A drone was intercepted late on Thursday near Arbil airport, which houses US-led anti-jihadist coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, Kurdish security forces said.<\/p>\n
“At 21:58 (1858 GMT) an explosive-packed drone was downed near Arbil International Airport, without causing casualties or damage,” said the counterterrorism services of the Kurdistan region.<\/p>\n
Arbil airport, which includes a military base of the international anti-jihadist coalition, was a frequent target in previous years for rocket and drone attacks.<\/p>\n
A US defence official told AFP “we are aware of an explosion from a UAV that occurred outside of the airbase in Arbil”, adding that the “incident is under investigation”.<\/p>\n
“All US personnel are accounted for and there were no injuries or damage to the base or US assets in the area,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dana Tofeek, the airport’s interim director, told AFP that the facility is “safe”, adding that “only one flight was slightly delayed due to security measures”.<\/p>\n
There has been no claim of responsibility for the drone attack.<\/p>\n
In the past days, drone and rocket attacks have been reported in different parts of Iraq, including drones that landed in open spaces.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday, an explosive-packed drone fell near Kirkuk airport, which was struck on Monday by two rockets, a senior security official told AFP.<\/p>\n
Kirkuk airport hosts Iraqi army units, federal police and the Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of pro-Iran former paramilitary forces now integrated into the regular armed forces.<\/p>\n
Early on Tuesday, Iraq’s anti-aircraft defence engaged at least one drone near the key refinery of Baiji in Salaheddin province.<\/p>\n
Last week, hours before a ceasefire ended the 12-day Iran-Israel war, unidentified drones struck radar systems at two military bases, in Baghdad and southern Iraq.<\/p>\n
Iraq has long been a battleground of drone and rocket assaults and proved a fertile ground for proxy wars.<\/p>\n
The country has only recently regained a semblance of stability after decades of devastating conflicts and turmoil.<\/p>\n
str-rh\/jsa<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A drone was intercepted late on Thursday near Arbil airport, which houses US-led anti-jihadist coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, Kurdish security forces said. “At 21:58 (1858 GMT) an explosive-packed drone was downed near Arbil International Airport, without causing casualties or damage,” said the counterterrorism services of the Kurdistan region. Arbil airport, which includes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[158,157,448],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-attack","tag-iraq","tag-kurds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}