NEWS

Private adversary air company Top Aces has now begun flying its F-16 Vipers, the only ones currently in the hands of a private operator, with the ubiquitous military data link capability known as Link-16. The addition of Link-16 completes a vision started years ago for an adversary aircraft that truly represents the current 4th-generation-plus fighter threat. Equipped with Top Aces’ open architecture Advanced Aggressor Mission System (AAMS), these aircraft can now replicate the high-end threats that U.S. military pilots may soon face in the Pacific and elsewhere.

Top Aces began receiving its F-16s, which are early block ex-Israeli Air Force F-16A/B Netz variants, in 2021 and subsequently began upgrading them with a host of new capabilities. The AAMS is the core of that upgrade package and includes an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, an infrared-search-and-track (IRST) pod, the Thales Visionix Gen III Scorpion helmet-mounted display system, and, with a recent provisional approval to operate Link-16, now has a fully integrated datalink. AAMS permits the rapid integration of new sensors and functions that a customer wishes to use to improve the threat representations to their fleet pilots, such as IRST and advanced jamming pods like the ALQ-188.

The War Zone was on hand as the newly integrated aircraft (N854TA) performed adversary missions with other Top Aces F-16s during a large force exercise known as Sentry South 26.1. The private aggressor support firm actually led the entire ‘red air’ operation for the exercise, which is a unique arrangement that puts immense trust on an entity that exists outside of the Department of War.

Sentry South 26.1 and the Air Dominance Center (ADC), which acts as a hub for the exercise, were created to help Air National Guard (ANG) pilots have the best fighter training available. Located in Savannah, Georgia, at the southern end of the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, the ADC’s footprint is small, but its training impact is huge for both ANG pilots and their active-duty counterparts. The exercise was developed by fighter pilots to provide 5th-generation fighter integration through a focused, tailored, cost-effective approach. The airspace they have, just 30 miles off the coast, runs 200 miles north to south and 120 miles east to west. That box is among the best military flying areas anywhere in the country, and it’s ideally suited for fighter training. 

This iteration of Sentry South involved over 75 aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. It was a mix of both 4th and 5th-generation fighters. Over 700 sorties were flown over the two-week exercise, focusing on both offensive and defensive counter-air missions. For many of the pilots, it was their capstone exercise for their initial training on the F-22. It is a multi-day, high-intensity scenario designed to test trainees or validate operational concepts in simulated, contested environments. Its goal is to validate the combat readiness of student pilots while improving their tactical decision making.

Matthew ‘Bang’ Belle is the adversary air program manager for Top Aces. He is in charge of all Top Aces operations in the United States, as well as for any foreign partners trained here on U.S. soil. He has been with the company for about 18 months after retiring from the USAF, where he flew the F-16 as an aggressor, accumulating over 2,000 hours during his career. 

Belle told The War Zone, “We got some great reviews from all of the forces that participated in Sentry South 26.1. They really enjoyed having us take over the red air lead and run the mission commander spot from the aggressor side. It was the culmination of everything we have been doing to the aircraft over the last few years. The exercise is all about challenging blue air’s thinking in the air-to-air domain. It is meant to complicate things that they do not see at their home station.”

“The vision when we first started was that we were going to be the legacy bearers from the aggressors. Russ ‘Puck’ Quinn (former Top Aces president) saw a niche that needed to be filled. He knew there were a bunch of 3rd-generation fighters throughout the market and believed there was a place for 4th-generation fighters. So he made that happen, and so we got this 1978 jet (early block F-16A/B), and we saw that we could provide the Air Force and allies a good representation of what our adversaries are doing right now. It’s not just a jet with wings and a cool motor that makes it go really fast and really high. These current 4th-generation fighters are fully integrated, so they have near-5th-generation avionics but in a 4th-generation body. Puck saw that is where we needed to go.”

The AAMS and the AESA radar, along with the Scorpion helmet and Link-16, have really upped the game in terms of quality adversary support in a crowded adversary air services provider (ADAIR) market. The Scorpion helmet allows the pilot to avoid turning the aircraft’s nose towards the enemy aircraft to target it when employing certain weapons and sensors. This is especially true when employing simulated heat-seeking missile shots. The helmet also displays basic flight and navigational data and can also project objects from the aircraft’s new Link 16 datalink system out into the visual space all around the aircraft. In other words, if a friendly is 30 miles away at 10 o’clock high, it can shoot that in augmented reality to the pilot.

Top Aces is also using the Air Force’s AN/ALQ-188 jamming pod. The AN/ALQ-188 is a common sight at U.S. air combat exercises and can simulate certain types of hostile electronic countermeasures systems. Top Aces F-16s have controls inside their aircraft that allow the pilots to scale the electronic attack to whatever the blue air wants, whether it be just a nuisance or a full scale ‘melt your face off’ EW attack. Top Aces is also the only ADAIR company that is authorized to refuel from USAF KC-135 tankers, which helps them stay in the fight longer and provides more presentations for blue forces.

Belle states, “The key that has unlocked everything in the past month was that our engineering section here at Top Aces and our chief test pilot were able to get a provisional approval (from the Federal Aviation Administration) to operate Link-16 on our AAMS aircraft. That was the missing key we now have that ties it all together, so we can present this integrated solution that we think closely resembles a 4th-gen-plus adversary aircraft. It’s a real game-changer. The fact that I can be well outside of normal influence ranges on blue air, have them on my scope with Link-16, where they don’t know that I have that situational awareness (SA), and then transition that SA to the IRST pod, and they still don’t know they are being targeted. So they are making decisions like they are not targeted and not vulnerable. As they get closer, I have all of my weapon solutions cued up and ready to shoot with the AESA radar. Link-16 enables all of that to happen.”

 “It also allows us to fly red air tactics with the F-35. It is just like we are one of them. We are replicating 5th and 4th gen packages. It gives blue air not just reps in the gym for blocking and tackling, it affects training outcomes completely and that is what we are really excited about. Link-16 ties it all together.”

What the pilot sees on his center pedestal display showing the Link 16 data is also totally customizable, which is critical for achieving highly-tailored training goals. For instance, the system can easily filter out information that would give the red air team too big of advantage or that would not accurately reflect the capabilities of an enemy. This scalability based on the training objectives makes it far more than just a datalink system for the red air force, it can dramatically boost the fidelity of the threat being presented.

Chris ‘Bluce’ Wee is Top Aces chief test pilot and flew several missions with the upgraded jet during Sentry South 26.1. Wee was a former test pilot in the USAF and was in charge of a host of modernization projects for both the F-16 and all variants of the F-15, including the F-15EX.

Wee told The War Zone, “I’ve been doing modernization and development, making fighters better for the better part of the past 12 or 13 years, and so it was really cool to jump in at Top Aces and look at what we’ve got and look at where we wanted to be and find things that we can improve on. A couple of things that I jumped into right away was really the optimization of our systems together. The idea that we could take old Israeli airplanes and make them high-end aggressors was really fascinating to me.” 

“I first learned of Top Aces sometime in 2022. I was out at Black Flag at the 442 (422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron), the OT test organization out there at Nellis, when I came around the corner and saw some old pilots I knew from my aggressor days. I had no idea what they were doing, but when I got talking to them, I was amazed. There is nothing as maneuverable as this airplane (the F-16A, the agility of which you can read about here), and then you stack on top of that modern equipment, it’s amazing. There are limitations; no company in the world is, from a regulatory standpoint or even a monetary standpoint, able to go out there and buy an APG-83 or APG-82 (AESA radar) or any frontline fighter radar or some of, you know, ‘exquisite’ technologies that are protected by classified information. The fact that we’re doing that to the best of our ability was really intriguing to me.”

Wee was able to jump into the chief test pilot position and immediately review the systems and begin providing recommendations to improve integration. 

Wee added, “We were able to tweak some things here in the software and really go out and develop that to the point where you know it’s really optimized. You get in this airplane and you know the between the helmet, the Link-16, the AESA radar, the IRST, you just have all these tools available to you to do this really important mission that is training the next generation of fighter pilots that are going to be out there, you know, protecting the nation for the rest of my life, at least, which is [a] pretty neat thing to be a part of.”

During Sentry South 26.1, Wee flew four missions in the updated AAMS jet, accumulating over 10 hours, and conducted several aerial refuelings from KC-135s.

Speaking about the new Link-16 capability, Wee explained:

“Datalink, from a very basic standpoint, is when you can look at the picture in your jet and immediately see what everyone’s doing and where they are; you don’t have to be looking outside necessarily to do that. In fact, I would really prefer my wingman to be like miles away from me because we’re probably not gonna hit each other if he’s miles away from me, and I don’t have to worry about him as much. I can just look at my screen, and I know where my wingman is, and what he’s doing. I can see that he’s targeting something because I can see data being passed between our airplanes, which is really helpful to know, not only within our own airplanes but also with the joint force airplanes. We were flying with Marines, F-35s, and guard F-16s. Being able to see where people are and what they’re doing and if they’re doing what I’ve told them to do, just by looking at the link, is a huge capability.”

Top Aces flew twice a day for four days during the exercise. During the first and last day, they focused on defensive-counter-air missions. Blue air students were tasked with defending the target area during a 90-minute vulnerability period (vul), and so they wanted to maximize the number of red forces across the ‘lane,’ so they could challenge their ability to defend a geographical area. 

Wee explained, “As red air, we were trying to get in and protect the strikers. We were using the T-38 as strikers and were trying to help them get into the target area. If we could get to the target band, that would drive the debrief focus points on why the blue forces did not properly protect the lane for the period of time required. Were they allocating their radars to the right spot, and were they looking with the right modes on their radars? We were operating as MiG-1 (lead aggressor) for all sorties, which was really cool for us because we were able to lead the red package in all eight vuls we supported. We were able to manage our forces to align with the blue forces’ learning objectives. We worked very closely with the mission commanders as to what kind of threat they wanted and when they wanted to see it.”

On Wednesday and Thursday, the roles reversed to offensive counter air (OCA), and blue forces were trying to fight their way into the target band and hit targets on land and then fight their way out. Wee led a red force presentation that fought the blue air on the way in, then regenerated from pretend airfields to fight the blue forces on the way out of the target area. 

Lt. Col. Joseph ‘Stone’ Walz, who flew F-16s and F-35s and is now part of the Georgia Air National Guard, is the exercise director for Sentry South. Speaking about the value of having aircraft like Top Aces F-16s in his exercise, he told us, “I had the opportunity to bring in Top Aces to Sentry South 26.1. They normally support the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin. I like to build something that represents what pilots would expect if they were to go out and fly an operational plan. It’s about honing and shaping our pilots into the most combat-ready force we could be if we had to go to war. How Top Aces factors into that is if we get real aircraft and actual fighter jets that can prosecute errors and punish errors in the training environment, and now when my pilots have those errors, they get shot and can now go into the debrief and learn those lessons in a training environment so they don’t make the same mistakes in war. We can do that with other aircraft, but every aircraft I bring here, if I have to put them as red air, that is one less person who can fly blue air. Red air is a tax we all have to pay, but having these guys gets us more training, and you never know the lesson that someone will learn that will save their life someday.”

Being asked to lead red air forces as ‘MiG-1’ during Sentry South 26.1, Top Aces is proving that experience matters, which is their motto. 

