NEWS

Public anger in Syria has threatened to boil over following disagreements between Amman and Damascus over Jordanian attacks on the southern Syrian regions of Deraa and Suwayda on Monday evening.

Jordan said its air force had killed more than 20 ISIL (ISIS) fighters in retaliatory strikes on what it called “dens of terrorist organisations in southern Syria”, linked to suspects accused of being behind last week’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in the kingdom, which was claimed by the group.

But the next day, anger mounted in Syria as images spread of a slain grandmother and her three grandchildren.

While Jordan has launched attacks on Syria in the past, including assaults that led to civilian casualties, this latest episode seems to have captured public anger.

“The anger also reflects an expectation that the authorities in Damascus should now be able to protect Syrians and demand answers when they are killed or harmed,” Navvar Saban, a researcher in security and military affairs at the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“If people feel Damascus is more concerned with protecting the relationship with the Jordanians than accountability, some of the anger could turn inward.”

Contradicting accounts

Monday’s attack reportedly came in response to the assault on a Greek Orthodox church that killed nine people and wounded at least 34 others in the village of Hamoud in the Karak governorate, about 120km (75 miles) southwest of the capital, Amman.

Jordanian authorities said the attack was carried out by “extremist terrorists”.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II promised to respond with an “iron fist”.

“Jordan has absorbed many terrorist attacks before, but this one was especially brazen given the Christian church and the nature of the event being targeted,” Sean Yom, an expert on Jordan at Temple University in the United States, told Al Jazeera.

“Because of its unprecedented nature, explicitly targeting a protected Christian minority in the tribal heartland of Karak, the government instantly felt popular demands to show results from the investigation and arrest of the perpetrators. This pressure to be responsive is especially acute right now, because security and policing remain core strengths of the Jordanian state.”

Jordanian authorities arrested three men connected to the attack on the church on Monday. That evening, Jordan also launched the attack on southern Syria, which it said was carried out in coordination with authorities in Damascus.

But Damascus has contradicted that account.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it had informed Jordan of its “complete reservation” over the attacks, and said they took place “without prior coordination or notification with the Syrian side”. An official described the strikes as “treacherous”.

“Both governments have something to defend politically,” Saban said. “Amman wants to show that it acted against a serious threat through legitimate security channels. On the other hand, Damascus cannot afford to appear to have approved an operation that killed Syrian families. The investigation needs to establish who communicated with whom, when, and about which target. Until then, I would avoid either assuming Syria secretly approved everything or treating the coordination as a simple misunderstanding.”

The family’s bodies were recovered after they were killed by the Jordanian strike on a tent in the village of al-Taff, in the Lajat area of northeastern Deraa province. Syria’s civil defence said three other family members were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, in the al-Shayah farms near Nassib, in the Deraa countryside, an 80-year-old man named Riyad Karrad was also killed by a strike. Another man named Mutlaq Abu al-Khalil, 60, was killed in Shuhayb, in Suwayda’s northern countryside.

Syrian customs authorities closed the Nassib border crossing with Jordan on Tuesday, before reopening it to passenger and commercial traffic on Wednesday.

Syrian-Jordanian relations

Jordan has launched several air strikes on Syria since 2023. It says those strikes generally target arms or drug smugglers.

Under the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad, southern Syria became the site of cross-border drug smuggling, including the stimulant captagon. Some of those operations are believed to have continued after the fall of the Assad regime. At times, the Jordanian strikes have killed civilians, such as a January 2024 attack that Human Rights Watch said killed women and children.

Since the fall of the regime in December 2024, relations between Amman and Damascus have been lukewarm, though slowly improving. Analysts say this is down to shared interests.

“Syria needs healthy trading and commercial partners like Jordan, and Jordan wants Syria to become more secure and coherent for three reasons,” Yom said.

“A strong and friendly Syria can accept more repatriated refugees from Jordan, where there are still hundreds of thousands. It can also help seal the porous border and prevent arms and drug smuggling activities along their shared frontier. And lastly, a stronger allied Syria helps Jordan resist Israel’s creeping annexation, including the West Bank as well as more parts of Syria and Lebanon. So both have mutual interests tied to their sovereignty in maintaining good relations.”

Amman was also the site of a July 2025 trilateral agreement signing between Syria, the US and Jordan aimed at resolving internal disputes over violence in Suwayda.

“Only days before the strike, the two foreign ministers were discussing a strategic partnership and preparing another meeting of their High Coordination Council that is a significant investment in the relationship,” Saban said. “My expectation is that this is a serious strain rather than a rupture. Both governments have strong reasons to keep cooperation over the border, armed groups smuggling, etc. But this incident raises an uncomfortable question for Damascus.”

For its part, Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of the country’s sovereignty but seemed to indicate relations with Amman would continue to be strengthened. It said Damascus is coordinating with ⁠Amman to establish a joint security committee to strengthen border security and prevent similar incidents.

In the meantime, Saban said that regardless of coordination with Damascus, accountability is needed to subside public anger.

“Even if an investigation established that Damascus approved some part of the operation, that would not explain why those people were killed or remove the need for accountability,” he said. “Ultimately, the families deserve a specific answer about the strike that killed their relatives, their friends, their family. Syrians need to understand why their families got killed.”

Former president faces renewed death penalty demand as he appeals life sentence for insurrection.

South Korean prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk-yeol over his failed attempt to impose military rule.

The team led by special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk renewed the demand at an appeal hearing in Seoul on Thursday, arguing that Yoon’s actions threatened South Korea‘s democracy.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in February after being convicted of leading an insurrection.

Prosecutors had previously sought the death penalty at Yoon’s original trial in January, but the court sentenced him to life imprisonment the following month.

At Thursday’s hearing at the Seoul High Court, a prosecutor said there was “no reason to hesitate” over imposing the death penalty, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

South Korea retains the death penalty but has not carried out an execution since 1997.

Prosecutors argued that this long pause should not prevent judges from sentencing Yoon to death.

Yoon declared martial law on December 3, 2024, deploying soldiers and police to the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.

Lawmakers overcame a security blockade to vote down the measure, forcing the government to withdraw it about six hours after it was announced.

The lower court found that Yoon had tried to stop parliament from functioning, detain political opponents and remain in control of the country for an extended period.

Yoon’s lawyers told reporters on Thursday that he had intended to warn an opposition-controlled parliament against what he considered attempts to obstruct his government, not to establish authoritarian rule.

Speaking at the Seoul High Court on October 27, Yoon also denied seeking to establish a long-term dictatorship, according to the Hankyoreh newspaper.

The crisis led parliament to impeach Yoon in December 2024. South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which decides whether to uphold impeachments, removed him from office in April 2025.

The appeals court plans two more hearings, including Yoon’s final statement on November 5.

Israel’s parliamentary election on Tuesday produced no clear winner, with nearly 90 percent of ballots counted and both major political blocs falling short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc is on course to win 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot is expected to secure 48 seats.

The Arab-majority parties won 19 seats, a historic high, driven by record turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel of about 80 percent. That has placed the Arab parties at the centre of coalition arithmetic, even as several party leaders ruled out governing with them.

So what did the main contenders say in the run-up to and during the vote, and how did they fare? Here is a look:

Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud: Elections ‘stolen by Arab parties’

Pre-election: In the build-up to the election, Netanyahu expressed confidence, telling The Jerusalem Post on October 22, “I’m gonna have five more terms.”

On Sunday, he targeted the opposition, with Haaretz citing a broadcast on Israel’s Channel 14 that Netanyahu warned if they win, they will “give citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians”, a move that would signal the “end of the Jewish state”.

Election day: On Tuesday, he said forming a government with Arab-led parties would be “a shame and a disgrace”.

“It is forbidden – simply forbidden – to endanger Israel and to establish a government that relies on anti-Zionist Arab parties,” he told supporters.

Post-election day: After the elections, Netanyahu’s Likud party took aim at Palestinian citizens of Israel who voted.

In a party statement shared by Netanyahu, it claimed the elections “were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offences”. According to The Times of Israel, police and the Central Elections Committee have already dismissed these claims.

