On August 16, 1966, an Iraqi MiG-21 entered Israeli airspace under the watch of two Israeli Mirage fighters. The pilots were prepared to intercept the aircraft, but an order from the Air Force commander changed everything.
The unprecedented humanitarian methodology caught the attention of foreign allies, leading the United States military to officially adopt the tactic in April 2016 under Major General Peter Gersten during the air campaign against Islamic State strongholds in Mosul, Iraq.
In January 2026, Iraq renewed its security pact with Tehran, forcing Kurdish Iranian opposition groups to disarm and relocate away from the border.
The malfunction reportedly affected both navigation and fuel‑management systems, leaving the jet unable to determine its precise location while rapidly losing fuel over western Iran.
Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor was a bold preventive operation that reshaped Middle Eastern security by stopping a nuclear weapons program before it could begin.
On Monday, a blast in a residential high-rise building in Yavne, northeast of Ashdod, was confirmed to have been caused by a drone launched from Yemen.