Belle explained, “We are mostly all former aggressor pilots who have done the really big exercises at Nellis and in Alaska. We have handled 100 aircraft LFEs (large force exercises) and know how to build scenarios that really stress blue air’s weak points. We know where their change-outs are going to be, so we are a thinking adversary that brings in all the other red air like the F-35s and F-22s and puts it all together and says what would the Chinese do? We replicate that. We put the 4th and 5th-gen packages together, led by an experienced aggressor who knows how to exploit weaknesses. I can tell you from being on the blue side that when your bulletproof game plan is completely exploited and torn apart, you leave humbled, knowing you have to up your game. We are not there just to win, we are there to teach. We are there to have you leave the debrief with an outcome that says, I have to go back to the drawing board because what I thought works against my normal red air at Langley or Eglin didn’t work today. Why not?”

Top Aces has recently done much more software development to optimize what’s presented to the pilot and how the pilot interacts with the radar, the link, and the IRST pod, along with the helmet. It is all about placing information in the right place to make the pilot safer and more effective. Looking at human factors optimization, Top Aces is looking to make an even more threatening aggressor.

The IRST system that Top Aces flew during Sentry South 26.1 consists of a Northrop Grumman OpenPod, a modular, open-architecture design, equipped with Leonardo’s SkyWard, a long-wave IRST sensor. It is a scannable IRST pod, which means it has the ability to identify multiple contacts inside of a very large search area. 

Wee explained, “IRST is difficult for everyone. It is very susceptible to the conditions of the day whether it be humidity or clouds. We have some longer-range goals to improve our IRST system and achieve more accurate tracks through exquisite means. Right now, we only have one pod but we are actively seeking more. You can imagine having azimuth and elevation from one pod is pretty good, but having azimuth and elevation from more than one pod makes the solutions get better, especially if you leverage Link-16 and are able to pass some of that data between airplanes (triangulating range). These are all things we want to do to better replicate the threat.”

Another major training capability that Top Aces Link-16-enabled aircraft are now providing is called Constructive Wingman. This gives the upgraded aircraft the ability to lay out synthetic tracks of non-existent aircraft. 

Belle explained, “When the blue air looks at us, no longer do they see just one contact. They may now see two or three contacts and that is just complicating the training and driving better outcomes for their learning. The pilot pushes a few buttons to place an aircraft on my right at two miles and one on my left at two miles. I have a series of 10 commands that I can give it. I can tell it to go 50 miles from blue air and then reform behind me at 20 miles. Or better yet, I am going to turn around as the live fighter and these two contacts will continue going so blue air now thinks he has a bigger problem. But really, he/she is concentrating on synthetic tracks.”

This capability will help new F-35 student pilots as they will now see a more complicated tactical picture during their training. Currently, Top Aces provides aggressor training through the Air Force’s Combat Air Force Contracted Air Support (CAFCAS) program to F-35 pilots going through Formal Training Units (FTUs) at both Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and at Luke AFB in Arizona. The basic course lasts eight months and provides pilots with the training to accomplish a variety of missions.

The last few months have been extremely busy for Top Aces. Last summer, they went to Nellis AFB to participate in a large-force exercise at the end of weapons school, called Weapons School Integration (WSINT). WSINT is a series of complex, large-force employment missions that serve as the capstone portion of Weapons School classes. With their ability to air refuel, they participated in three- to four- hour missions. They also participated in Sentry North at Volk Field before flying to Mountain Home AFB to support training for the Dutch F-35As and the resident F-15E Strike Eagles.

We will be sure to keep you updated as Top Aces continues to add new capabilities to its unique AAMS F-16s.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

As the U.S. flows assets toward the Middle East, including the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (CSG) now reportedly off the Moroccan coast, Iran, China and Russia will hold their recurring joint naval training exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian media. Moscow and Tehran see the Maritime Security Belt 2026 exercise as particularly relevant in light of current events, and there are reasons for the White House and Pentagon to take note. Having Russian or Chinese warships in these waters amid a U.S. attack on Iran could have military and political implications planners must address. At the same time, the timing of the still ongoing U.S. buildup and the exercise point to it having more of a messaging effect than an operational one.

The exercise, first held in 2019, is being hosted in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, located on the Strait of Hormuz. Russian, Chinese, and Iranian naval units “are expected to participate with various ships and operational capabilities to test coordination, tactical readiness, and rapid-response procedures in the Strait of Hormuz,” the official Iranian Mehr news outlet reported.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) declined to comment on the exercise.

As Iranian and Russian officials gathered Wednesday aboard the Russian corvette Stoiky, a top Iranian official issued a new threat against the growing U.S. Navy presence in the region, which includes the Abraham Lincoln CSG and at least eight other surface combatants. The Ford could arrive in the region in the next four or five days given its location posted by the MarineTraffic ship tracking website. The Navy said only that the ship is now in the Atlantic Ocean.

If the USS Gerald R. Ford keeps her current speed, she will be off the coast of Israel and be able to assist in the defense against an Iranian retaliation by Sunday morning. pic.twitter.com/7OhMJDRxwZ

— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) February 18, 2026

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has faced threats, noise, propaganda and the presence of extra-regional fleets in West Asia for 47 years, Iran’s Navy Commander Rear Adm. Shahram Irani warned. “The presence of extra-regional fleets in West Asia is unjustified.”

“If the extra-regional fleet feels it has come with power, it should know that the Iranian people will confront them with greater power,” he added. “The faith of the people and missiles are the Islamic Republic of Iran’s deterrent weapons against the enemy.”

Nikolai Patrushev, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, framed the exercise as part of a larger struggle between the U.S. and the BRICS alliance, an informal group of 21 nations that includes Russia, China and Iran. Patrushev took aim at the ongoing U.S. and NATO efforts to seize tankers containing Russian oil as well as the ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“We will tap into the potential of BRICS, which should now be given a full-fledged strategic maritime dimension,” Patrushev posited. “The Maritime Security Belt 2026 exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, where Russia, China, and Iran [will send] their ships, proves to be relevant.”

Both Russia and Iran say the exercise will increase their ability to work together.

“The level of existing interactions and cooperation shows that we can manage and resolve many maritime and coastal issues together,” Captain First Rank Alexey Sergeev, commander of the Russian naval group, said, according to The Telegraph. “We are ready to hold joint exercises in any region, including specialised drills such as anti-maritime terrorism operations that will be executed with vessels and boats from both sides.”

Experts we spoke with say the presence of a small number of Russian and Chinese ships in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman does not pose a significant threat to U.S. interests, but could complicate efforts to attack Iran. They also note that this exercise was likely planned months ago, well before U.S. President Donald Trump started threatening Iran over its harsh treatment of anti-regime protesters.

“I don’t believe it increases in any significant way the likelihood of conflict with Russia and China, but it probably would introduce additional considerations for any planned strikes against Iran,” Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank and a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer told us Wednesday morning. 

“For starters, you’d want to make sure that their sensors don’t give advanced warning of your strike to the Iranians, and you’d want to make sure that those Russian and Chinese platforms aren’t in the way,” he explained. “You’d also of course want to ensure that there is no way they could be inadvertently struck a la USS Stark during the Iraq-Iran Tanker Wars of the 1980s.”

The Stark, an Oliver-Hazard Perry class guided-missile frigate, was hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles while in the Persian Gulf on May 17, 1987. The strike killed 37 sailors and wounded 21 others.   

Shugart downplayed the timing of the exercise, given that its planning has been in the works for a while.

“I also don’t think that the small number of Russian and Chinese ships involved amount to much militarily relative to U.S. naval forces in the region – though their presence might matter politically, should the administration decide it wants to take military action against Iran,” he explained.

“I don’t think this fundamentally changes anything,” former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel told us. “It is an easy way for Russia and China to show support after having abandoned Iran last summer.”

Votel, a retired Army General and current distinguished fellow at the Middle East Institute, was referring to last June’s U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel’s 12-Day War against Iran. 

How the Israel-Iran ‘12-day war’ unfolded

“Certainly the timing makes it seem more provocative,” Votel added. “There is likely also an internal message for regime supporters – pushing back on the U.S. and Israel.”

“I don’t think it raises the threat of conflict,” the former CENTCOM commander surmised. “I view it as a form of great power competition.”

The presence of Russian and Chinese ships near Bandar Abbas, a major center of Iranian military activity, could complicate U.S. targeting if they remain in the area. The coastal city would be a prime target to take out many types of kinetic capabilities, sensors, and other assets, especially Iran’s naval forces. Still, the Chinese and Russian ships should leave at some point and the U.S. would know their location and it doesn’t appear the U.S. is in a place to strike yet. Unless the exercise goes on for weeks, the Russian and Chinese ships will likely have moved on by the time all the pieces are in place for a U.S.-led kinetic operation to begin.

The joint naval exercise follows a more recently planned drill by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz for a live-fire exercise. It marks the first time Iran has shut parts of the Strait since Trump threatened Iran with military action in January.

Dubbed “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz,” the drills began Monday and include firing anti-ship cruise missiles at targets and IRGC naval drone and submarine units carrying out operations originating from the three Iranian islands, according to Iranian media.

“The armed drones used in the exercise—capable of engaging both air and sea targets—are among the IRGC Navy’s newest strategic platforms and are deployed in significant numbers, though their names and technical specifications remain classified,” the official Iranian FARS News outlet claimed.

We’ll have to wait and see how the exercises unfold, especially as the U.S. buildup fully matures. But at this time it seems that the presence of these vessels is more of a political factor than an operational one, at least for the time being.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

A new United Nations Human Rights Office report says Israel’s military campaign and blockade of Gaza have created living conditions “increasingly incompatible with Palestinians’ continued existence as a group in Gaza” as it presses its genocidal war on the enclave.

The report released on Thursday states that “intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza”.

“This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Covering the period from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, the report documents Israel’s security forces’ “systematic use of unlawful force” in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

It highlights “widespread” arbitrary detention and the “extensive unlawful demolition” of Palestinian homes, stating that the measures seek to “systematically discriminate, oppress, control and dominate the Palestinian people”.

These policies are altering “the character, status and demographic composition of the occupied West Bank, raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing”.

In Gaza, the report condemns the killing and maiming of “unprecedented numbers of civilians”, the spread of famine and the destruction of the “remaining civilian infrastructure”.

At least 463 Palestinians, including 157 children, starved to death during the 12-month period, according to the findings.

“Palestinians faced the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risking being killed while trying to get food,” it says, adding that the famine and “foreseeable and repeatedly foretold” deaths directly resulted from actions taken by the Israeli government.

Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza

Israeli forces launched new air strikes and artillery attacks across the Gaza Strip, as families in the besieged enclave woke to begin their Ramadan fast under bombardment.

Shelling struck areas east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza at dawn on Thursday, where Israeli troops remain deployed. Warplanes also hit Rafah and areas east of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent.

A day earlier, medical officials at Nasser Medical Complex confirmed that two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire near the so-called “yellow line” in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis.

Israeli forces continue to demolish homes and infrastructure in areas they control, flattening entire neighbourhoods and entrenching displacement.

The attacks form part of Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire that began on October 10, 2025.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health says those violations have killed 603 Palestinians and wounded 1,618 others as of Monday.

‘Partnership between settlers and the occupation forces’

Violence has also intensified in the occupied West Bank.

On Wednesday evening, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the death of 19-year-old Nasrallah Mohammad Jamal Abu Siam, who succumbed to wounds sustained during a settler assault on Mukhmas, northeast of occupied East Jerusalem.