What the results show: Likud is on course for 26 seats, the largest party, with 20.65 percent of the vote. But his bloc has 53 seats, eight short of a majority.

Gadi Eisenkot, Yashar Party: ‘I do not see an Arab party that accepts my principles’

Pre-election: In a September interview with The Jerusalem Post, he dismissed the idea he would need to form a coalition with Arab parties: “I believe the majority we receive will be much larger than what the polls currently show,” adding “I do not see an Arab party that accepts my principles.”

He also said his “inner feeling is that I now have the ability to defeat Netanyahu”.

Election day: Eisenkot rallied Israelis to get rid of “the worst government Israel has known”.

However, he acknowledged how tight the race was, saying, “We are on perhaps the most critical day since the founding of the state.”

Post-election day: On Wednesday, Eisenkot told his supporters the Israeli public “voted against” Netanyahu and promised, “to ensure that the people’s decision is translated into a Zionist government”.

What the results show: Yashar is on course for 21 seats, with 16.16 percent. His bloc has 48, 13 short of a majority, and he cannot reach 61 without the Arab-led parties.

Naftali Bennett, Together Party: ‘The October 7 government is going home’

Pre-election: In February, months before the vote, Bennett told a closed conference of party activists that he stood by his 2021 decision to govern with Ra’am, but said he would not repeat it.

He said, “We will establish a unity government under my leadership … We are going to win, and we are going to form it,” Israel National News reported.

Election day: “Netanyahu has lost, and the October 7 government is going home,” Bennett told supporters in Tel Aviv.

Post-election: In a post on X, Bennett told Israelis to “lift your heads” and said he will do everything “to establish a Zionist Alliance of Servants government”.

What the results show: Together is on course for 12 seats with 9.07 percent, narrowly behind the Joint List.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Otzma Yehudit: Palestinians in Gaza ‘shouldn’t live’

Pre-election: In his election campaign, Ben-Gvir expressed his most genocidal views yet, saying in August that there are Palestinians in Gaza “who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.” He called for Israel to kill “30 to 40” people in Gaza every night.

Election day: “If you want this country to stay Jewish and Zionist, if you don’t want it to be in the hands of (Israeli Knesset members) Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi, go out and vote,” he told supporters at the entrance to the Arab city of Kafr Qasim.

What the results show: Otzma Yehudit is on course for seven seats, with 5.58 percent, less than half of the 15 he wanted.

Bezalel Smotrich, Religious Zionism-Zehut: ‘Jewish settlements will be established in Gaza’

Pre-election: In a statement he issued in August, he promised an expansion of his settlement “revolution” with a programme for the “Judaization of the Negev and the Galilee” at the expense of Palestinians, as part of his campaign.

Election day: He warned on Facebook of high turnout in communities of Palestinian citizens of Israel, claiming that failing to mobilise right-wing voters could let “terror supporters” into government.

That night, he told supporters “Jewish settlements will be established in Gaza.”

What the results show: Religious Zionism is on course for six seats, with 4.78 percent.

Yousef Jabareen, Joint List: ‘Change comes through Jewish-Arab partnership, a true and equal partnership’

Pre-election: In August, he stated that only “a large and strong Joint List will work with all its might to send the Netanyahu/Ben-Gvir/Smotrich government home”, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Election day, night: In a video statement, he said Netanyahu knew “we can put an end to his bloody reign.”

Post-election: He wrote on X  that his party was ready for the “ousting of the Netanyahu government”, which he called one of “bloodshed”.

“Against a politics of supremacy, racism, and exclusion, we offer a completely different alternative. The change comes through Jewish-Arab partnership, a true and equal partnership,” he wrote.

What the results show: The Joint List is on course for 12 seats with 9.14 percent, making it the third-largest party by vote share.

Mansour Abbas, Ra’am: Netanyahu uses ‘scare tactic to mobilise right-wing voters’

Election day, night: In July, Abbas set Ra’am a goal of at least seven seats, enough, he argued, to make it the balance of power in a “government of change”.

Election day: He hit back at Netanyahu’s posts about Palestinian citizens of Israel, stating in a video that he was “lying and inciting against Ra’am, using it as a scare tactic to mobilise right-wing voters and drive them to the polls”.

What the results show: Ra’am is on course for eight seats, with 6.09 percent, beating his target of seven.

Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beiteinu: ‘We will reach 61 seats’

Pre-election: On October 15, he claimed: “We will reach 61 seats or more for the change bloc.”

Election day: He urged patience, saying on Friday, “we’ll be able to talk about a much better and more optimistic picture.”

What the results show: Yisrael Beiteinu is on course for seven seats, with 5.93 percent.

Yair Lapid, Together: Netanyahu is ‘busy fear-mongering’

Pre-election: In September, he posted a statement which said, “Netanyahu ignored every warning before October 7, and now, 28 days before the election, he’s suddenly busy fear-mongering.”

Election day: He declared victory, stating, “The Netanyahu bloc has suffered a crushing defeat.”

What the results show: Together, which he co-leads with Bennett, is on course for 12 seats, with 9.07 percent.

Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid and La Liga have apologised for the French striker’s comments about Mao Zedong, but the damage to their reputation in China will not be easily or quickly repaired, experts say.

The France captain, one of the best footballers on the planet, is at the centre of a controversy after a video emerged this week of him appearing to make fun of former leader Mao.

Mbappe talked about being amused by an internet meme of his face digitally altered onto “some guy, think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

Mao remains officially revered as the hero of the communist revolution and founder of the People’s Republic of China.

He is blamed by historians for millions of deaths, but publicly mocking him is taboo, and Mbappe’s remarks saw him become the latest foreign sports figure or entity to infuriate Beijing.

Leading Chinese brands cut ties with the 27-year-old, and Spanish top-flight matches will be pulled from state television broadcaster CCTV’s schedule.

Chinese state media and social media users lined up to lambast Mbappe, although they were left in the dark about what exactly he said.

China is the world’s second-biggest economy and most lucrative market. Within two days, as the video, purportedly filmed in April, circulated online, the striker, his club Real Madrid and La Liga apologised.

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government took Mbappe’s apology “seriously”.

‘Very damaging incident’

So is that the end of the matter?

“Viewed from a calm, objective and emotion-free standpoint, this is clearly a very damaging incident,” Yan Qiang, a veteran sports commentator, told the AFP news agency.

“It causes serious damage to the image of La Liga and Real Madrid in China.

“In the age of the mobile internet, things blow up on social media quickly and emotions run high.

“An apology does not necessarily mean the end of the story.

“It’s better to have an apology than no apology at all, but it’s definitely not the end of the story.”

The furore and the fallout are not an unfamiliar tale.

Various overseas sports leagues or players have found themselves in hot water for comments on topics that are politically sensitive to China.

China effectively cut ties with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States in 2019 after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters.

NBA executives said Morey had the right to freedom of expression. In contrast, La Liga immediately distanced itself from what Mbappe said.

Basketball is among the most popular sports in China along with football. However, Morey’s remark saw the NBA wiped from CCTV for more than a year.

NBA preseason matches returned to China only last year.

Australian National University lecturer Debby Chan called the NBA case – and now Mbappe’s – an illustration of China’s consumer nationalism, where online sentiment and state media converge into “a spiral of outrage”.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the split.

No way back for Mbappe, Real Madrid and La Liga?

Spanish football also has a lot to lose.

A source within La Liga told AFP that China and the US alone finance the “majority” of international broadcasting rights, which were valued at 748 million euros ($834m) for the 2024-25 season.

According to the Real Madrid-affiliated newspaper Marca, the Madrid club generates 10 to 15 percent of its jersey and other merchandise sales in China.

Real Madrid also counts Chinese companies among its main sponsors, with Hisense, sports betting firm Kaiyun Sports and Linglong Tire all featuring prominently.

Adam Zhang, founder of the Beijing-based Key-Solution Sports Consulting, said showing fast and heartfelt remorse was the first step.

“This will influence the decision on whether to continue the broadcast ban and, if so, for how long,” he told AFP.

Sports commentator Yan cast doubt on whether the reputation of Mbappe, whose face has adorned drink bottles and advertising campaigns in China, can ever fully recover.

