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Glen Malcolm Conning was shot dead in a remote central village, 19 months after another pilot was taken captive.

NAJAF, Iraq: After seeing his once-lush rice field shrink in recent years due to relentless drought, Iraqi farmer Muntazer Al-Joufi fought back using tougher seeds and water-saving irrigation techniques.

“It’s the first time we’re using modern techniques that consume less water” to cultivate rice, Joufi, 40, said as he surveyed his land in the central province of Najaf.

“There is a huge difference” compared to flooding the field, Joufi added, referring to a traditional method by which the land must stay submerged all summer.

The case depicted Google as a technological bully that methodically thwarted competition to protect its search engine.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Russia on Aug. 12-14, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a diplomatic source.

— More to follow

BEIJING: China’s embassy in Beirut urged citizens to “travel with caution” should they visit Lebanon, warning they face “higher security risks” as fears of a regional conflict soar.
In a statement issued Monday evening Beijing time, the embassy warned citizens the situation in the country was “grave and complex.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in Lebanon remind Chinese citizens to closely monitor the evolution of the local situation and to travel with caution in Lebanon in the near future,” the embassy said on its official WeChat account.

As the war enters its 893rd day, these are the main developments.

JERUSALEM: Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the war in Gaza, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, a report from Israeli rights group B’Tselem said on Monday.
The group said the report was based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, who were detained in Israeli prisons since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the war, most of them without being tried.

The US military announced Monday that its forces have completed a withdrawal from Air Base 201 in Niger well ahead of a September 15 deadline for US forces to exit the country.

“The US Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Niger announce that the withdrawal of US forces and assets from Air Base 201 in Agadez is complete,” the Pentagon and Niger’s Defense Ministry said in a joint statement.

“The effective cooperation and communication between the US and Nigerien armed forces ensured that this turnover was finished ahead of schedule and without complications,” the statement added.

According to The New York Times, a small number of US troops remain at the US Embassy in Niger that will be leaving once they finish administrative duties. The US began withdrawing approximately 1,000 military personnel from Niger in June and finished pulling troops out of its other base in the country, Air Base 101, in July.

Air Base 201 served as a major drone hub for the US in the Sahel region and cost the US over $100 million to build. The US is looking to establish a similar base elsewhere in Africa and is reportedly in talks about the possibility with Benin, Ivory Coast, and Ghana, but there’s no sign that a deal has been reached.

The US stopped cooperating with Niger’s military following the July 2023 coup that ousted former president Mohamed Bazoum. The US was looking to stay in the country but was asked to leave following a meeting with the military-led government, known as the known as the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), back in March.

Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine said the US was asked to leave due to threats made by US officials in the meeting about Niger’s relationship with Russia and Iran.

On Monday, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, met with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv as the two militaries are preparing to defend Israel from an expected Iranian reprisal attack.

Kurilla also met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the visit from the CENTCOM chief demonstrates strong US support for Israel. “Your arrival in Israel at this time is a direct translation of US support for Israel into action,” Gallant said. “The relationship between Israel and the United States is unshakable.”

Kurilla’s visit came after the US announced the deployment of new warships and warplanes to the Middle East for the purpose of helping defend Israel. It’s unclear when Iran is planning to launch an attack, but it could happen any day. Israel is also considering launching a “preemptive strike,” which would escalate the situation even more.

Also on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that Tehran does not seek regional escalation but that it must “punish” Israel for killing Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil and that an Iranian response was inevitable.

“Iran seeks to establish stability in the region, but this will only come with punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against the adventurism of the Zionist regime,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani.

The US has shown strong support for Israel in the wake of the Israeli killing of Haniyeh, immediately pledging to defend Israel from any consequences it might face. US officials claim they seek de-escalation, but US military aid and political support has only emboldened Israel to escalate.

At least five US personnel were injured in a rocket attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, Reuters reported on Monday, citing US and Iraqi sources.

The US officials said one of the Americans who was wounded had serious injuries and that the number of casualties could change as the damage is still being assessed. The Iraqi sources said two Katyusha rockets were fired at the base.

The attack comes as the region is on edge and expecting an Iranian reprisal attack on Israel for the killing of Hamas’s political chief in Tehran. Iran’s allies, including the Shia militias in Iraq that have taken credit for previous rocket attacks on US bases, could be involved in the response.

The US is vowing it will defend Israel from any Iranian reprisal, making it possible that US military assets are targeted in a coordinated response by Iran and its allies. There’s no sign yet that Iran’s reprisal has started, and the rocket attack on Ain al-Asad is likely a response to airstrikes the US launched in Iraq last week.

On July 30, the US launched airstrikes in Iraq that killed four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mainly Shia militias that are part of Iraq’s security forces. The strike on the PMF was strongly condemned by the Iraqi government, the US’s supposed partner in the country.

The US bombed the PMF after rocket attacks targeted US bases in Iraq and Syria, which caused no damage or casualties.

From October 2023 until February, US bases in Iraq and Syria came under hundreds of rocket and drone attacks. Iraqi Shia militias began the attacks in response to US support for the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.

After three US troops were killed in an attack on Tower 22, a secretive base in Jordan on the Syrian border, Iran and the Iraqi government pressured the militias to stop, and there have only been a handful of attacks since February.

Earlier this year, Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani called for the US to withdraw from Iraq over US airstrikes on the PMF. The US and Iraq have entered talks on the future of the US military presence, and Baghdad reportedly wants a drawdown to begin in September, but no concrete plans have been announced.