DUBAI: Iran’s navy seized two American sea drones in the Red Sea before letting them go Friday, officials said, in the latest maritime incident involving the US Navy’s new drone fleet in the Mideast.
Iranian state television aired footage it said came from the deck of the Iranian navy’s Jamaran destroyer, where lifejacket-wearing sailors examined two Saildrone Explorers. They tossed one overboard as another warship could be seen in the distance.

AMMAN: Jordan said its pressure on Israel had halted all international flights from Eilat’s Ramon Airport.

Transport Minister Wajih Azaizeh said the country’s objection to the airport in the Red Sea port city had pushed the facility to only operate domestic flights.

According to the flight departure list on the airport’s website, there were no international flights scheduled for the next two weeks.

The only scheduled departures from the airport up to Sept. 16 were Arkia Israeli Airlines and Israir Airlines flights into Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

CHICAGO: Although President Bashar Assad continues to survive the civil war that has gripped Syria since 2011, he controls only 60 percent of the country and his regime’s largest source of revenue is now drug trafficking, according to an expert on the nation’s geopolitical history.

JEDDAH: An Israeli airstrike on Aleppo airport in northern Syrian disabled the runway just as a cargo plane linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was about to land, new satellite photos show.

The images confirm that Israel has intensified strikes on Syrian airports to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

DUBAI: Comments recently made by a White House official to Al-Arabiya point to progress in indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel to find a solution to their maritime boundary dispute. But any progress raises a host of questions that Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia which holds sway over the Lebanese government, will find deeply embarrassing.