Settlers, operating under the protection of Israeli forces, opened fire and stole dozens of sheep from Palestinian farmers. Three of the wounded were shot with live ammunition.

With Abu Siam’s killing, the number of Palestinians shot dead by settlers alone since October 7, 2023 has risen to 37, according to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.

Moayad Shaaban, head of the commission, described events in Mukhmas as a “dangerous escalation in organised settler terrorism”, citing a “full partnership between settlers and the occupation forces”.

Israeli troops also raided the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, wounding two young men with live fire, one critically. Soldiers detained several others during the incursion.

In Jerusalem, Ramadan has brought further restrictions at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The mosque’s imam, Sheikh Akrama Sabri, said Israeli authorities are “imposing a reality by force” by limiting worshippers while allowing extremist Jewish incursions into the compound.

Occupation authorities have issued more than 100 deportation orders barring young Jerusalemites from entering the mosque and restricted West Bank worshippers to 10,000 permits under strict age and security conditions. Al-Aqsa can hold up to half a million people.

Sheikh Sabri said Israeli forces question worshippers during tarawih prayers in what he described as “provocation upon provocation”.

Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinicius Jr alleges he was racially abused by Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni.

Real Madrid has sent UEFA, football’s governing body in Europe, “all available evidence” of an alleged racist insult against Vinicius Jr in a Champions League match against Benfica.

“Our club has actively collaborated with the investigation opened by UEFA following the unacceptable episodes of racism experienced during that match,” the Spanish club said on Thursday without elaborating on the evidence.

UEFA appointed a special investigator on Wednesday to gather evidence about what happened in Lisbon on Tuesday in Madrid’s 1-0 win at Benfica in the first leg of the knockout round of the Champions League.

Vinicius accused Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni of calling him “monkey” after the Brazilian scored the only goal. Prestianni was among the Benfica players upset with Vinícius after the forward celebrated by the Benfica corner flag.

Prestianni covered his mouth with his shirt when he allegedly spoke to the Brazilian player and denied racially abusing Vinicius, who is Black and has been subjected to repeated racist insults in Spain.

“Real Madrid appreciates the unanimous support, backing, and affection that our player Vinicius Jr. has received from all areas of the global football community,” the club said. “Real Madrid will continue working, in collaboration with all institutions, to eradicate racism, violence, and hate in sports and society.”

Benfica said Prestianni was the victim of a “defamation campaign” and welcomed the investigation opened by UEFA, saying it “fully supports and believes the version presented” by Prestianni.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said on Wednesday he was “shocked and saddened to see the incident of alleged racism” and praised the referee for activating the antiracism protocol during the match, which was halted for nearly 10 minutes at the Stadium of Light.

Since October 2023, UNRWA has faced attacks by Israel’s government, funding cuts from the US, and legal cases questioning the organisation’s neutrality. During that time, Israeli forces have killed more than 380 UNRWA staff in Gaza.

In this episode of Centre Stage, Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Hassan speaks with UNRWA’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, about Israel’s ban on the agency and what he calls a turning point for international law and the global order.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the former UK prince and younger brother of King Charles, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office as police investigate claims he shared confidential material with convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.

BY THE NUMBERS

Spending on AI is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, dwarfing even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects.

World leaders and tech executives are convening in New Delhi for the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, focusing on the role of artificial intelligence in governance, job disruption and global collaboration.

However, behind these discussions lies the financial reality. Over the past decade, AI has drawn one of the largest waves of private investment in modern history, totalling trillions of dollars.

According to Gartner, a United States-based business and technology insights company, worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.5 trillion in 2026, a 44 percent increase over 2025.

To understand the magnitude of these investments, Al Jazeera visualises the staggering amounts by comparing them with some of the largest projects ever created by humanity. We also highlight which countries are spending the most on AI and provide insights into expenditures on data centres, models, services, and security.

What does $1bn look like?

To help understand a trillion dollars, it is useful to first visualise what millions and billions of dollars look like by using a stack of US dollar bills.

If you break these amounts down using $100 bills, here is how they stack up:

• $1,000 would form a stack about 1cm (0.393-inch) high.
• $10,000 would form a stack approximately 10cm (3.93-inch) high.
• $1m would fit inside a briefcase.
• $10m would fit inside a very large suitcase.
• $100m would fit on an industrial pallet stacked waist-high.
• $1bn would create a building approximately 5.2 metres (17 feet) high, with a width and a length of about 2 metres (6.6 feet) each.

Another way to think of it is if you spent $1 every second, it would take:

• 11.5 days to spend $1m
• 31 years to spend $1bn
• 31,000 years to spend $1 trillion

In more tangible terms, $1bn is roughly equivalent to:

• The estimated cost of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, one of the largest archaeological museums in the world
• The cost of constructing two to three modern football stadiums, depending on size and design
• Buying 10 luxury private jets (at $100m each)
• Buying 6.3 tonnes of gold (at $5,000 per ounce)
• Buying 1 million high-end iPhones at retail price

$1.6 trillion already spent on AI

Over the past decade, AI-related investments have surged nearly 13-fold.

According to the 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford University, between 2013 and 2024, total global corporate investment in AI reached $1.6 trillion. This substantial expenditure dwarfs even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects of the 20th and 21st centuries.

To put the scale of AI investment into perspective, consider how it compares with some of the most ambitious and expensive projects in modern history. All figures are adjusted to 2024 US dollars:

• The Manhattan Project (1942-46): $36bn
• The International Space Station (1984-2011): $150bn
• The Apollo Program (1960-73): $250bn
• The US Interstate Highway System (1956-92): $620bn

In just over a decade, investment in AI has surpassed the cost of developing the first atomic bomb, landing humans on the moon and the decades-long effort to build the 75,440km (46,876-mile) US interstate highway network.

Unlike these landmark projects, AI funding has not been driven by a single government or wartime urgency. It has flowed through private markets, venture capital, corporate research and development, and global investors, making it one of the largest privately financed technological waves in history.

Global corporate investments in AI cover a vast array of operations, including mergers and acquisitions, minority stakes, private investments, and public offerings. These monumental expenditures highlight the extensive financial commitment to advance AI.

Which countries are spending the most on AI?

The AI investment surge is concentrated in just a few countries, where private capital has fuelled thousands of startups and shaped global innovation hubs.

The US has dominated AI spending, accounting for roughly 62 percent of total private AI funding since 2013. Between 2013 and 2024, US companies spent $471bn on AI. Chinese companies are the second-largest spenders at $119bn, followed by the United Kingdom at $28bn.

These figures exclude government spending, such as the US CHIPS Act or European national AI subsidies.

Global private investment in AI by country, 2013-24:

• US: $471bn, supporting 6,956 newly funded AI companies
• China: $119bn, 1,605 startups
• UK: $28bn, 885 startups
• Canada: $15bn, 481 startups
• Israel: $15bn, 492 startups
• Germany: $13bn, 394 startups
• India: $11bn, 434 startups
• France: $11bn, 468 startups
• South Korea: $9bn, 270 startups
• Singapore: $7bn, 239 startups
• Others: $58bn

AI spending to total $2.5 trillion in 2026

AI spending is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, driven by a massive global build-out of data centres and services, according to Gartner.

The bulk of the spending is expected to go towards:

• AI infrastructure: $1.37 trillion
• AI services: $589bn
• AI software: $452bn
• AI cybersecurity: $51bn
• AI platforms for data science and machine learning: $31bn
• AI models: $26bn
• AI application development platforms: $8.4bn
• AI data: $3bn

By 2027, Gartner is forecasting that AI spending will surpass $3.3 trillion.

Posting on the Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump wrote: “I have been telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease…”

The routine of gently but skillfully pushing wooden canoes into the water body at the shores of Kainji Lake each dawn has been part of the lives of generations of fishermen in North-central Nigeria. 

The lake was not always calm – vigorously exhaling and flooding the banks, then intermittently receding – but was inevitably connected to the lives that many communities have held firmly to across Kebbi, Niger, and Kwara states.

Today, that ancestral connection between the communities and the lake is evaporating rapidly. And it is not merely ecological. In some villages where government presence is absent, and terrorists have assumed authority, fishermen now wait for permission from non-state actors before casting their nets. In other areas within the Kainji region, they pay informal levies to armed groups operating from the forests. For decades, Nigeria’s national parks were imagined as spaces apart: buffers of nature against human pressure and political failure. Sambisa Forest shattered that illusion long ago when the Boko Haram terror group took control of it, transforming from a conservation zone into the most notorious symbol of jihadist insurgency in the country. Now, further west, a quieter but no less consequential transformation is unfolding.

The Kainji Lake National Park (KLNP), sprawling across three states and bordering Benin, has slipped from a wildlife sanctuary into a strategic corridor where poverty, climate stress, criminal enterprises, violence, jihadist ideology, and Sahelian militancy intersect.

A corridor

Security analysts increasingly describe Sambisa as a “fortress-base” model of insurgency: entrenched, ideological, territorially assertive. Kainji Lake fits a different and more elusive pattern—a “corridor-node” model.

Here, armed actors do not raise flags or announce governance structures. They pass through, networking, training, recruiting, and trading, before vanishing. The park links Nigeria’s troubled North West to the Middle Belt and, increasingly, to the destabilised Sahel. It connects Kebbi to Benin Republic’s Alibori and Atacora regions, Niger State to Niger Republic’s Tillabéri zone, and local grievances to transnational jihadist ambitions.

This distinction matters. Sambisa attracted relentless military pressure for more than a decade because it became a visible symbol of territorial breach. Kainji Lake did not. It appeared peripheral, quiet, manageable. In that absence of sustained attention, the park matured into something arguably more dangerous: a fluid connector for multiple armed actors rather than a single-group stronghold.

Communities along the lake, from Yauri and Ngaski in Kebbi to Borgu in Niger State and Kaiama in Kwara, depend on a fragile interweaving of fishing, floodplain farming, pastoralism, and cross-border trade. Fishing sustains thousands of households. Smoked and dried fish move through informal networks to Ilorin, Ibadan, southern Niger, and beyond. Seasonal farming follows the lake’s unpredictable pulse: millet, sorghum, maize, rice, and cowpea are cultivated on land that appears and disappears with the water’s rise and fall.

Pastoralism runs through it all. Herders move cattle along routes that long predate colonial borders, grazing across Nigeria, Benin Republic, and Niger Republic as if the lines on maps were suggestions rather than laws. Weekly markets in Bagudo, Wawa, Babana, Kaiama, and Borgu draw traders from Benin’s north and Niger’s Tillabéri. Grain, livestock, fuel, kola nuts, dried fish, and cloth circulate through these hubs. Some of it is smuggling.

These networks matter because armed groups do not need to invent new pathways. They insert themselves into existing ones. The same tracks used by herders and traders now carry militants, arms couriers, recruiters, and ideological emissaries. 

Climate stress as an accelerant

Climate change has exacerbated existing security vulnerabilities around Kainji Lake. 

Erratic rainfall patterns and fluctuating water levels have made fishing yields unpredictable. Floodplains that once reliably supported seasonal farming now vanish early or arrive late. Pasture availability shifts without warning, intensifying competition between herders and farmers. Each shock further compresses livelihoods, forcing households to adapt through debt, migration, or risk-taking.

In this environment, armed groups offer something deceptively valuable: predictability. Access to grazing land. Protection from rivals. Permission to fish or farm. Even informal dispute resolution. Where the state provides uncertainty – sporadic enforcement, unclear rules, delayed response – armed actors provide immediate answers, enforced by violence if necessary.

