sunday.

The meeting came as the GCC chief approaches the end of his tenure at the council.

Al-Zayani praised Al-Hajraf’s great efforts to support joint GCC action, its unity and solidarity, and his service to its causes.

The foreign minister also hailed the endeavours of the secretary general to cement the progress of the council in order to meet the aspirations and ambitions of member states.

RIYADH: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation will hold an extraordinary open-ended meeting of its Executive Committee in Jeddah on Tuesday to discuss Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The meeting follows escalating Israeli activity in occupied Jerusalem, most notably a “provocative” visit by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to the mosque compound on Tuesday. It also comes in light of Israel’s attempts to alter the legal and historical status of the holy site.

RAMALLAH: Israel’s security authorities are cracking down hard on Palestinian social-media activists and users for allegedly inciting violence, Palestinian human rights groups claim.

The groups say that Israeli authorities significantly escalated their persecution of Palestinians on social-media platforms, especially Facebook, in 2022. Around 410 Palestinians were detained over the year because of their social-media activities, according to the Palestine Center for Prisoners’ Studies.

ALGIERS: Algerian poet Azzedine Mihoubi, a former minister and presidential candidate, has announced he is quitting politics, denying claims he will challenge President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s re-election bid in 2024.
“My name has been cited by several publications … alongside speculation that has no truth to it,” Mihoubi said in a message shared this week on social media.