“Judging by commercial sponsorships and big ad campaigns he appeared in during the World Cup, he has a huge influence in China,” he said.

“If that influence can’t be sustained, there can be no talk of commercial interests, and La Liga and Real Madrid will definitely be badly affected.”

Yan said it was “genuinely hard to predict” what happens next.

“In the short term, I’m certainly not optimistic,” he added.

“If they want to repair their image and the relationship, their future actions and behaviour will be key.”

A new independent report argues that increased access to better-protected airfields is as important, if not more so, than buying advanced tanker aircraft when it comes to meeting future U.S. aerial refueling demands. The authors, in part, call for the U.S. military to invest in new hardened shelters that are large enough for tankers to fit inside. Top U.S. Air Force officials have continued to downplay any need for more physical hardening of bases, even now with the experiences from the war with Iran, which have only underscored the already glaring dangers posed to planes sitting out in the open on flightlines.

Hardened shelters and other efforts to “boost surface infrastructure resilience” form one of three main themes in a report the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., published yesterday. It also says that the Air Force should work to “incorporate adaptive mission systems” into existing tanker fleets, including new communications and self-protection capabilities, as well as pursue acquisition of a next-generation tanker with a blended wing body (BWB) design. Hudson’s latest analysis, which is titled Resilient Reach: Redesigning Aerial Refueling for Contested Global Operations, builds on a previous report it published in 2021. Last year, the Institute published an additional report warning more generally about the vulnerabilities created by a lack of hardened infrastructure at U.S. bases worldwide.

“Aerial refueling is an unmatched United States military advantage, but it currently depends on vulnerable forward bases and medium-range tankers that could be neutralized,” Hudson’s report states as its number one finding. “Suppression of this critical capability could collapse US air operations and heavily contribute to US defeat in a war against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”

Though not necessarily to the degree that the Hudson Institute is arguing for, the Air Force has been working in recent years to increase the networking architecture available on the KC-135 and KC-46 tankers it has now, as well as field new defensive systems. The service is also still exploring a wide range of next-generation aerial refueling concepts, including new stealthy and/or uncrewed tankers, under what is now called the Advanced Tanker Systems (ATS) program.

Base resiliency and aerial refueling capacity

The base resiliency aspects of Hudson’s new aerial refueling report are a particular standout, especially as this is an area where the Air Force has been dragging its feet, if not actively pushing back.

“Aerial refueling surface infrastructure is the ‘network of airfields, maintenance facilities, and bulk fuel storage and distribution facilities and systems necessary to enable tanker operations,’” Hudson’s new report states, citing the Institute’s past work from 2021. “‘Enhancing the capacity and resilience of its surface architecture should be a top priority for the US Air Force – even if it comes at the cost of tanker procurement – because it will yield a greater increase in the number of employable tankers’ and receiver aircraft supported.”

With this in mind, “the department [of the Air Force] should first pursue access to more airfields, including large commercial ones, and nurture its invaluable relationships with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other allies that provide access to tanker airfields,” per the report. “Second, it should improve bulk fuel storage and distribution by constructing lower-capacity hardened fuel stores rather than higher-capacity but vulnerable aboveground storage tanks, fielding airfield and over-the-shore fuel distribution systems, and securing access to more maritime tankers, including by levying higher working capital fund rates to fund bulk fuel resilience initiatives.”

On top of all this, “the Air Force will need to fund passive defenses (such as personnel and equipment bunkers, reconstitution equipment and units, redundant capabilities, the aforementioned fuel infrastructure hardening, more hardened large aircraft shelters, and tanker decoys) and active counter-command, control, communications, computing, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (C5ISRT) and air and missile defenses to defeat threats,” the report adds. “As witnessed at Prince Sultan Air Base, dispersion alone is insufficient to avoid attack in an era of persistent surveillance and precision targeting.”

Five Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tankers were damaged on the ground in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March, just weeks after the start of hostilities with Iran. That same attack destroyed one of the service’s prized E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar planes. Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry, head of Air Force Materiel Command, confirmed just last week that repairs are still ongoing on some of the KC-135s that were damaged, reinforcing that attacks that do not outright destroy friendly aircraft on the ground can still have significant impacts.

Iran was also reportedly able to damage F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10 Warthog ground attack jets on the ground at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan during another more recent attack on the night of September 9-10.

“Historically, aerial refueling aircraft operated from sanctuary on the ground and in the air. However, as Iran’s attacks on Prince Sultan Air Base demonstrated, adversaries can target tankers on the ramp,” Hudson’s report notes. “The [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) ability to attack airfields and aircraft at them dramatically exceeds the range, quality, and quantity of Iranian systems.”

By Hudson’s assessment, “in 2025 the PLA could already deliver thousands of PLA Air Force and PLA Rocket Force munitions per day against targets near its territory and around 400 munitions per day against targets in the Second Island Chain, the Middle East, and Central Asia. It could even strike Alaska and Western Europe with small numbers of weapons,” the report explains. “By 2035, the threat will be far more severe; the PLA may be capable of delivering even more munitions and striking targets throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas. This assessment does not account for additional attacks by the PLA Navy, PLA special forces in Operation Spiderweb–style attacks, or other threats.”

Ukraine’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb involved near-simultaneous near-field drone attacks on air bases across Russia, which resulted in the destruction of at least 10 Russian bombers, as well as a variety of other aircraft. All of those planes were notably parked on open flightlines.

This particular threat vector, among others, was further highlighted by the Air Force’s sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, an airbase in the United Kingdom, earlier this month. As TWZ noted at the time, it also put a spotlight on the U.S. military’s continued lack of investment in hardened aircraft shelters and other fortified air base infrastructure.

To go back to the Pacific scenario, “given the PLA’s focus on systems destruction warfare and nodal analysis, tanker airfields would likely be prime targets. Tankers require bulk fuel stores, long runways, and ample ramp space,” Hudson assesses in its new report. “All of these resources would be easier to suppress and more difficult to reconstitute than operations for other assets, such as fighter aircraft or runway-independent Edge Force units. There are also currently few hardened large aircraft shelters suitable for tankers, which makes them vulnerable to observation and attack on the ramp.”

“Although large hardened aircraft shelters suitable for tankers can be expensive (ranging from $30–$150 million depending on scope and location), they can shield aircraft from observation and inclement weather, force adversaries to employ more numerous unitary weapons (rather than a small number of submunition-armed weapons) and protect tankers that cannot get airborne upon warning of an incoming attack,” Hudson’s report adds.

Hudson’s report recommends the construction of at least 60 large hardened aircraft shelters spread between an array of bases globally, at a total cost of $3.06 billion.

“The costing for this estimate assumes a conservative average Area Cost Factor of 1.87, a 10-year construction program, and 10 percent portfolio efficiencies from replicating similar projects at multiple sites, potentially using the same prime contractor or a set of contractors under a consortium,” per a footnote. “Large aircraft hardened aircraft shelters are assumed to be similar to the Andersen Air Force Base Air Expeditionary Force Forward Operating Location Aircraft Maintenance Hangar.”

With this in mind, the report also notes that these same shelters could be used for other larger aircraft beyond tankers, like bombers. It’s also important to note that shelters with a lower, but still useful degree of hardening, or ones that are just meant to conceal what is inside, would be cheaper to construct. We will come back to this in a moment.

The base hardening debate

TWZ has highlighted all of these points and more in our prior reporting on the ongoing debate within the U.S. military about the value of constructing new hardened (and unhardened) aircraft shelters and other passive defenses. As we wrote after the withdrawal of the B-1s from Fairford:

“It is fair to point out that typical above-ground hardened aircraft shelters are not invulnerable, especially to attacks involving ballistic, cruise, and certain air-launched threats. There are also substantial cost and other factors to consider when it comes to any major military construction effort.”

“That being said, having more hardened infrastructure also imposes costs and complexities on opponents, who have to dedicate more advanced and costly munitions and other resources to ensure targets are neutralized. Shelters have the knock-on benefit of complicating the targeting process for an enemy by obscuring where aircraft are or are not positioned, to begin with. An opponent has to treat shelters like they are full even if they are empty.”