Climate stress, in this sense, is not just an environmental issue but a governance crisis multiplier. 

Fieldwork conducted by HumAngle across several local government areas in Kebbi, Niger, and Kwara states identified at least five active extremist factions operating within and around the park. These include the Mahmudawa (Mahmuda faction), Lakurawa, elements of Ansaru and Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) led by Sadiku and Umar Taraba, and a newly emerged cell linked to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin. 

The groups do not operate in isolation. Many originate from northwest Nigeria and southern Niger, with local cover, as they undertake terror attacks in distant locations and return to their various hideouts within the region. What has emerged is a hybrid threat ecosystem where ideology, criminality, climate stress, and grievance reinforce one another.

Brokers, enforcers, and ideologues

The Mahmudawa illustrate the new logic of this ecosystem. Despite sustained air and ground operations by the Federal Government between September and December 2025, the group remains influential. Fragmented into smaller camps, some closer to the Benin border, they act as brokers linking criminal networks of jihadist actors. They facilitate training, arms movement, ransom negotiations and sanctuary for fighters arriving from outside the region.

Official claims regarding the arrest of their leader, Malam Mahmuda, remain unconfirmed in border communities, where continued attacks and coordinated leadership are still attributed to the group.

If the Mahmudawa are brokers, the Lakurawa are enforcers. With an estimated 300 fighters, they have become one of the most active jihadist–terrorist hybrids affecting Kebbi’s border communities. Operating from within and around KLNP, they routinely launch incursions into Bagudo and Suru LGAs, combining attacks on military targets with ideological messaging aimed at delegitimising the Nigerian state.

Their leadership shows signs of Sahelian exposure. Their fighters are drawn from local nomadic tribal networks and northwest terrorist pools. Kebbi, long considered peripheral, is now firmly part of the frontline.

The relocation of Sadiku and Umar Taraba, both veteran jihadist operatives, to the Kainji axis in 2024 marked a shift. Their presence injected technical expertise into a space previously dominated by loosely organised armed groups.

IED knowledge, structured training, and a sharper focus on high-value targets followed. Collaboration with criminal terrorist groups deepened. The abduction of foreign nationals near Bode Sa’adu illustrated this fusion starkly: JAS elements, Mahmudawa fighters, and allied terrorists executing a single operation where ideology and profit were indistinguishable.

JNIM’s shadow on the lake

The most alarming development emerged in late November 2025: the appearance of a group believed to be affiliated with JNIM along the Kebbi–Benin border corridor.

Witnesses describe predominantly foreign fighters, many believed to be Tuareg, moving at night in disciplined formations, wearing military-style uniforms with turbans on their heads, and engaging communities with a calculated restraint unfamiliar to local armed groups. So far, they have avoided major attacks.

That restraint is likely strategic.

Their presence suggests Kainji Lake could become a staging ground for Sahelian expansion into northwestern Nigeria — a shift that would fundamentally alter the region’s security calculus. Unlike local groups, JNIM brings external financing, battlefield experience, and a long-term vision.

Communities adapting under pressure

Communities in the lake basin are not passive observers. They are recalibrating in real time. Some negotiate access quietly to avoid displacement. Others maintain layered loyalties, sharing information selectively as a survival strategy. Vigilante groups that once patrolled forest edges retreat under sustained pressure. Traditional rulers face coercion or marginalisation. In certain settlements, schools and community buildings are repurposed by armed actors for operational use.

Access to fishing grounds, farmlands, and trade routes increasingly depends on permissions issued by commanders operating from forest camps rather than on decisions by local councils or chiefs. Authority has shifted, not through formal declaration, but through incremental control of movement and livelihoods.

How conservation and governance hollowed the ground

The transformation of Kainji Lake into a security corridor is as much the product of ideology as it is the cumulative outcome of governance failure layered over decades.

The creation of Kainji Lake National Park in 1976 displaced communities and restricted access to land and water without meaningfully integrating residents into conservation planning. Fishing zones were closed, grazing was curtailed, and farming was criminalised in places where alternatives did not exist. Promised livelihoods rarely materialised.

Park rangers – tasked with enforcing vast conservation boundaries – were underpaid, poorly equipped, and often absent. Their presence, when felt, was frequently punitive rather than protective.

Local governments in Bagudo, Suru, Kaiama, Borgu, and Ngaski remain chronically weak. 

When armed violence escalated across the northwestern region, security deployments focused on Zamfara, Katsina, and parts of Niger State. Kebbi’s borderlands were treated as peripheral, stable, and low-risk. That assumption proved costly.

Border governance failed as well. Coordination with Benin and the Niger Republics remains distant, reactive, and politicised. Joint patrols are rare. Intelligence sharing is uneven. Communities know this. Armed actors understand it better.

Armed groups arrived first as guests, then as protectors, and finally as power brokers, filling gaps the state created—sometimes violently, sometimes persuasively.

Poverty caused by the absence of authority

In the absence of legitmate sate authority, people seek alternative systems of order. Armed groups exploit this vacuum expertly. They tax, regulate, punish, and reward. In some communities, the question is no longer whether armed groups are legitimate, but whether they are avoidable. Increasingly, they are not.

Once a symbol of Nigeria’s conservation ambition, KLNP has become a largely ungoverned hub exploited by a mix of violent actors: jihadist cells, armed terrorist factions, and transnational militants with roots beyond Nigeria’s borders.

From the northwest’s perspective – particularly Kebbi State – the park functions as a rear operational hub. Armed groups operating in border local governments use it for recruitment, logistics, training, and cross-border movement into the Benin Republic. Its sheer size, rugged terrain, and weak oversight enable a dangerous convergence: criminal armed groups blending with jihadism.

This shift carries national implications

Kainji’s forests and waterways provide mobility, with the lake economy providing revenue streams and border proximity offering escape and reinforcement routes.

While Sambisa became synonymous with territorial insurgency, Kainji signals the maturation of a corridor-based conflict economythat binds Nigeria’s northwest to wider Sahelian instability through forest reserves and lake communities.

When conservation spaces double as conflict connectors, the impact extends beyond biodiversity loss. Human buffers weaken first as communities negotiate survival under parallel authorities. Ecological buffers follow as enforcement fractures and resource exploitation become embedded in armed group financing.

The lake basin lies close to Kainji dam, a critical energy infrastructure, touches sensitive international borders, and anchors trade and livelihood systems that extend deep into the country’s interior.

In 2026, the geographic corridor surrounding the lake and its forest reserves recorded some of the highest levels of mass killings and large-scale abductions in Nigeria. Armed groups operate with increasing confidence, widening their reach across rural settlements and mobility routes connecting Niger State to Kebbi, Zamfara, and beyond toward the Sahelian belt.

The warning signs are not limited to a single park

In April 2025, the Conservator-General of Nigeria’s National Park Service, Ibrahim Musa Goni, told HumAngle that six national parks across the country were overrun by terrorists. Two years earlier, the federal government had created 10 additional parks to prevent further takeovers. However, only four of those new parks are currently operational. In addition to the seven existing parks, only eleven national parks are currently functioning nationwide.

Even where reclamation has occurred, the process is complex. The Conservator General pointed to Kaduna State as an example, describing what he termed a “mutual understanding” between authorities and armed groups. 

“They have agreed to resolve their issues,” he said. “[As a result], most of the forest and game reserves, and even the national park in Kaduna State, have today been freed of banditry.” This, he argued, has brought “relative peace” and enabled forest and game guards, including officers in Birnin Gwari, to resume operations.

The National Park Service has also redefined its institutional posture. “The government classified the National Park Service as a paramilitary organisation,” Goni explained. “And as a paramilitary organisation, the act provides that we can bear arms.” Rangers affiliated with the Service have received training from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to address wildlife crime and respond to terror-related takeovers. According to Goni, this training has strengthened Nigeria’s capacity to confront forest-based criminality linked to armed groups and insurgents.

The approach is not solely security-driven. The Service engages surrounding communities through alternative livelihood programmes, skills training, and starter packs intended to reduce dependence on park resources. “This has, in a great deal, diverted the attention of most of them from the resources of the national parks,” Goni said, adding that it has helped contain hunting and wildlife trafficking.

Yet resource limitations remain significant. “Apart from managing wild animal resources and the plants, we also have to manage the human population,” he acknowledged, noting that the Service cannot meet the needs of every community bordering the parks.

Around Kainji, these gaps are visible.

Natalia Burdynska Schuurman defended her MsC thesis at the University of Edinburgh on Venezuela’s struggle for food security and food sovereignty amid wide-reaching US-led unilateral sanctions.

See below for the abstract, research questions, and the full text.

Abstract

As global development actors grapple with mounting pressures to feed the world population, growing enforcement of unilateral coercive measures jeopardizes efforts to advance Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG-2, “Zero Hunger”). This dissertation examines efforts to achieve food security in Venezuela, a state currently targeted by over 1,000 unilateral coercive measures, since its incorporation as a constitutional right in 1999 and how such processes have been shaped by economic sanctions targeting its oil industry introduced by the United States in 2015. It employs a literature review, secondary data analysis and archival research, adopting a political economy and world systems lens as well as a historical, relational and interactive approach to food sovereignty research, centering the perspectives and experiences of Venezuelan communities. This dissertation argues that unilateral sanctions targeting Venezuela’s oil industry triggered the collapse of a political economy of food security structurally dependent on Venezuela’s macroeconomic stability within a dollarized international trade and financial system, catalyzing efforts to rebuild Venezuela’s food and agricultural system that transformed the landscape of national food sovereignty construction. It is hoped that this dissertation yields new insights into challenges and prospects facing national efforts to construct food sovereignty and global efforts to achieve food security today.

[…]

Research questions

This dissertation answers the primary question: How have unilateral sanctions
targeting Venezuela’s oil industry shaped efforts to achieve food security in
Venezuela?

It addresses the following contributory questions: What was the state of affairs characterizing Venezuela’s food and agricultural system prior to 2015? What advances and setbacks have been identified concerning the national goal to achieve food security, as enshrined in Venezuela’s Constitution of 1999? How have financial and trade sanctions targeting Venezuela’s oil industry introduced by the United States in 2015 correlated with macroeconomic and food security trends in Venezuela? How have financial and trade sanctions targeting Venezuela’s oil industry impacted food production, distribution and access in Venezuela? How have state and societal actors engaged in efforts to achieve food security in Venezuela responded to these consequences?

Sanaa, Yemen – Ahmed Abdu, 28, parked his motorbike near a hall under construction in the al-Jiraf neighbourhood of Sanaa. He walked some metres to deliver a food parcel to a customer.

Nearly a minute later, an air strike hit the hall, setting off a thunderous explosion.

Fire erupted, and smoke rose on the dark street at night. Passersby screamed and fled in panic. The attack happened last Ramadan, on March 19, 2025, in the Yemeni capital.

Ahmed, who survived, said he will never forget that moment of horror. He escaped unscathed, but his motorbike was charred, and nine civilians sustained injuries.

As Yemen enters this new Ramadan, memories of last year’s United States-led aerial campaign, Operation Rough Rider, are resurfacing in Sanaa.

The two-month operation, which Washington said targeted Houthi military infrastructure, killed at least 224 civilians, many of them in Ramadan last year.

Today, the country remains in tumult amid rising tensions in the region. Ahmed and thousands of people like him fear a repeat of the violence that shattered the holiest month of the year.

