DUBAI (AP) — A copilot on a flight to Israel stabbed a captain on Wednesday before passengers pushed their way into the cockpit and wrestled with the attacker. The FlyDubai plane fell rapidly, and a passenger said he grabbed the controls and pulled upward, like how he had seen on television. Other crew members soon took over, and the jetliner made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
It was not clear what motivated the attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi Arabia arrested the copilot. The passengers from the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv were met with cheers in Israel as they completed the journey on another flight Wednesday evening.
Here's a look at the airline in which the altercation took place.
FlyDubai, the sister airline to Emirates, is a government-owned carrier run by the United Arab Emirates that operates a fleet of 98 Boeing 737 aircraft, according to its website. The airline flies to the Mideast, Africa, Europe and Asia, including the Indian subcontinent.
In November 2020, FlyDubai began offering commercial flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai, a rare route at a time when other airlines in the region stopped flying to Israel, a UAE ally.
The airline reported carrying 15.7 million passengers in 2025 and reached a total revenue of AED 13.6 billion ($3.7 billion).
In the chaos of the attack, the flight descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to Flightradar24. Most of the plane’s rudder was ripped off the tail during the sudden drop.
Netanyahu identified the wounded captain as Smit Machchhar of India. The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Machchhar was in stable condition.
“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic midair disaster,” Netanyahu said on X. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.”
A plane takes off as a flydubai aircraft sits on the tarmac at Dubai International Airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo)
FILE - Israeli tourists leave a FlyDubai plane which departed from Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv and landed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 8, 2020.(AP Photo/Malak Harb, File)
A FlyDubai aircraft takes off from Dubai International Airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo)
BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military announced Wednesday that it completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State group and prompting President Donald Trump to hail the conclusion of "a very expensive excursion into Hell.”
The last U.S. troops left an air base in northern Iraq under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.
Trump, in a social media post, described the withdrawal by a Sept. 30 deadline as “orderly." Appearing soon after at a White House event celebrating Hispanics, he spoke at length about the withdrawal and said, “It’s been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place. It was a quagmire. For many, many years it lasted. But soon that part of history will be over.”
He said the shift was a victory for the U.S., Iraq and a sign of victory over the Islamic State group.
The withdrawal, agreed on two years ago, comes against the backdrop of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has also sometimes spilled over into Iraq, with Iran-backed militias firing on U.S. troops and the U.S. striking the groups' strongholds.
Trump’s comments came as his own decision earlier this year to launch the war with Iran has been compared to the Iraq war for its undefined mission as it nears its seventh month.
Appearing at the White House, Trump made that comparison, arguing both that his one-day military action in Venezuela earlier this year to capture now former President Nicolás Maduro and the Iran war compared favorably, taking far less time and with fewer deaths of U.S. troops.
In recent years, Washington has sought to shift its focus from the Middle East toward Asia, but that shift has been inconsistent, with the Pentagon alternating between reducing its Mideast presence and then finding itself engaging in new conflicts — including the ongoing war in Iran.
Baghdad touted the end of the U.S. mission as a sign of the country's increasing strength and sovereignty.
The withdrawal was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups but raised concerns among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region, where many fear a resurgence of the Islamic State group as well as more attacks by Iran-linked groups, possibly emboldened by the departure of U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, questions loom around the future of the Iraqi militias, which the Baghdad government has sought to disarm, with little success so far.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that U.S. troops and equipment had completed an “orderly departure” from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” he said. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”
He added that the U.S. military “will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the U.S. withdrawal as the beginning of a “new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends.”
He said Iraqi security forces will continue the fight against IS and the government will ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons.
Trump in his remarks on Wednesday lavished praise on al-Zaidi, calling him “outstanding,” a “fantastic guy, friend of mine,” and someone who “will hopefully be able to handle things very well.” He also appeared to try to take credit for al-Zaidi's leadership, saying that the Iraqi leader was “running for election” and “wasn’t given even a chance and I endorsed him and politicked for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide.”
Al-Zaidi was not on the ballot but was selected as prime minister when Iraq’s dominant parliamentary bloc nominated him after weeks of internal debate among its member parties and Trump publicly announcing his opposition to the coalition's previous choice.
U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. They departed in 2011, but three years later, Iraqi authorities invited a smaller U.S.-led mission to fight the Islamic State group, which had rampaged across Iraq, seizing large swaths of territory.
With the extremist group reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind the mission down.
U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi militias also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.
The Iraqi government initially linked the Sept. 30 deadline for U.S. withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.
While a handful of less-influential militias have agreed to turn over their weapons, powerful groups close to Iran rejected the prospect or set conditions for disarming that the government would be unlikely to meet.
Al-Zaidi has since walked back the deadline. He told The New York Times earlier this month that the deadline for militia disarmament has been pushed to June 2027.
The effects of the U.S. withdrawal may not be immediately visible, particularly since the U.S. military presence had already been scaled down. But officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure and particularly about the removal of U.S. air defense systems.
The Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent U.S.-Iran conflict.
“The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern,” the statement said.
Iran-allied groups in Iraq, meanwhile, have celebrated the U.S. withdrawal.
“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement.
He added a warning to al-Zaidi and his government not to carry out American plans, threatening that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”
Kataib Hezbollah leader Ahmad al-Hamidawi took a somewhat more conciliatory tone, calling on the group's fighters to halt their military activities “with the exception of targeting hostile aircraft violating the country’s airspace.”
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, said in a statement that negotiations with the government over the regulation of weapons have not resulted in an agreement and that it was “not bound by any timeline or agreement” announced by the government or political entity. The group said it is open to “any dialogue that guarantees Iraq’s sovereignty and dignity.”
Price reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Istanbul contributed to this report.
People gather during celebrations marking the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security officers flash victory signs as they ride on vehicles decorated with national flags and ribbons during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi police vehicles decorated with national flags and ribbons drive in a convoy as officers flash victory signs while celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi police officers stand beside security vehicles decorated with national flags and ribbons during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security vehicles decorated with national flags and ribbons drive in a convoy past a billboard depicting slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and slain Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis seated with religious figures around a fire, as they celebrate the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security officers ride atop vehicles during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security officers flash victory signs while riding in vehicles decorated with national flags during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security officers flash victory signs as they ride on vehicles decorated with national flags and ribbons during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Friday, Sept. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A demonstrator holds a portrait of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, during a protest against the suspension of flights between Iraq and Iran outside Najaf International Airport in Najaf, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