“When thinking about hardened aircraft shelters, stereotypical Cold War-era reinforced concrete structures typically come to mind. However, they do not all have to be built to a one-size-fits-all standard with the same degree of hardening across the board to be useful. Shorter-range drone attacks are typically carried out by platforms carrying small explosive charges or that are designed to drop small bomblets. Even longer-range one-way-attack drones generally have smaller warheads than traditional missiles, they also hit with less kinetic energy.”

“A structure that shields against smaller blasts and shrapnel, also including from cluster munitions that can be readily scattered across wide areas, is one that then has to be addressed by more capable weapons. This could even include mobile or otherwise temporary shelters that offer sufficient concealment and protection.”

“Eliminating, or at least substantially mitigating, the lowest rung of threats creates a dilemma for opponents, who then have to decide whether it is even worthwhile to attempt certain types of attacks. There is clear value in narrowing the available options for the enemy and pushing them toward having to expend higher-end, more expensive munitions, that are available in smaller quantities, and that traditional active defenses may be better optimized to handle. As an example, it may be more viable to shoot down a small barrage of incoming cruise missiles than a swarm of dozens of drones.”

This is a diverse threat ecosystem that extends globally, too. This was highlighted in August by an attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian An-124 at an airport in Germany, which authorities in that country subsequently blamed on Russia.  This has been a growing point of concern in Europe more broadly in recent years, as well.

Drones, in particular, present increasing dangers to key U.S. military bases and critical infrastructure within the U.S. homeland, as well as in waters just off America’s coastlines. Serious incidents at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in 2023 and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana just earlier this year have reinforced that these threats are no longer limited to facilities and assets overseas.

No ‘silver bullets’ for safeguarding tankers

To be clear, hardening U.S. bases cannot address current or future threat ecosystems by itself, and needs to be part of a larger defensive architecture that incorporates a range of capabilities including surface-to-air missiles, electronic warfare systems, and directed energy weapons, as well as tactical jets in the air. Furthermore, to reiterate, the view of “surface infrastructure resilience” outlined in Hudson’s report extends beyond defensive measures entirely, and does not discount the value of distributed and dispersed operations within the larger context. When it comes to aerial refueling, more broadly, the authors do also still argue for the continued upgrading of the Air Force’s existing tankers, as well as the acquisition of next-generation aircraft.

At the same time, as mentioned, physical hardening is the area where the Air Force continues to push back.

“I think that I don’t want to spend a lot of money on hardening shelters. Unless you’re going to send something 100 feet or more underground, we can blow it up, and so can they,” Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said in an interview with Breaking Defense in July. “So, the economics of building a shelter that is impervious to a strike doesn’t work.”

“I think the economics favor defending your airspace, defending your ground space with systems that can defeat the incoming rounds, versus building a shelter,” he added. “Some people would argue, well, you should do both. Well, that’s even more expensive. And the other thing is, the shelter doesn’t go anywhere.”

Wilsbach was responding here to a direct question about whether his position on this topic had changed since 2023.

“I’m not a big fan of hardening infrastructure,” Wilsbach, then commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), had said at a roundtable at the Air and Space Forces Association’s main annual symposium that year. “The reason is because of the advent of precision-guided weapons … you saw what we did to the Iraqi Air Force and their hardened aircraft shelters. They’re not so hard when you put a 2,000-pound bomb right through the roof.”

As pointed out earlier, there are different degrees of hardening, not all of which have to rely on permanent infrastructure, and that can add defensive value balanced against cost. Shelters for concealment and to protect against attacks involving drones or submunitions, as well as nearby detonations for strikes by weapons with larger unitary warheads, can be built for far lower cost while still complicating the enemy’s ability to neuter airpower on the ground.

Gen. Wilsbach’s comments, and similar remarks from other U.S. officials, also stand in stark contrast to a very visible global trend when it comes to the construction of new aircraft shelters, hardened and not, including in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Even before Operation Spiderweb, expanding Ukrainian drone and missile attacks had notably prompted Russia to kick off a large-scale push to build new hardened shelters at various bases, especially on the occupied Crimean Peninsula. These efforts now include the construction of huge shelters big enough for bombers, something the country has never done before

“It’s probably most contentious to assert that tanker aircraft should also be under consideration for hardened aircraft shelters, or at least hangars that can cover them from observation,” Timothy Walton, a Senior Fellow at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology and one of the report’s authors, told Breaking Defense for a piece that outlet published yesterday. “But I think in light of what we’ve seen from Operation Epic Fury, it’s necessary.”

Hudson’s latest report certainly underscores how the Air Force’s ability to provide adequate aerial refueling capability in the future requires ensuring the enemy cannot neutralize those critical assets before they can even get off the ground.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

El Salvador troops to support rescue mission to find four UN-backed soldiers who disappeared after ambush.

El Salvador plans to send more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to search for four missing Salvadoran aviation technicians and fight armed gangs, as the Caribbean country postpones its elections again.

El Salvador‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the deployment on Wednesday, the same day Haiti’s electoral authorities moved the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections from December 13 to July 18, 2027.

The delay is another setback to restoring elected government in a country where gang violence has made preparations for voting dangerous.

The four Salvadorans disappeared on October 18 after armed men ambushed their vehicle in Croix-des-Bouquets, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

They were serving with an international security mission supporting Haitian police.

President Nayib Bukele has already sent troops to help find them.

In an October 21 post on X, written in Haitian Creole, he threatened to destroy Haiti’s gangs if they did not release the missing personnel.

Bukele spoke by telephone with Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime on Wednesday.

Fils-Aime’s office said they had agreed to strengthen cooperation on rescue efforts and security operations.

It remains unclear whether the additional Salvadoran troops will join the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, a multinational mission assisting Haitian police against gangs, or operate separately.

Foreign troops have served in Haiti under UN-backed security arrangements since 2024, partly to create safer conditions for elections.

Haiti’s nine-member Provisional Electoral Council, which organises elections, also scheduled a second round of voting and local polls for October 4, 2027.

It extended deadlines for candidates to register and introduced online voter registration.

Fewer than 900,000 people had registered by Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported, out of 6.5 million Haitians holding the identification cards needed to enrol.

Gang-controlled roads make it difficult to reach registration centres, while violence has forced many people from their homes.

Haiti has held no elections since 2016 and its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021. Successive transitional authorities have delayed a return to voting, citing insecurity.

An international food security assessment released on Wednesday found that 5.94 million Haitians face acute hunger, including 1.8 million in emergency conditions, as violence disrupts farming and food deliveries.

The number facing acute hunger is projected to rise to 6.35 million by mid-2027.

Student protests that began in September in France have spread to more than 11 European countries as anger rises over high rents and fuel prices and cuts to public services.

Many young protesters said they no longer expect to be better off than their parents, and household wealth data show a wide gap between generations.

Across the eurozone and two other European countries, households headed by someone under 35 have a median net wealth of about 25,000 euros ($27,870) while those headed by 55- to 64-year-olds are worth about 208,000 euros ($231,882), more than eight times as much, according to the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) 2023 Household Finance and Consumption Survey.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera compares wealth by age groups across 22 European countries and looks at how much more expensive life has become since 2000.

Where is the wealth gap widest?

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey, run by the ECB and national central banks since 2010, tracks household wealth and debt in the eurozone, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

It measures net wealth, which includes property, cars, valuables and savings, minus debts. Under-35s hold just 2.8 percent of all household wealth in the 22 countries while 55- to 64-year-olds hold the largest share at 24 percent.

In Finland, under-35s hold 0.8 percent of household wealth, the lowest share of any country surveyed, while over-55s hold more than 71 percent. Young people’s shares are also small in Ireland (1.4 percent), Austria (1.6 percent), Greece (1.8 percent) and Germany (2 percent).

Rising housing costs mean many young people cannot afford what their parents or grandparents could.

Wealth is more evenly spread in Central and Eastern Europe. In Lithuania, under-35s hold 13.2 percent, against 15.9 percent for 55- to 64-year-olds. Their share is 12.3 percent in Croatia, 10.1 percent in Slovakia and 9.8 percent in Estonia. Malta, at 11.1 percent, is the exception outside the two regions.