“I do not know whether this calm will continue in this Ramadan, or we will relive the intimidating war surprises we endured last year. Such an uncertainty is worrisome,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera.

Ready for the second round

About 10 days before this Ramadan, the Houthis, who control northwest Yemen, including Sanaa, staged a mass protest in the capital under the slogan “Steadfast and ready for the next round”, referring to a possible confrontation with local or foreign adversaries.

The protest expressed solidarity with and support for Houthi allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, against the US and Israel. Houthi leaders said their hands were on the trigger and that any US attacks on Iran would prompt them to intervene.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi movement, warned the US against launching any “military aggression” against Iran, saying that attacking Iran would amount to a full-scale war in the region.

“We are men of action, not words,” al-Bukhaiti told Iranian television.

With the Houthi threats to support Iran militarily against Washington, the fear for many regular Yemenis is that their country could soon find itself a target of US warplanes once again.

The missile in the kitchen

The scars from previous US-Houthi attack exchanges still linger in war-ravaged Yemen.

The US said the strikes last year were carried out in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked vessels passing through the Red Sea, in solidarity with Gaza.

Construction worker Faisal Abdulkareem, 35, welcomes the arrival of Ramadan, but memories of the last one remain painful. He prays this month will pass peacefully without the horror of warplanes, missiles, and explosions.

“On a Ramadan night last year, I was lying in my room, facing the street. I heard the roar of a warplane. I was worried but did not panic. I reassured myself: This is a residential area with no military facilities, and it would not be targeted,” Faisal recalled.

About a minute later, an explosion rocked the area. The aluminium window frames were blown outwards, and shards of glass flew into Faisal’s room.

“The glass fragments struck parts of my body, including my head and hands. I wiped the blood away with a tissue as I tried to process happened. It was terrifying,” he said.

Faisal went outside to see exactly where the rocket had hit. “The missile landed in my neighbour’s kitchen. His house is about 20 metres [66 feet] away from my first-floor apartment. That spiritual Ramadan night turned into a moment of terror,” he told Al Jazeera.

Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured. But Faisal’s neighbour’s house sustained damage.

“People in the neighbourhood rushed to the house. Some said it was an American missile. Others suggested the Houthis launched the missile to intercept the US plane over Sanaa, but it fell on the house accidentally.”

Faisal said his neighbour had to bear the financial burden of repairing the damage to his house alone.

“We fasted from food and drink last Ramadan, but not from fear and grief,” Faisal said.

Peace vs solidarity

In a speech on preparations for Ramadan on February 13, Houthi chief Abdel-Malik al-Houthi said Israel and the US have sought to dominate the Middle East.

“This is why [the US and Israel] focus on removing [Iran], because they consider it to be at the forefront of the major obstacles that stand in the way of achieving that goal,” he added.

Such a goal is unacceptable, he said. “This is something that no human being with even a shred of humanity or human dignity left can accept.”

While the Houthi leader views engaging in the war as a duty, others consider it “unfair” to risk peace in Sanaa for the sake of solidarity with Iran.

Ammar Ahmed, a law student in Sanaa, keeps abreast of the regional news and views the US-Iran military clash as catastrophic for northern Yemen.

“The Houthi leadership is defiant, and it will not hesitate to hit American military assets in the region. So, we [civilians in northern Yemen] will again face US strikes,” said Ammar.

He argued that peace in Yemen should be prioritised over solidarity with Iran.

“Iran is a powerful country, and it can defend its interests. Even if the Houthis intervened, their missiles or drones would not cripple the US military. They will only bring us trouble,” Ammar told Al Jazeera.

Legitimate concerns

The future of Yemen’s Houthis is tied to Iran, and civilian worry over what lies ahead during Ramadan and in the months following is legitimate, Abulsalam Mohammed, the head of the Yemeni Abaad Studies and Research Center, told Al Jazeera.

“A war against the Houthis in northern Yemen remains an option [for anti-Houthi forces]. This option will be scrapped should the group come to talks and recognise the legitimacy of the UN-recognised Yemeni government,” said Mohammed.

He indicated that Houthi involvement in any US-Iran military conflict would only accelerate the launch of anti-Houthi operations by Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government in Yemen’s north.

The Yemeni government has been emboldened by a recent campaign against the separatist Southern Transitional Council, forcing them out of much of southern Yemen with the backing of Saudi Arabia.

“The coming military operations against the rebel group, in my view, will not be limited to air strikes. There will be advances by local ground forces, coupled with foreign aerial cover. We witnessed how the separatists collapsed in the north, and the fall of the Houthis in the north is also possible,” Mohammed said.

The United Nations’s special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, warned that stabilisation in any part of the country will not be durable if the broader conflict in Yemen is not addressed comprehensively.

“It is high time to take decisive steps in this regard. Without a wider negotiated political settlement to the conflict, gains will continue to remain vulnerable to reversal,” said Grundberg in a briefing delivered to the UN Security Council on February 12.

For Sanaa resident Ahmed Abdu, it does not matter who wins any future conflict in the country. His priority is staying safe from the direct consequences of hostilities.

“During Ramadan last year, I lost my source of income, the motorbike, in an air strike. That loss could be replaced. I only wish a peaceful Ramadan this year and a lasting end to the war,” said Ahmed.

Russia is developing a new balloon-borne system that could provide battlefield access to high-speed data communications at a time when its forces are desperate to keep connected. The testing of the Barrage-1 balloon comes as Ukrainian troops are taking advantage of Russia’s loss of access to the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation network. Both sides have become dependent on the SpaceX system for daily wartime operations, but the restrictions on Russia’s use of Starlink are allowing Kyiv’s forces to fend off attacks in some areas while advancing in others. You can read more about Russia’s Starlink troubles in our initial story here.

As we previously noted, the introduction of Starlink to the battlefield in Ukraine revolutionized how war is waged, giving users high bandwidth, relatively secure communications basically anywhere, all in a small, off-the-shelf package. Though Elon Musk’s SpaceX company provided them to Ukraine, Russians soon came to rely on them as well. However, earlier this month, the company created a list of verified users, cutting Russia off from the system and throwing its troops into disarray. We will talk more about that later in this story.

The Barrage-1 balloon recently underwent its first test flight, according to Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Studies (FFAS), which is developing the system. It “is designed to carry up to 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of payload at an altitude of up to 20 kilometers (about 12 miles),” FFAS recently announced on Telegram. One of the payloads being considered is “a promising 5G NTN terrestrial communication equipment, the testing of which is planned for the near future,” the organization claimed.

While not reaching anywhere near the low earth orbit (LEO) altitudes as the Starlink constellation – between 341 miles to 298 miles – Barrage-1 could still serve as an alternative access point for high-speed data transfer for troops on ground below. 

Regardless of FFAS intentions, however, even if it is perfected, the Barrage-1 system will not provide the same level of coverage as Starlink, which is made up of thousands of laser datalink-connected satellites covering the globe. In contrast, Barrage-1 will be guided by “a pneumatic ballast system, which allows changing the flight altitude to utilize wind currents and move in the desired direction.”

“Due to this, the platform can maneuver and stay in a specified area or move along the trajectory required for the payload,” FFAS claimed, despite being in the very earliest stages of testing. 

You can read all about how high-altitude balloons can stay on station even in the presence of prevailing winds in this past story of ours. 

Even though it wouldn’t be a direct match to Starlink, at 12 miles high, it could provide wide-area connectivity similar to that offered by Starlink, albeit over a much more limited area. A mini ‘constellation’ of these systems spread over a region and mesh-networked together, could help solve the line of sight limitations of a single balloon.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry (MoD) advisor on defense technology and drone and electronic warfare (EW) expert Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov sees potential in this system.

“The platform is seen as an accessible and efficient alternative to expensive satellite constellations in LEO,” Beskrestnov explained on Telegram. “One of the priority tasks for ‘Barrage’ will be to test 5G NTN communication. Placing transmitters at an altitude of 20 km will allow providing high-speed internet and communication to vast territories where the construction of ground towers is impossible.”

“In theory and in practice, by controlling the altitude of an aerostat, it can be steered, not precisely, but enough to stay over any territory,” he added.

However, the Barrage-1’s comparatively low altitudes could make them targets for Ukrainian air defense systems and other countermeasures. 

“And what’s most important for us? To have the means that can detect such objects over our territory,” Beskrestnov suggested. “And to have the ability to shoot down such targets if they pose a threat. As far as I remember, the S-300 [surface to air missile system] can engage targets at an altitude of 20-30 km (about 12 to 19 miles).”

Still, successfully targeting and engaging a balloon with a small radar signature using SAMs are two different things. Russia worked on this exact problem extensively during the Cold War, which you can read about here.

The balloons could also fall victim to other forms of attack. It isn’t hard to imagine Ukraine producing a drone to specifically hunt for these systems at longer ranges. Their emissions would make them hard to hide. Also, the electronic warfare aspect is worth noting for the same reasons.

The concept of using balloons as communications nodes is far from new. It has been around for many years. The U.S. military continues to eye using balloons to lug communications relays and gateways aloft as well. As we previously noted, the U.S. once even considered sending balloons over Cuba with equipment that would allow citizens to have access after the government cut it off. For homeland applications, high altitude balloons have been eyed to replace cellular towers, especially after natural disasters have wiped-out ground-based communications.

The SpaceX restrictions have impacted everything from Russia’s high-level command and control, to basic communications and data exchange between troops across the entire battlespace. It has also affected Russia’s drone warfare, including interfering with long-range aerial weapons and uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV). The Kyiv Post article claims that some Russian UGVs have relied on Starlink to operate.

“The loss of Starlink has now forced Russian military logistics troops to return to the use of manned trucks, cars, motorcycles or quad-cycle vehicles,” noted Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general now serving as a military analyst. “These have proven to be more vulnerable to drone strikes.”

Losing Starlink has slowed down Russian offensive actions and increased their casualties while opening up opportunities for Ukraine to advance, Ukrainian military officials have claimed.

“For three to four days after the shutdown, they really reduced the assault operations,”  Lt. Denis Yaroslavsky, who commands a special reconnaissance unit for the Ukraine Armed Forces, told the New York Post.

“The disruption comes as Russia suffers its worst death rate since the start of the four-year-old war,” U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence officials told the publication.

Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have intensified recently, backed by Israeli forces.

A young Palestinian man was killed and four other people were injured when a group of Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli forces, opened fire on a village in the occupied West Bank.

The death of the young man on Wednesday evening, identified as Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, marks the first killing of a Palestinian by Israeli settler gunfire so far this year, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

During the attack on the village of Mukhmas, located northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli settlers also stole dozens of sheep from local Palestinian residents, Wafa reports.

The attack on Mukhmas and other Palestinian towns and villages constitutes a “dangerous escalation in systematic terrorism and reflects a complete partnership between the settlers and the occupation forces,” Mu’ayyad Sha’ban, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, told Wafa.

Calling for international protection for Palestinian communities, Sha’ban said that settlers have now killed 37 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, but the escalating violence would not deter Palestinians from holding onto their land.

Mukhmas and the adjacent Bedouin community of Khallat al-Sidra have faced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers, often occurring with the protection or presence of Israeli forces, according to reports.

The governorate of Jerusalem, one of the 16 administrative districts of Palestine, said in a statement that the killing of the young man by Israeli settlers was a “fully-fledged crime… carried out under the protection and supervision of the Israeli occupation forces.”

