Drone Attack on US Forces Foiled West of Baghdad

The remains of the wreckage of a drone are seen at Baghdad airport, Baghdad, Iraq, January 3, 2022. (Coalition official/Handout via Reuters)
The remains of the wreckage of a drone are seen at Baghdad airport, Baghdad, Iraq, January 3, 2022. (Coalition official/Handout via Reuters)
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Drone Attack on US Forces Foiled West of Baghdad

The remains of the wreckage of a drone are seen at Baghdad airport, Baghdad, Iraq, January 3, 2022. (Coalition official/Handout via Reuters)
The remains of the wreckage of a drone are seen at Baghdad airport, Baghdad, Iraq, January 3, 2022. (Coalition official/Handout via Reuters)

Two explosive-laden drones were shot down on Tuesday by Iraq's air defenses as they approached the Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts US forces, west of Baghdad, an official of the US-led international military coalition said.

A similar attack was foiled on Monday, when Iraqi air defenses downed two drones as they approached a base hosting US forces near Baghdad's international airport.

The attacks came as Iran and its allies in Iraq marked the second anniversary of the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

The United States is leading the international military coalition fighting ISIS militants in Iraq and in Syria.

Soleimani was killed on Jan. 3 2021, in a drone strike near Baghdad airport ordered by then-US president Donald Trump.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that Trump must face trial for the killing or Tehran would take revenge.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.