The graphic below shows how household wealth is split between age groups in each country surveyed.

“What we’ve seen is actually a very strong increase in housing prices both in terms of the rental market as well as the ownership market,” Evelyn Astor of the European Social Observatory told Al Jazeera’s Counting the Cost programme.

“All of this is also reinforcing a sense of inequality because ultimately ordinary families are struggling to pay their rents or be able to purchase their homes whereas wealthy people with capital are able to make rather significant investments in the European housing market,” she said.

How much more expensive is it than 2000?

Prices of everyday goods and services, such as food, energy, transport and household bills, have risen by 67.2 percent in the eurozone, Hungary and the Czech Republic since 2000.

Of the countries in our chart, Hungary has seen the steepest rise with prices more than tripling, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. Its harmonised index of consumer prices is the EU’s official measure of how much everyday goods and services cost.

The chart below shows how consumer prices have changed in each country since 2000 with prices in 2000 set at 100 on the index.

Eastern European countries have seen the sharpest increases – particularly since 2022 when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began – because many relied heavily on Russian energy supplies.

Prices rose by about 2 percent a year on average until 2022 when annual inflation in the EU hit 9.2 percent.

The surge was driven mainly by energy costs. Inflation has since eased, but the price rises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have not reversed.

Trump administration issues more than 100 subpoenas across 13 states as search for alleged noncitizen voters ramps up.

A United States judge has rejected a Department of Justice request to temporarily halt California from counting mail ballots from a list of 20,000 alleged noncitizens just six days before the country’s midterm elections.

US District Judge David Carter’s ruling on Wednesday came as US President Donald Trump expands efforts to search for alleged noncitizen voters, with subpoenas issued in at least 13 states.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote on Wednesday.

The judge, a 1998 appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the Justice Department’s last-minute request to exclude more than 20,000 ballots ran afoul of “longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections”.

The Justice Department swiftly appealed the decision to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals and did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the Reuters news agency.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit on October 15, a rare intervention in the voting process weeks before Tuesday’s election, when voters will choose which party controls Congress as well as their state and local representatives.

Escalating efforts from Trump

The decision marks the latest setback in Trump’s effort to expand the federal government’s role in elections ahead of the legislative midterms, as his Republican Party fights to retain control of both houses of Congress.

The Trump administration issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding records on tens of thousands of voters in at least 13 states, both Republican- and Democratic-leaning.

Most of the subpoenas Reuters documented were issued to state and local election officials in the past three months, though some date to the start of the year. Many were previously unreported, revealing a federal effort to identify potential noncitizen voters that is broader than publicly known.

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in US federal elections. Legal experts say the records could be used to contest close midterm results, despite scant evidence that noncitizen voting is widespread.

‘Deeply flawed process’

Also on Wednesday, Democracy Docket, a US media platform that tracks election litigation, reported that the Department of Justice list of alleged noncitizen voters “appears to have been created using a deeply flawed process” that could disenfranchise US citizen voters beyond California.

In a court filing, a government whistleblower revealed that voters were being scrutinised nationwide, not just in California, as part of the federal government’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative” investigation, the group reported. The whistleblower warned that “the current process is knowingly sweeping known US citizens in as potentially ‘unlawful voters’”.

California has said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust. It said the Justice Department’s assertions relied on “suspect data” and that complying with its demands would risk disenfranchising eligible voters. Democracy Docket reported that in Los Angeles County, one in four voters on the “noncitizen” list were born in the US.

In a surprising development, Ethiopia has taken receipt of 12 Russian-made Su-35 multirole fighters, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced, adding a significant new capability to the Ethiopian Air Force. The agreement also calls for four batteries of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system, although their delivery schedule remains unclear.

Abiy said the fighters arrived a year ahead of schedule under an agreement with Moscow and thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for facilitating the accelerated delivery. The financial terms of the deal, the aircraft’s basing locations, and whether additional fighters are included in the agreement have not been disclosed. The Ethiopian leader announced the development on his X account, also posting photos and a video showing himself and other Ethiopian and Russian officials alongside two of the jets. The location appears to have been the third Russia-Africa Summit, taking place in Moscow on October 28-29.

The acquisition comes as Ethiopia seeks to strengthen its military capabilities amid persistent domestic security challenges and tensions across the Horn of Africa.

The Su-35 is a heavily modernized derivative of the Soviet-era Su-27, known by NATO as the Flanker. It combines twin thrust-vectoring engines for a high degree of maneuverability, advanced radar and other sensors, and the ability to carry a range of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons.

Its radar and long-range air-to-air missile capabilities, in particular, represent a notable improvement for Ethiopia’s ability to detect and engage hostile aircraft, while its multirole design allows it to perform a wide range of strike missions.

Su-35 Multirole supermaneuverable fighter / AERO INDIA 2021

Ethiopia already operates Russian-designed Su-27 fighters, providing a considerable degree of familiarity with the Flanker family. The current fleet comprises around 10 (and perhaps as many as 15) secondhand Su-27s, including two-seaters, supplemented in 2024 by a pair of Su-30Ks. The latter were originally produced for India as interim equipment, and then ended up in storage in Belarus before being refurbished and delivered to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Flankers saw action against Eritrean opposition in the 1990s, and there have also been a handful of non-combat attrition losses.

However, introducing the Su-35 will still require specialized pilot training, additional maintenance infrastructure, weapons integration, and a dependable supply of spare parts. The latter, in particular, is something that Moscow has not always been able to guarantee in practice.

The planned acquisition of four S-400 batteries could prove equally significant.

The S-400 is a mobile air-defense system designed to engage aircraft, cruise missiles, and certain ballistic missile threats.

If delivered, the systems would considerably strengthen Ethiopia’s ability to protect military installations, critical infrastructure, and other strategic sites against aerial attack.

Ethiopia occupies a strategically important position in the Horn of Africa, bordering Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Its security environment includes various unresolved regional tensions, longstanding border disputes, and internal armed conflicts.

Ethiopia’s relationship with Eritrea remains particularly relevant given their history of war and continuing tensions. Relations with Egypt and Sudan are also shaped by disputes over the Nile.

Abiy has presented the acquisition as a means of deterring aggression and strengthening national sovereignty.

At the same time, the delivery reinforces Russia’s position as a supplier of advanced military equipment to African countries. Russian exports to the continent have included combat aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, and ground-based air-defense systems.

Su-35s, specifically, have previously been delivered to Algeria, a long-term recipient of Russian military equipment on the African continent, as you can read about here.

Interesting report indicating Algeria has purchased at least some of the Russian Su-35s originally built for Egypt and later reported to be sought by Iran.https://t.co/0soV9aOopn

— John Hardie (@JohnH105) April 9, 2025

The Algerian jets are understood to have originated in a batch of Su-35s built for Egypt, which had ordered 24. However, the planned transfer to Egypt fell through, under the threat of U.S. sanctions and a teased offer of F-15s. In particular, Washington had said it would put sanctions on Cairo under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

CAATSA includes provisions for sanctions against parties found to have knowingly engaged in significant transactions with Russia’s defense or intelligence sectors. Washington previously invoked the provision against China over its acquisition of Su-35 fighters and S-400-related equipment, although any action against Ethiopia would depend on a separate U.S. determination.

The Su-35s built for Egypt were repeatedly connected with a sale to Iran, but this also never materialized.

Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN announced on Friday that Iran has finalized buying #Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia.

Here is what Iran has purchased: pic.twitter.com/aw7EVkc18N

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) March 11, 2023

Potentially, the 12 jets for Ethiopia could also have been left over from the abandoned Egyptian deal.

For Moscow, the deal provides a prominent example of continued defense cooperation with an important country in the Horn of Africa. The transfer also comes amid broader efforts by Russia and African governments to deepen political, economic, and military ties.

The agreement’s cost and financing arrangements have not been made public, leaving questions about the long-term expense of operating the fighters and maintaining their supporting infrastructure.