Translation: Martyr of the town of Mukhmas, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, who ascended after succumbing to his injury from settler gunfire during the attack on the town northeast of occupied Jerusalem.

The governorate said the attack was part of a dangerous surge of violence carried out by settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and characterised by the widespread use of live ammunition, direct shooting at Palestinian citizens, as well as burning local Palestinian homes, damaging vehicles and property, and seizing land.

Armed settler violence is being supported by “pillars of the Israeli government”, foremost among them far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the governorate added, according to Wafa.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 2023, and more than 10,000 people have been forcibly displaced.

Since the start of this year alone, almost 700 Palestinians in nine communities have been displaced due to settler attacks, including 600 displaced from the Ras Ein al-Auja Bedouin community in Jericho governorate, OCHA reports.

Earlier this week, Israel’s government approved a plan to designate large areas of the occupied West Bank as Israeli “state property”, shifting the burden of proof to Palestinians to establish ownership of their land in a longstanding situation where Israel has made it all but impossible to obtain property titles.

Described as de-facto annexation of the West Bank, the Israeli government’s decision has drawn widespread international condemnation as a grave escalation that undermines the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Israel’s attempted land grab and killings by settlers come amid a sharp increase in Israeli military operations across the occupied West Bank, where forces have intensified raids, carried out forced evictions, home demolitions, and other repressive measures in multiple areas.

Mérida, February 18, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Agreement and urged Guyana to engage in “good faith negotiations” to settle the longstanding dispute over the Essequibo Strip.

In a statement published on Tuesday, Caracas celebrated six decades of the agreement and reiterated that the treaty is “the only valid legal instrument for reaching a mutually acceptable solution to the dispute” over the 160,000 square-kilometer territory.

The 1966 accord, signed by Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and British Guiana, a British colony at the time, saw the different parties pledge to find an agreeable solution to the border issue.

The Venezuelan government’s communique noted that the treaty was submitted to the United Nations, arguing that it overruled the controversial 1899 arbitration ruling which awarded the territory to the United Kingdom.

The text also reaffirmed Venezuela’s sovereignty claim over the resource-rich territory and referenced the popular mandate from the December 3, 2023, referendum that saw over 90 percent of respondents back the country’s rights over the Essequibo Strip.

“The only possible solution to the territorial controversy is to engage in good faith negotiations, to achieve a satisfactory arrangement for the two parties that signed the Geneva Agreement,” the declaration concluded.

The Guyanese government responded on Wednesday with its own statement, arguing that the Geneva Agreement did not annul the 1899 Arbitral Award but rather established a framework for resolving the dispute that arose when Venezuela questioned the border’s validity in 1962.

Georgetown likewise noted that, in January 2018, the Secretary-General of the United Nations determined that the “good offices” mechanism had been unsuccessful in resolving the dispute. 

“In accordance with Article IV (2) of the Geneva Agreement, the Secretary-General decided to submit the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the final means of resolution. Both Guyana and Venezuela were bound by that decision.”

Hours later, the Venezuelan government issued a second statement accusing Guyana of attempting to distort the spirit of the Geneva Agreement and reiterating Caracas’ position rejecting the ICJ’s jurisdiction over the border controversy.

“Venezuela will not recognize any decision emanating from the International Court of Justice on the territorial dispute surrounding Guayana Esequiba,” the document read.

Despite rejecting the Hague-based court’s authority on the matter, the Venezuelan government participated in a documentation-gathering process before the ICJ during 2023 and 2024. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, then vice president, led the country’s legal efforts.

In August 2025, Caracas submitted further evidence backing its Essequibo sovereignty claim and challenging Georgetown’s historical and legal arguments. The case will advance to the oral hearings phase in May 2026.

In January, the Guyanese Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hugh Todd, claimed that the ICJ’s ruling would be binding for both nations and that the case was now in the hands of “the highest and most respected judicial authority in the world.”

The longstanding territorial controversy flared up in 2015 after ExxonMobil discovered and began exploiting massive offshore oil reserves. Venezuelan authorities have raised their sovereignty claims and criticized Guyanese counterparts for giving drilling permits to multinational corporations in undelimited waters.

Caracas has also criticized the US’ interference in the issue, with successive administrations offering their full backing to Georgetown. Venezuelan authorities have accused Washington of stoking regional tensions amid plans to establish military bases in Guyana.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

These are the key developments from day 1,456 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Thursday, February 19:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched multiple attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, killing one person and injuring seven others over the past day, the region’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging platform.
• The attacks involved 448 drones as well as 163 artillery strikes, causing damage to 136 homes, cars and other structures, the military administration said.
• Russian forces also continued shelling Ukraine’s Donetsk region, forcing 173 people, including 135 children, to evacuate front-line areas over the past day, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
• A 54-year-old man was killed in a Russian attack in the Nikopol district of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram.
• Russian attacks also left many people without electricity across Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Energy, including more than 99,000 households in the Odesa region.
• In Russia, one person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Aleynikovo in the country’s Bryansk region, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that Russian forces seized the village of Kharkivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region and Krynychne in the Zaporizhia region, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS.
• Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site DeepState said that Russian forces advanced in Nykyforivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
• Russian forces shot down 155 Ukrainian drones, 11 rocket launchers, and two guided aerial bombs in a 24-hour period, Russia’s Defence Ministry said, according to TASS.

Peace talks

• Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine concluded the second of two days of US-mediated talks in Geneva, with both sides describing the negotiations as “difficult”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that although “progress has been made … for now, positions differ because the negotiations were difficult”.
• President Zelenskyy later told the Piers Morgan Uncensored current affairs show that Russia and Ukraine were close to defining terms for how a potential ceasefire would be monitored, but progress on “political” issues had been slower, including on the most divisive issue of control of territory.
• In Washington, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said there was “meaningful progress made” with pledges “to continue to work towards a peace deal together”, and more talks are expected in the near future.
• Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator, said the two days of talks in Geneva were “difficult but businesslike,” telling reporters that further negotiations would be held soon, without specifying when.
• Rustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv’s negotiating team, said that the second day had been “intensive and substantive” and that both sides were working towards decisions that can be sent to their presidents, he said.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukraine imposed sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, promising to “increase countermeasures” against Minsk for supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, including through providing relay stations for Russian drone attacks on Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on social media.
• United States Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire along with three other US senators from the Democratic Party visited Kyiv.
• Shaheen told reporters that she “would hope that we would see a stronger effort and some real work when we get back to put pressure on Putin”.

Sport

• Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a post on Telegram that “allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Milano-Cortina Paralympics while Russia continues its full-scale war against Ukraine is a disgrace”.
• Estonian Public Broadcasting company Eesti Rahvusringhaaling announced it would not broadcast the games in protest at the decision to allow the Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their own flags.

The construction of new silos for the U.S. Air Force’s future LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) means that units charged with defending them will have to update their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Air Force Security Forces personnel regularly train to protect existing silos housing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs, as well as associated launch facilities, or even recapture them if necessary. The need for totally new silos and other infrastructure has been a major issue for the Sentinel program, contributing significantly to delays and cost overruns that triggered a total restructuring that is still ongoing.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, highlighted how Sentinel will impact Air Force Security Forces units in a brief report released earlier today. This comes a day after the Air Force put out its own update on the new ICBM program, stating that the current goal is for the restructuring effort to wrap up before the end of the year and for the first launch of a prototype LGM-35A to occur in 2027. The hope now is that Sentinel will begin entering operational service sometime in the early 2030s. The original schedule had called for the missiles to reach initial operational capability in 2029.

“DOD will need to complete Sentinel launch facility test and evaluation activities early in the transition to inform DOD and Air Force security policy updates,” the GAO report says. “Because security forces incorporate these updates into unit-level operating instructions, these policy updates will be needed to train Air Force security forces for the transition.”

The report does not elaborate on the changes that will be required. As noted, Security Forces personnel currently assigned to Air Force Missile wings train to protect the Minuteman III force above and below ground. There are currently 400 LGM-30Gs loaded into silos spread across five states. Sentinel is said to offer greater range and improved accuracy, as well as reliability and sustainability benefits, over the aging Minuteman IIIs, which first entered service in 1970. The development of a new ICBM also offers the opportunity for the inclusion of survivability improvements and other additional capabilities.

An Air Force news release from 2019 describes one potential “recapture and recovery” scenario used in a routine training:

“The training simulated a hostile’s attempt to capture a nuclear asset. Security forces Airmen, who arrived by both Humvee and helicopter, began to combat the threat and worked their way toward retaking control of the launch facility. After neutralizing the threat, recapturing and securing the launch facility, the Airmen performed self-aid buddy care and tactical combat casualty care.”

The video below shows scenes from a recapture and recovery exercise conducted as part of the larger Global Thunder 23 exercise.

91st Missile Wing participates in Global Thunder 23

Terrorists or other hostile actors could also seek to break into silos or launch facilities just to damage or destroy them. Even if they could not trigger a nuclear detonation, blowing up an ICBM inside its silo would have significant operational, environmental, and other ramifications.

The Air Force had originally said it would reuse Minuteman III silos and other existing infrastructure for Sentinel, but subsequently determined that was no longer a viable course of action. As such, new silos and launch control facilities could easily come with substantially different physical layouts that would affect the tactics, techniques, and procedures for securing them. The LGM-35A missiles will also be completely different from the existing LGM-30Gs, and there could be additional notable differences in how the Sentinels are married together with their new ground-based infrastructure. All of this could further impact how Security Forces personnel prepare themselves for a variety of contingencies, including any potential for accidental detonations or launches.

In its update about Sentinel yesterday, the Air Force shared that prime contractor Northrop Grumman is set to start building a prototype launch silo at the company’s facility in Promontory, Utah, this month. “This crucial effort will allow engineers to test and refine modern construction techniques, validating the new silo design before work begins in the missile fields,” according to the release.

There’s a strong possibility that a prototype silo could also be used to help develop and refine new Security Forces TTPs in future, as well.

Site defense is also just one aspect of the elaborate and costly security ecosystem in place now for the Minuteman III force. This includes protection for ICBMs while they are being transported via transporter-erector trucks, as well as loaded or unloaded into silos. All of this will also have to adapt to the future Sentinel missiles and their new facilities. The Air Force has already been modernizing certain aspects of nuclear force protection capabilities, including the acquisition of new MH-139A Grey Wolf helicopters to replace aging UH-1Ns used to provide air support over the silo fields and for convoys on the move. An MH-139A was used to escort a Minuteman III convoy for the first time in January.

In terms of other Sentinel-related infrastructure work, “this summer, prototyping activities at F.E. Warren AFB [Air Force Base, in Wyoming] will validate innovative utility corridor construction methods, which are key to streamlining the installation of thousands of miles of secure infrastructure and fielding the system faster,” the Air Force’s release added. “Meanwhile, foundational construction on permanent facilities is already well underway. The first of three new Wing Command Centers is taking shape at F.E. Warren AFB, and critical test facilities are being erected at Vandenberg SFB [Space Force Base, in California] to support the future flight test campaign.”

So-called Site Activation Task Force (SATAF) detachments are also helping lay the groundwork for the transition from Minuteman III to Sentinel at F.E. Warren and Vandenberg, as well as Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. It should be noted that Vandenberg does not currently host operational ICBMs, and is not set to do so in the future, but is used for routine test launches. The Air Force also says that the planned first launch of a Sentinel in 2027 will be from a pad rather than a silo.

US Air Force launches Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg in unarmed test

The Air Force is otherwise hopeful that the ongoing restructuring effort will reduce the chance for further schedule risks to the Sentinel program and, by extension, cost growth.

“We certainly have not lowered the bar, and we certainly have not taken on any risk by doing this,” Air Force Gen. Dale White, the new Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for Critical Major Weapon Systems (CMWS), told Breaking Defense in an interview published yesterday. The DRPM CMWS role was established last August to create a “single empowered leader” to manage Sentinel and other top-priority Air Force weapon systems programs, including the F-47 sixth-generation fighter and B-21 Raider stealth bomber.

“The restructured program incorporates key lessons learned to ensure maximum efficiency,” the Air Force’s release explained. “The decision to build new silos, for example, avoids the unpredictable costs and safety hazards of excavating and retrofitting 450 unique structures built over 50 years ago, and is a prime example of choosing a path that delivers capability with greater speed and less risk.”

“Sentinel program officials continue to evaluate options to potentially redesign portions of the weapon system for cost reductions and are looking at avenues to minimize further schedule delays,” GAO’s report today also noted. “For example, the Air Force is reevaluating system requirements and evaluating changes to the acquisition strategy – both of which could limit further cost and schedule growth.”

GAO’s report did still highlight continued concerns about potential challenges for Sentinel, including in relation to software development for the missiles and work on the extensive new ground infrastructure. As noted, the need for all-new silos has already been a central factor in delays and cost overruns, despite the hope that this will prove less risky in the long run. There are also concerns about sustaining the Minuteman III force beyond 2036, when the transition to Sentinel was originally supposed to be complete. A seamless replacement process is critical to ensuring that the land-based leg of America’s nuclear triad remains a credible deterrent capability throughout.

“I think Sentinel is going to be a bit easier with some of the things we’re designing into the program, the digital infrastructure, the open architecture,” Air Force Gen. Stephen Davis, head of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), told TWZ in an interview last month. “I think it will make it easier to upgrade and keep that missile relevant. I don’t have any worries about being able to do that in the future.”

Overall, the Sentinel is categorized as “megaproject” by GAO, defined as something that “costs $1 billion or more, affects 1 million or more people, and runs for years.” Such efforts “are extremely risky ventures, notoriously difficult to manage, and often fail to achieve their original objectives,” according to the Congressional watchdog.

A revised cost for Sentinel has yet to be released. However, when the Air Force announced the restructuring effort back in 2024, the total acquisition costs were projected to rise to approximately $140.9 billion, an 81 percent increase over the original estimates.

Even if the restructured Sentinel plan holds going forward, the program will still be immensely complex and resource-intensive, and have many different facets, including changes to how Security Forces units operate going forward.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The true human cost of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip has far exceeded previous official estimates, with independent research published in the world’s leading medical journals verifying more than 75,000 “violent deaths” by early 2025.

The findings, emerging from a landmark series of scientific papers, suggest that administrative records from the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) represent a conservative “floor” rather than an overcount, and provide a rigorous bedrock to the scale of Palestinian loss.

The Gaza Mortality Survey (GMS), a population-representative household study published in The Lancet Global Health, estimated 75,200 “violent deaths” between October 7, 2023 and January 5, 2025. This figure represents approximately 3.4 percent of Gaza’s pre-conflict 2.2 million population and sits 34.7 percent higher than the 49,090 “violent deaths” reported by the MoH for the same period.

The Gaza Health Ministry estimates that as of January 27 this year, at least 71,662 people have been killed since the start of the war. Of those, 488 people have been killed since the declaration of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2025.

Israel has consistently questioned the ministry’s figures, but an Israeli army official told journalists in the country in January that the army accepted that about 70,000 people had been killed in Gaza during the war.

Despite the higher figure, researchers noted that the demographic composition of casualties – where women, children, and the elderly comprise 56.2 percent of those killed – remains remarkably consistent with official Palestinian reporting.

Scientific validation of the toll

The GMS, which interviewed 2,000 households representing 9,729 individuals, provides a rigorous empirical foundation for a death toll.

Michael Spagat, a professor of economics at Royal Holloway University of London and the study’s lead author, found that while MoH reporting remains reliable, it is inherently conservative due to the collapse of the very infrastructure required to document death.

Notably, this research advances upon findings published in The Lancet in January 2025, which used statistical “capture-recapture” modelling to estimate 64,260 deaths during the war’s first nine months.

While that earlier study relied on probability to flag undercounts, this report shifts from mathematical estimation to empirical verification through direct household interviews. It extends the timeline through January 2025, confirming a violent toll exceeding 75,000 and quantifying, for the first time, the burden of “non-violent excess mortality”.

According to a separate commentary in the same publication, the systematic destruction of hospitals and administrative centres has created a “central paradox” where the more devastating the harm to the health system, the more difficult it becomes to analyse the total death toll.

Verification is further hindered by thousands of bodies still buried under rubble or mutilated beyond recognition. Beyond direct violence, the survey estimated 16,300 “non-violent deaths”, including 8,540 “excess” deaths caused directly by the deterioration of living conditions and the blockade-induced collapse of the medical sector.

Researchers highlighted that the MoH figures appear to be conservative and reliable, dispelling misinformation campaigns aimed at discrediting Palestinian casualty data. “The validation of MoH reporting through multiple independent methodologies supports the reliability of its administrative casualty recording systems even under extreme conditions,” the study concluded.

A decade of reconstructive backlogs

While the death toll continues to mount, survivors face an unprecedented burden of complex injury that Gaza’s decimated healthcare system is no longer equipped to manage. A predictive, multi-source model published in eClinicalMedicine quantified 116,020 cumulative injuries as of April 30, 2025.

The study, led by researchers from Duke University and Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, estimated that between 29,000 and 46,000 of these injuries require complex reconstructive surgery. More than 80 percent of these injuries resulted from explosions, primarily air attacks and shelling in densely populated urban zones.

The scale of the backlog is staggering. Ash Patel, a surgeon and co-author of the study, noted that even if surgical capacity were miraculously restored to pre-war levels, it would take approximately another decade to work through the estimated backlog of predicted reconstructive cases. Before the escalation, Gaza had only eight board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeons for a population exceeding 2.2 million people.

The collapse of the health system

The disparity between reconstructive need and capacity is exacerbated by what researchers describe as the “systematic destruction” of medical infrastructure. By May 2025, only 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained capable of providing care beyond basic emergency triage, with approximately 2,000 hospital beds available for the entire population, down from more than 3,000 beds before the war.

“There is little to no reconstructive surgery capacity left within Gaza,” the research concluded, warning that specialised expertise like microsurgery is almost absent. The clinical challenge is further compounded by Israel’s use of incendiary weapons, which produce severe burns alongside blast-related fractures.

The long-term effect of these injuries is often irreversible. Without prompt medical treatment, patients face high risks of wound infection, sepsis, and permanent disability. The data indicate that tens of thousands of Palestinians will remain with surgically addressable disabilities for life unless there is a huge international increase in reconstructive capacity and aid.

The ‘grey zone’ of mortality

Writing in The Lancet Global Health, authors Belal Aldabbour and Bilal Irfan observed a growing “grey zone” in mortality where the distinction between direct and indirect death becomes blurred. Patients who die of sepsis months after a blast, or from renal failure after a crushing injury because they cannot access clean water or surgery, occupy a space that risks understating the true lethality of military attacks.

Conditions have only deteriorated since the data collection periods. By late 2025, forced evacuations covered more than 80 percent of Gaza’s area, with northern Gaza and Rafah governorates facing full razing by Israeli forces. Famine was declared in northern Gaza in August 2025, further reducing the physiological reserve of injured survivors and complicating any surgical recovery.

This series of independent studies serves as an urgent call for accountability and an immediate cessation of hostilities. “The healthcare infrastructure in Gaza is being repeatedly decimated by attacks despite protection by international humanitarian law,” researchers stated. They underscored that the only way to prevent the reconstructive burden from growing further is an immediate end to attacks against civilians and vital infrastructure.

Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, has confirmed that the agency launched an investigation against ABC’s daytime talk show The View over a recent appearance by a politician.

In comments to reporters on Wednesday, Carr indicated the probe would examine whether The View violated a new interpretation of an “equal time” rule implemented under President Donald Trump.

Fox News had been the first to report on the investigation in early February. The segment in question involves an appearance from Texas state Representative James Talarico, a Democrat who is vying for the US Senate.

The confirmation comes as Carr attempted to shut down claims that the government censored an interview between Talarico and late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert.

“There was no censorship here at all,” Carr said.

“Every single broadcaster in this country has an obligation to be responsible for the programming that they choose to air, and they’re responsible whether it complies with FCC rules or not, and it doesn’t, and those individual broadcasters are also going to have a potential liability.”

The controversy with Colbert likewise stems from the Trump administration’s decision to shift definitions under the “equal time” rule.

What is the ‘equal time’ rule?

The rule is part of section 315 of the 1934 Communications Act. Under that law, if a broadcaster allows one candidate for public office to use its facilities, it is required to “afford equal opportunities” to all other candidates in the same race.

But the law includes exceptions for “bona fide newscasts” and “bona fide news interviews”.

For nearly 20 years, talk shows and late-night comedy programmes were included in those categories.

In January, however, the FCC issued new guidance (PDF) that significantly narrows how it interprets the “bona fide news” exemption. In a memo, it described daytime talk shows and late-night comedy as “entertainment programs” that fall outside the exception.

“The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” the memo reads.

The commission also suggested that many such programmes are “motivated by partisan purposes” and are therefore not “bona fide” news.

The new interpretation of the “equal time” rule, the FCC argued, is designed to “ensure that no legally qualified candidate for office is unfairly given less access to the public airwaves than their opponent.”

Controversy with Colbert

That new interpretation came roaring into the spotlight on Monday, after a broadcast of the CBS comedy programme The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

In one of his opening segments, Colbert alleged that the network lawyers barred him from airing a planned interview that night with Talarico.

“Let’s just call it what it is,” Colbert told his audience. “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV. OK? He’s like a toddler with too much screen time.”

Trump has previously criticised both Colbert’s show and The View for what he considers a left-wing slant.

Instead of broadcasting his interview with Talarico on network television, Colbert instead posted the segment on the programme’s YouTube page, where it has gained more than 6 million views as of 3:30pm Eastern Time (20:30 GMT) on Wednesday.

According to Carr, Colbert’s show could have aired the Talarico interview if it had complied with the equal time rule.

That would have involved allowing other candidates in Texas vying for the Senate seat to come on the show. Carr also suggested that another solution could have been to restrict the broadcast in Texas.

But the FCC has continued to face criticisms for its actions. In Tuesday’s broadcast, Colbert addressed the issue a second time.

He read aloud a statement from his broadcast channel that read, in part, that The Late Show “was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview” and that it was instead “provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule”.

CBS added, in the statement, that Colbert could have invited onto the show Talarico’s rivals, including fellow Democrat Jasmine Crockett.

“I am well aware that we can book other guests,” Colbert responded. “I didn’t need to be presented with that option. I’ve had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I could prove that to you, but the network won’t let me show you her picture without including her opponents.”

Colbert has been a vocal critic of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, particularly after it settled a lawsuit last year with the Trump administration for $16m in the run-up to a critical merger for which it needed government approval.

Talarico, meanwhile, accused the FCC of censoring his interviews. Nevertheless, on Wednesday, he noted that the uptick in media attention from the scandal has helped him gather donations.