The deal also needs to be seen in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent international sanctions, have hampered efforts to secure sales for any kind of military equipment, other than to a handful of selected close allies, with little prospect that this will change any time soon. Amid those same sanctions, as well as Moscow’s increasing pariah status, any kind of export success will be very welcome for Moscow, even if it involves jets previously built for another customer.

At the same time, the ability of the Russian defense industry to provide in-service support for these jets, once they are delivered, is even more questionable than it was in the past. Since the invasion, Moscow’s need to prioritize its own forces, combined with Western sanctions restricting access to key components, has further complicated the situation. For Ethiopia, any disruption to parts deliveries or maintenance support could have an outsized impact on operational readiness, and this is compounded by the requirement of Russian industry to support Moscow’s own Su-35S jets, its primary fighter.

Ultimately, the acquisition represents a substantial reported addition to Ethiopia’s combat aircraft fleet. The planned S-400 systems could extend that modernization into ground-based air defense, and further influence the military balance in the Horn of Africa region.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Video footage posted online showed several men, some of them armed, beating Nathaniel and Andrey X.

Russian activist Adele Shoko has said that Israeli settlers attacked her alongside two of her colleagues in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank, according to social media posts.

Shoko said on social media platform X that she, US journalist Jasper Nathaniel, and Israeli-Russian activist Andrey X were beaten and threatened by armed settlers who stole equipment and personal items.

“Jasper and I were also beaten. Jasper was then pepper-sprayed and arrested,” Shoko wrote, adding that Nathaniel was taken away by Israeli forces.

Shoko said Andrey X suffered a concussion and lost consciousness multiple times during the incident before being detained by authorities.

“Andrey was severely beaten and lost consciousness several times in front of police. Despite this, he was denied hospital treatment. He was put in an ambulance – but instead of being taken to hospital, he was taken to a police station. He is still there, arrested and being denied medical care,” she wrote.

Video footage Shoko posted online showed several men, some of them armed, beating Nathaniel and Andrey X. Further video showed Israeli authorities leading away Nathaniel while he shouted that he had just been beaten up.

The assault follows an October 16 incident in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, where masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives, setting trees on fire and throwing stones using slingshots.

Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was covering the attack, was beaten, robbed, and hospitalised, while a Palestinian man was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene and fired live ammunition and tear gas.

Levine, who was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS”, said settlers repeatedly kicked and beat her on the ground before stealing her passport, phone, and camera equipment. Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray condemned the “unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job”, while several US lawmakers called for an investigation and an end to settler violence in the region.

Protecting this region from climate change is a theme of the King’s trip and was the focus of his visit to the Bonefish Pond National Park. The site was once a rubbish dump but has been redeveloped and now protects 1,235 acres of mangroves.

The King walked along a new boardwalk through the wetlands to see the conservation work being done to protect this vulnerable, low lying island from climate change.

He met students carrying out field work in the wetland waters asking them about their exams and ambitions to be marine biologists.

“We’ve so been looking forward to this,” said Joanne Smith, president of the Bahamas National Trust Council.

“We want more Bahamians to get involved in our national parks so they can use it to better themselves… we are so pleased to have the King here, this is really significant for us.”

Then it was on to the Junkanoo, where the King could be seen dancing alongside attendees dressed in feathered headdresses and bright costumes.

The history of the Junkanoo is not clear but it’s believed it emerged out of the slave trade when enslaved men and women were given time off to mark Christmas.

A small protest near the parade, which had activists holding placards with the words “Pay us what you owe us”, was moved on by the police.

The small group of protesters were from the Bahamas National Reparations Committee.

The King acknowledged the “great suffering of the past” when he first arrived in the Bahamas, as he faced calls for slavery reparations.

Noelle Nicholls, chair of the reparations committee, said :”We are demanding an apology for those crimes, and reparations for the harm that was done.”

Nicholls said the protesters’ presence “amidst the pomp and pageantry of the celebrations… are for us also a sombre occasion, because this is the King returning in a way that has still not atoned for the sins of the past.”

The King has confirmed that Commonwealth leaders will discuss the legacy of slavery at a major summit in Antigua next week.

Details of more than 41,000 personnel working for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including thousands involved in immigration enforcement, have been leaked to the public.

The leak includes names, work addresses and phone numbers of DHS staff, including agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection, along with descriptions of the work they do for each agency.

Wednesday’s leak marks the third time in recent weeks that a government agency has been targeted by leaks or hacks.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency is “aware of a potential breach and is actively working to address the situation swiftly and effectively.”

“We take all security threats against our employees and officers seriously and will work to ensure all are properly protected,” the spokesperson added.

“We will update the public when more information is available.”

The seemingly unprecedented breach of employee information was made public online. A group called the Department of Peace accessed the information from DHS, while journalist and cybersecurity researcher maia crimew alongside the website Distributed Denial of Secrets put it online.

The information was put in a database named Icepick.

Most of the agents included, more than 21,000 of them, work for CBP, according to the data. Nearly 6,600 work for ICE.

Other records show agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service and even people working for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The leaked information also included dozens of previously unknown operation names, the agents that led and worked on those operations, and some of the technology they used in their work, including tech provided by Cellbrite and Palantir.

The groups wrote in an online statement that the the leak was not meant to be a directory of every DHS agent. Rather the aim was to replace “anonymity with accountability”, according to Emma Best, a co founder of DDoSecrets.

“The leak is extraordinary but deceptive in it’s simplicity as it identifies the officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations, the government’s hunt for leakers and the failed BlueLeaks investigation – along with key personnel in DHS’s ever-escalating rendition and deportation programs,” Best added.

BlueLeaks refers to a massive leak of US police data in 2020, data from which DDoSecrets also hosted.

A spokesperson for the Department of Peace pointed directly at actions by ICE agents for the groups work to hack DHS records.

“On July 17th, Markwayne Mullin said he was ‘turning up the heat’. This is what happens to ICE when you do that,” the spokesperson wrote on Wednesday.

Mullin in March became Secretary of Homeland Security.

The Department of Peace said it accessed the DHS agent profiles through a single sign-on service called Okta.

Okta is a popular online security tool that organisations use to ensure that only people with access to internal platforms are logging on to them.

A spokeswoman for Okta said the company is aware of the claims being made, but said: “Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised.”

Last month, the FBI was hacked by a group called ShinyHunters, which took personal information about thousands of agents.

In recent days, the Federal Election Commission, which makes public political campaign donation data, was taken offline because of a suspected hacking attempt.

Public backlash to US immigration enforcement has been building as the Trump Administration has pushed a huge increase in arrests and deportations of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Immigration operations this year have repeatedly turned violent, external, with ICE agents shooting at more than two dozen people and killing at least nine people.

Those killings include the high profile deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both of whom were shot and killed by ICE agents this year in Minnesota, despite not being the targets of arrests.

Often, ICE agents carry out enforcement actions while their faces are covered by masks and sunglasses. Immigration agents rarely identify themselves, despite being required by law to do so, and US politicians have publicly demanded, external DHS enforces the requirement.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, the US has enacted nearly 1 million deportations, external, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute. More than 70% of the deportations have been of people with no criminal record.

The boom in injectable weight-loss drugs, such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, is leading to more used needles turning up at recycling centres, putting workers at risk of serious injury and infection, bosses say.

At a recycling plant in Coventry, I watched staff sorting rubbish on a fast-moving conveyor belt when a crushed yellow sharps container suddenly appeared among the waste.

“A resident has put this in a wheelie bin,” explained supervisor Paul Pagett.

“It then gets crushed by the recycling vehicle and then it comes to us open and obviously we’ve got needles then falling out onto the line putting my guys at risk.”

The sharps box should never have been there.

Used needles should be disposed of separately through dedicated clinical waste services. Instead, recycling bosses say they are increasingly finding them mixed in with household waste.

“There are safe disposal routes for needles but the worst place to put them is in your recycling,” said Richard Dobbs, managing director of Sherborne Recycling.

“It ends up in facilities like ours where it will be touched by people and that’s inherently unsafe.”

New images appear to show a full-sized demonstrator of China’s CE-25A, an unorthodox 19-seat all-electric aircraft being developed by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). The photographs offer a fresh look at a program the company publicly outlined in 2023, although the aircraft’s current testing status remains unclear.

The images appear to have first been shared by Chinese automotive blogger Han Lu (韩路) on October 28 and show a red and black colored aircraft with a silver cheatline bearing COMAC and CE-25A markings. Its Chinese civilian registration is B-0EFH.

At this point, it should be noted that we cannot establish with certainty that the imagery is legitimate, but our own examination using multiple AI image-analysis models has found no major indications that they were artificially generated.

Regardless, the program overall reflects COMAC’s interest in distributed electric propulsion, an approach that could help inform future aircraft development even if the CE-25A itself never enters commercial service.

The appearance of what seems to be a full-sized demonstrator certainly raises questions about how far the program has progressed. At this stage, there is no clear public confirmation that this particular aircraft has flown, and its precise role in the development effort remains uncertain.

COMAC first presented the CE-25A concept at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai in November 2023. The company described it as a 19-seat, all-electric commuter aircraft intended for short- and medium-distance passenger transportation, as well as business aviation.

Published design specifications called for a cruising speed of approximately 400 kilometers per hour (248 miles per hour) and a range of around 400 to 500 kilometers (250 to 310 miles).

The 19-seat capacity and its general configuration are somewhat similar to the Beechcraft 1900 twin-turboprop regional airliner. With a 19-passenger payload, the Beechcraft 1900 has a range of around 700 kilometers (440 miles) and a cruising speed of approximately 520 kilometers per hour (320 miles per hour).

The Chinese aircraft’s most distinctive feature is its distributed electric propulsion system. Instead of relying on a small number of conventional turboprop engines, the design uses 10 electrically driven ducted fans integrated into its wing structure.

Distributed propulsion can give designers greater flexibility in how thrust is generated and integrated with the airframe. Depending on the configuration, it can offer aerodynamic benefits and potentially improve performance in particular flight regimes. Electric motors can also simplify some aspects of propulsion-system design compared with conventional turbine engines.

Those advantages come with very considerable engineering challenges. Batteries remain far less energy-dense than aviation fuel, placing constraints on range, payload, and endurance. High-power electrical systems also require careful thermal management, while integrating multiple propulsion units introduces additional questions involving reliability, maintenance, and flight control.

There is also some confusion about how the demonstrator shown in the new images fits in with previously announced plans for the program. In 2023, COMAC referred to experimental aircraft verification flight work, which was to involve a scaled demonstrator. Meanwhile, the aircraft in the new photos is full-sized. Potentially, there is an unseen ‘missing link’ subscale demonstrator that has already flown.

China is not alone in exploring distributed electric propulsion for regional aircraft. Several Western projects are also underway.

The European UNIFIER-19 research effort has examined 19-seat, zero-emission regional aircraft concepts using alternative propulsion systems, including distributed electric ducted fans. Some variants explored hydrogen fuel cells rather than relying exclusively on batteries. Compared to the CE-25A, it is strictly a research effort rather than a proposed production aircraft.

In the United States, NASA’s X-57A Maxwell experimental aircraft investigated distributed electric propulsion using 14 electric motors and propellers integrated into a specially designed wing. The X-57 was much smaller than the CE-25A and used open propellers rather than ducted fans. The project was intended to demonstrate potential aerodynamic and efficiency benefits but did not progress to its planned piloted flight configuration.

NASA Marks Milestones in Development of Electric X-57

The X-57 program was canceled in 2023 after safety issues with its propulsion system proved impossible to resolve within the available budget and schedule. It had been launched on the assumption that existing electric propulsion technology was sufficiently mature for safe flight, but this ultimately proved premature. The experience underscores the very significant engineering and safety challenges that remain in developing viable electric aircraft.

Meanwhile, France’s AURA AERO is developing ERA, a 16- to 19-seat regional aircraft planned around eight electric motors and two turbogenerators. The hybrid-electric design is intended to offer substantially greater range than the CE-25A’s published target, with the company advertising a range of approximately 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). ERA is a more direct comparison in terms of intended passenger capacity and commercial role, but it uses a different propulsion architecture and is not an all-electric aircraft.

Swedish company Heart Aerospace also pursued a 19-seat battery-powered commuter aircraft, the ES-19, with a proposed range of approximately 400 kilometers (250 miles). Its original design was more conventional, with a high wing and T-tail, and the company subsequently moved away from the ES-19 concept toward larger hybrid-electric aircraft.

First subscale test flight for Heart ES-19

The CE-25A has been presented as a civilian aircraft, and there is no public evidence that COMAC intends to develop it for military service. Nevertheless, the technologies being explored could have relevance to future military aviation.

This would be in line with China’s pursuit of other unconventional aircraft programs with more direct potential military applications.

A mature electric aircraft in this general class could potentially support short-range utility missions, liaison duties, or personnel transport where payload and endurance requirements are modest and suitable charging infrastructure is available. At this stage, there is no indication that the CE-25A has been designed for autonomous operations, austere-field use, or military payloads.

At the same time, its utility in military environments would depend heavily on battery performance, ground support, operating conditions, and the ability to maintain the aircraft away from established infrastructure.

Perhaps more likely is that research into distributed electric propulsion, including the CE-25A, could inform other Chinese aircraft designs. Advances in electric motors, power distribution, flight controls, thermal management, and the integration of multiple propulsion units could eventually benefit crewed and uncrewed aircraft or specialized platforms with different operational requirements.

The CE-25A sits within China’s broader effort to expand its domestic aerospace capabilities and explore new aircraft technologies. COMAC is best known internationally for its C919 narrowbody airliner and ARJ21 regional jet, but its research interests extend beyond conventional commercial aircraft.

China’s substantial battery-manufacturing industry provides a potential advantage in electric aviation, although adapting batteries developed for road vehicles to the demands of flight remains a significant engineering challenge.

In 2023, COMAC announced cooperation with battery manufacturer CATL and Shanghai Jiao Tong University on research related to battery-powered aircraft concepts. The precise relationship between that work and the CE-25A, including whether they share specific battery technologies or propulsion systems, is not immediately clear.

For now, the newly surfaced photographs provide a compelling look at a COMAC project that has been publicly acknowledged but remains opaque in several important respects.

Whether the CE-25A ultimately becomes a viable civilian aircraft or contributes to other aerospace developments, including in the military realm, its emergence offers more evidence of China’s continued push into unconventional aircraft design.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

President Laura Fernandez inaugurated the $35m mega-prison built to house up to 5,100 inmates near San Jose.

A newly opened maximum-security mega-prison in Costa Rica has received its first batch of inmates. The prison was built with the help of the Salvadoran government on the outskirts of the capital, San Jose, the country’s Justice Ministry announced.

The Costa Rican Justice Ministry shared images on Tuesday of 123 inmates dressed in orange, seated with their heads shaved and bowed and their hands behind their necks.

“Costa Rica is writing a new chapter in its penitentiary history,” Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar said in a statement.

The new prison is called the High-Containment Center Against Organized Crime (CACCO) and constitutes a symbol of a new “tough on crime” approach championed by President Laura Fernandez’s administration. It has a capacity for 5,100 inmates.

The CACCO was built with the help of the Salvadoran government on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, at a cost of $35m. Fernandez inaugurated it on October 15.

“CACCO is a monument to national security, a forceful response to organized crime, and a guarantee that the state will exercise its authority without hesitation,” the statement added.

The new facility has a capacity equivalent to 20 percent of the country’s prison population and “will also help reduce overcrowding in the prison system”, according to Aguilar.

Costa Rica, long regarded as one of the safest countries in Latin America, has in recent years experienced a sharp rise in violence linked to drug trafficking and organised crime. It witnessed a record-setting 905 homicides in 2023, followed by 876 in 2024 and 873 in 2025.

Authorities attribute most killings to disputes between criminal groups over drug trafficking routes and markets.

Right-wing leaders in other Latin American countries have also sought to replicate the mega-prison model.

By the end of the decade, China could threaten satellites with space-based directed energy weapons, according to a new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). This would add a dangerous new anti-satellite (ASAT) capability to Beijing’s arsenal, which already includes ground-based directed energy weapons that can disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites. The report, released Monday, offered another glimpse into what is to come as the potential for conflict in space only continues to grow.