“Our campaign raised $2.5 million in 24 hours after the FCC banned our Colbert interview,” he wrote on social media.

In the past two days, the U.S. Air Force has sent six of its 16 E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar planes to bases in Europe. Two of those jets are now headed to the Middle East, and the others will likely follow, as a massive buildup of U.S. airpower continues ahead of potential strikes on Iran. The deployment of nearly 40 percent of all Air Force E-3s underscores how critical the aircraft remain, but also the challenges of meeting intense operational demands with a rapidly aging and shrunken-down fleet. It also further calls into question a puzzling Pentagon move to axe the purchase of replacement E-7 Wedgetail jets, which Congress has now reversed.

Readers can first get caught up on the full scope of the U.S. buildup around the Middle East in our recent reporting here.

As of yesterday, a pair of E-3s had arrived at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom after traveling from their home station at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. Four more AWACS jets from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma had also touched down at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Online flight tracking data shows that the E-3s at Mildenhall have now departed and are headed toward the Middle East. There is widespread expectation that those aircraft, as well as the ones at Ramstein, will eventually make their way to Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

As noted, the U.S. Air Force currently has just 16 E-3s remaining in its inventory, roughly half the size of what it was just a few years ago. Six aircraft represent 37.5 percent of the total fleet. However, not all Sentry radar planes are available for operational tasking at any one time. For example, the average mission-capable rate for the E-3 fleet during the 2024 Fiscal Year was 55.68 percent, according to a story last year from Air & Space Forces Magazine. At the time of writing, this appears to be the most recent readiness data the Air Force has released for the E-3s. As such, the six forward-deployed AWACS jets represent an even larger percentage of the aircraft that can actually be sent out on real-world missions. This includes providing radar coverage for alert scrambles of fighter jets defending the homeland. This happens in some circumstances in the lower 48 states, but it is standard practice in Alaska, where there are usually a couple of E-3s typically stationed, with one on alert to launch in support of the fighters, which happens regularly. This is something we will come back to later on.

As TWZ has already noted, the deployment of E-3s to the Middle East is one of the clearest indicators that the final pieces for a major air campaign against Iran are falling into place. We made a similar observation about the appearance of AWACS aircraft flying close to the Venezuelan coast last December in the lead-up to the operation to capture that country’s dictatorial leader, Nicolas Maduro.

The E-3 is best known as a flying radar station, with its array contained inside a spinning dome mounted on top of the rear of the fuselage. From its perch, the Sentry can track hostile and friendly air and naval movements across a broad area of the battlespace. Its look-down radar capability offers particular advantages for spotting and tracking lower flying threats, including drones and cruise missiles. Kamikaze drones, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, would be a central feature in any Iranian retaliatory attacks on American assets on land and at sea in the Middle East.

However, each Sentry, which typically flies with 13 to 19 mission specialists onboard in addition to a four-person flight crew, is much more than just its radar. It has other passive sensors and an advanced communications suite. Its combined capabilities make it a key battle management node during operations, and not just in the aerial domain.

E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning & Control System. Take-Off, Landing, Interior Shots

“The radar and computer subsystems on the E-3 Sentry can gather and present broad and detailed battlefield information. This includes position and tracking information on enemy aircraft and ships, and location and status of friendly aircraft and naval vessels. The information can be sent to major command and control centers in rear areas or aboard ships,” according to the Air Force. “In support of air-to-ground operations, the Sentry can provide direct information needed for interdiction, reconnaissance, airlift and close-air support for friendly ground forces. It can also provide information for commanders of air operations to gain and maintain control of the air battle.”

Altgoether, E-3 crews run the air battle, and also serve as a key battle management node during operations outside of the aerial domain. These command and control functions would be key in any future offensive operations against Iran, as well as for defending against any retaliation.

At the same time, the Air Force has been open for years now about the increasing challenges involved in operating and sustaining the E-3 fleet. The last new production Sentry aircraft were delivered in 1992, and were also some of the last derivatives of the Boeing 707 airliner to ever be produced. Air Force E-3s have received substantial upgrades since then, but the underlying aircraft are still aging and are increasingly difficult to support. Between 2023 and 2024, the Sentry fleet notably shrank from 31 aircraft down to its present size, in part to try to help improve overall readiness. The fact that U.S. E-3s are powered by long-out-of-production low-bypass Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans has been cited as a particular issue.

“The first thing I would offer is there’s already – whether there’s 31 airplanes or 16 airplanes – there’s a gap today,” now-retired Gen. Mark Kelly, then head of Air Combat Command, told TWZ and other outlets at the Air & Space Forces Association’s main annual conference in 2022. “There’s a reason why there’s exactly zero airlines on planet earth that fly the 707 with TF-33 engines.”

“The last airline was Saha Airlines in Iran,” Kelly added at that time. “We basically have 31 airplanes in hospice care, the most expensive care there is. And we need to get into the maternity business and out of hospices.”

As already noted, the remaining E-3 fleet has continued to struggle with readiness issues amid consistently high demand. These issues have been compounded by resistance over the years to acquiring a direct replacement. When the Air Force finally did decide to supplant at least a portion of the Sentry fleet with newer and more capable E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, that effort turned into a protracted saga.

The Air Force officially started down the road of acquiring E-7s in 2022, but the program became mired in delays and cost overruns. Last year, the Pentagon revealed its intention to axe the Wedgetail purchases in favor of an interim solution involving buying more of the U.S. Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control planes. That, in turn, would serve as a bridge to a longer-term Air Force goal of pushing most, if not all, airborne target tracking sensor layer tasks into space. Questions about the survivability of the E-7 were also cited as having contributed to the decision.

Questions were immediately raised about the new plan, especially about the viability of the E-2, a lower and slower flying aircraft designed around carrier-based operations, to meet Air Force needs, as TWZ has explored in the past. The service has also said that it does not expect new space-based capabilities to be operational before, at best, the early 2030s. Traditional airborne early warning and control aircraft are expected to continue playing important roles even after that milestone is reached.

“I have been concerned. We have E-3 capability up north, of course, but we were all counting on the E-7 Wedgetail coming our way. We’re kind of limping along up north right now, which is unfortunate. And the budget proposes terminating the program,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, had said during a June 2025 Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, where the E-7 cancellation plans first emerged publicly. “Again, the E-3 fleet [is] barely operational now, and I understand the intent to shift towards the space-based – you call it the ‘air moving target indicators’ – but my concern is that you’ve got a situation where you’re not going to be able to use more duct tape to hold things together until you put this system in place. And, so, how we maintain that level of operational readiness and coverage, I’m not sure how you make it.”

Congress has since taken action to save the E-7, but the program may now be even more delayed as a result of the impasse over the past year. Legislators have also taken steps to block any further E-3 retirements, at least through the end of Fiscal Year 2026.

Still, the truncated E-3 fleet clearly remains under immense strain. Sen. Murkowski’s comments last Summer also remain particularly relevant in light of the fact that two of the six E-3s recently sent across the Atlantic came from Elmendorf in Alaska. Recent tracking data suggests that there may only be one Sentry at Elmendorf now to meet operational needs in and around the High North, a part of the world that has only grown in strategic significance in recent years.

There is also a question now about the availability of E-3 coverage should a crisis break out somewhere in the Indo-Pacific. If a major contingency were to emerge in the region tomorrow, the Air Force would be faced with a situation compounded not just by low availability rates and high demand elsewhere globally, but also the so-called ‘tyranny of distance.’ The sheer expanse of the Pacific, much of which is water, presents additional requirements when it comes to total coverage area and sortie generation rates to maintain a steady flow of aircraft on station around designated operating areas. Just getting to those areas and back could take many hours. Any future conflict in the region could occur over a massive total area, as well, which would be problematic for such a tiny fleet. All this is exacerbated by the age of the airframes and copious amount of maintenance to keep them flying in the best of conditions, let alone when deployed to the Pacific.

As a point of comparison, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which would be fighting from its home turf during a major conflict in the Pacific, has made significant investments in a diverse and still growing array of airborne early warning and control aircraft. The Chinese see a force-multiplying need for these aircraft, and for large numbers of them to be able to cover a lot of territory at once, as you can read more about in this past TWZ feature.

Moving capabilities into space is an admirable goal, and has many advantages in theory, but the capabilities are not available now. Further, while some of the sensing can be distributed to other platforms and leveraged via advanced networking, there still is a place for an integrated and powerful airborne early warning and control solution, at least till the ‘all-seeing’ space layer is actually in place. Saving money now by leaving such a glaring gap, especially in the current security environment globally, appears bizarrely short-sighted.

It does remain to be seen whether or not the United States ultimately launches a new major air campaign against Iran. U.S. and Iranian officials have now met twice to try to reach some type of diplomatic agreement, with the focus largely on the latter country’s nuclear ambitions. At the same time, the ongoing build-up in U.S. airpower around the Middle East, and not just limited to the E-3s, aligns with recent reports that assets are being positioned at least for possiblity of a sustained, weeks-long operation.

“The boss [President Trump] is getting fed up,” an unnamed Trump adviser said, according to a report today from Axios. “Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks.”

“One thing about the negotiation I will say this morning is, in some ways it went well. They agreed to meet afterwards,” Vice President J.D. Vance said during an interview on Fox News yesterday following the second round of negotiations. “But in other ways it was very clear that the President has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”

VP VANCE on negotiations with Iran: “One thing about the negotiation I will say this morning is, in some ways it went well. They agreed to meet afterwards, but in other ways it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to… pic.twitter.com/AbgH9t3lY0

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 17, 2026

For its part, Iran has continued to threaten major retaliation in response to any new U.S. strikes.

Regardless, as mentioned, the deployment of the six E-3s is one of the strongest signs that the last pieces needed for a new major operation against Iran are increasingly in position. All of this puts a particular spotlight on the critical capabilities that the AWACS aircraft provide, but also the new strain that has been put on such a highly in-demand, but shrinking fleet, as well as the puzzling decision to slow-roll or entirely eliminate their replacement.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

One person remains missing after a heavy avalanche engulfed a group of skiers in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the US.

Local authorities say that at least eight people have been found dead following an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, the deadliest incident of its kind in more than 40 years.

Nevada County Sheriff Shannon Moon said on Wednesday that rescue crews have been hindered by difficult conditions during a powerful winter storm.

One person remains missing. Six of the 15 skiers buried by the avalanche were found alive.

“We are still looking for one of the members at this time,” Moon confirmed to reporters, adding that family members have been informed that the search has moved from rescue to recovery.

The deadly incident comes as California experiences a winter storm that has deluged the mountains near the popular winter destination of Lake Tahoe with heavy snow.

The Sierra Avalanche Center warned on Wednesday that the risk of further avalanches remains high in the area as several feet of additional snow contribute to unstable conditions.

The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services announced in a statement that it was “leading whole of government efforts to aid Nevada County”, which is located in eastern California, on the border with the neighbouring US state of Nevada.

“We are actively coordinating additional resources statewide to support avalanche search and rescue efforts to locate missing skiers near Castle Peak,” the office added.

Search-and-rescue teams were dispatched to the Castle Peak area after a call to emergency services reported that 15 people on a three-day trek had been buried by an avalanche on Tuesday morning.

“Our thoughts are with the missing individuals, their families, and first responders in the field,” the company Blackbird Mountain Guides said in a statement, noting that four guides were among those struck by the avalanche as they were returning to a trailhead.