The unclassified DIA report is based largely on open-source information, with a cutoff date of July. It was published to detail growing threats from China, Russia and emerging powers Iran and North Korea to global interests in the space domain. The report’s release also took place as the U.S. is becoming increasingly open about its own ASAT capabilities. Last month, for instance, U.S. military officials acknowledged for the first time that America has weapons in orbit.

“The PLA probably considers DEWs [directed energy weapons] ideal counterspace systems because they can cause both reversible and nonreversible effects against satellites,” the report, titled Challenges to Security in Space, explains. “By the late 2020s, China may field space-based directed energy systems and higher-powered ground-based directed energy systems capable of threatening satellites in higher orbits.”

The report did not provide specifics about whether China is developing lasers, high-powered microwaves, particle beams or a combination of these capabilities.

We have reached out to the agency for more information but did not immediately receive a response.

Reversible attacks include efforts to jam satellite signals or temporarily blind their optics. The latter can be done with devices like laser dazzlers.

DIA reported that in 2021 the People’s Liberation Army media “asserted that laser weapons were entering a golden age; they cited dazzling (i.e., temporarily blinding a sensor) as one of the many operational uses of laser weapons.”

Non-reversible attacks cause permanent damage. It could also involve a range of fully destructive options from directed energy attacks that burn a hole in a satellite using a laser or frying its delicate systems using a high-power microwave emissions to spraying its solar panels with aerosol pigment to direct-ascent intercepts and even nuclear weapon detonations in space. Physically tampering with the satellite using another satellite is another option.

China’s presence in orbit has been dramatically expanding in recent years. The report pointed out that as of July 2026, Beijing’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellite fleet “contained more than 510 systems, having more than tripled since 2018. While many of these ISR satellites are ostensibly affiliated with commercial and civil missions, the dual-use nature of their capabilities and possibly the Chinese military-civil fusion policies means the data or imagery they collect can be used by the PLA.”

China is also expanding its capabilities to new concepts like spaceplane developments, which we highlighted in a story about their capabilities yesterday based on details from the DIA report.

In addition to possibly being placed on satellites, DEWs could also potentially be added to spaceplanes, which can operate in a less predictable fashion than satellites, even if just for experimental roles or limited capability sets.

Though thin on details, the report reiterated the reality that China’s academia has been working toward space-based weapons for years.

“Since at least 2006, government-affiliated academics have investigated aerospace engineering technologies associated with space-based kinetic weapons—a class of weapon used to attack ground, sea, or air targets from orbit,” the DIA explained. “China’s space-based kinetic weapons research included methods of reentry, separation of payload, delivery vehicles, and transfer orbits for targeting purposes.”

Much of the PLA’s ASAT doctrine “characterizes the systems as useful deterrents against external involvement in a regional conflict or as a method to manage conflict escalation,” the DIA proffered. However, should China opt to strike first, one of the first and main targets would be satellites the U.S. and allies rely on for space-based sensing and communications. As we have often explained, even reversible attacks against any of this space-based infrastructure could have major impacts on the U.S. military’s ability to effectively conduct combat operations.

The DIA report noted that to date, China’s publicly known space-based ASAT capabilities center on satellites that can approach and grab others, which we have written about in the past. In one such instance, a Chinese satellite was observed in 2022 grabbing another satellite and pulling it out of its normal geosynchronous orbit and into a “super-graveyard drift orbit.” The maneuver raised questions about the potential applications of these types of satellites designed to maneuver close to other satellites for inspection or manipulation and added to growing concerns about China’s space program overall.

The threat satellites can already pose to others was highlighted earlier this month, when a Russian satellite, Kosmos 2612, may have passed within approximately 85 feet (26 meters) of ICEYE-X36. That is a U.S.-registered satellite belonging to commercial imagery provider ICEYE that was providing imagery to Ukraine. While no contact or damage was detected, the incident raised concerns that the Russian satellite could have harmed the ICEYE one purposely or even inadvertently.

You can see a time-lapse video of part of that encounter below.

When it comes to discussing weapons in space capable of attacking other on-orbit objects and the effects they could impose, it should be noted that this domain inherently creates complications when it comes to attributing any form of attack, should one occur. Satellites do malfunction, sometimes with catastrophic results, but it is not always possible to determine the cause. As a result, the challenge in attributing an event could delay a response, if needed, or spark one inadvertently.

As we previously reported, in January, “a Russian inspector satellite launched in 2014 appeared to break up unexpectedly. Sometime around the end of July, the Chinese reconnaissance satellite Yaogan 50-02, which had only been launched some four months earlier, also broke up in orbit. On Sept. 13, a similar fate befell the U.S. Cold War-era Farrah III spy satellite, also known as USA 32. At the time of writing, no firm evidence has emerged to indicate any of these incidents were the result of hostile action rather than accidents of some kind.”

Directed energy attacks, in particular, from one satellite against another, may be very hard to attribute as they can happen over longer distances in the vacuum of space. They would also presumably allow the attacking satellite to engage multiple targets, even in a relatively short period of time, making it one of the most attractive potential anti-satellite capabilities on orbit.

In addition to talking about Chinese space-based ASAT capabilities, the DIA report raised concerns about a wide array of threats from the PLA as well as Russia, North Korea and Iran.

The report did not address Russian space-based directed energy weapons plans. However, it did note that, like China, Russia does have ground-based laser systems already capable of affecting U.S. and allied satellites. The threat from these systems is not theoretical. They are part of an array of ASAT measures that China and Russia have used against the U.S. for years.

For instance, back in 2021, a top U.S. Space Force general warned that Russia and China were launching “reversible attacks,” such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyberattacks, on U.S. satellites “every single day.”

“China and Russia will continue to pursue new and improved counterspace capabilities to exploit a perceived U.S. and allied reliance on space-based assets,” DIA’s report concluded.

“China has developed and probably will continue to develop weapons for use against satellites in orbit to disrupt, damage and destroy adversary space capabilities,” the DIA suggested. “Russia is currently capable of targeting satellites in LEO with both terrestrial and orbital systems and is interested in developing systems for targeting more distant orbits.”

China and Russia aren’t the only adversaries the U.S. should be concerned about when it comes to space warfare, the DIA warned.

“In 2026, with the onset of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Iran took offensive actions against each other’s space capabilities to degrade and disrupt military actions on both sides,” the agency stated. “Iran and North Korea will continue to build their civil and military and space capabilities and maintain their respective jamming capabilities.”

Meanwhile, the extent of current U.S. plans for space-based directed energy weapons is not publicly known. However, in a story we wrote last year about President Donald Trump’s plans for the Golden Dome missile shield system, we noted the role that directed energy weapons could play in that effort.

For years, U.S. space-based weapons plans have been shrouded in secrecy, but as we mentioned earlier in this story, that changed last month.

During his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, at which TWZ was in attendance, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink made a bombshell admission, disclosing that there are on-orbit weapons now deployed to protect America’s interests in space. 

Meink declined to offer any details about what kinds of weapons they were. However, whatever they are, these weapons support a Space Control mission set, and the U.S. Space Force shared additional details about that directly with TWZ. 

“Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain – employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities through disruption, degradation and even destruction, if necessary,” a Space Force spokesperson told us. “These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands. U.S. military operations are conducted in compliance with international law, including the Outer Space Treaty and LOAC [the Law of Armed Conflict].”

While the DIA report does not make any new revelations about China’s space-based directed energy program, it serves as a stark reminder that this is a capability that could present a widening threat in the next few years.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

They hit you hardest if your income is close to one of the tax thresholds, but anyone who gets a pay rise is affected, as long as you earn enough to pay tax. Only people earning under £12,570 – the personal allowance threshold – pay no income tax.

By 2031 an extra 6.8 million people will be paying tax who wouldn’t have if the personal allowance had not been frozen, the OBR calculates.

The state pension is currently just below the personal allowance threshold, and pensioners looked set to be drawn into paying tax from next April, when the basic state pension rises to £13,036.

However, the chancellor is putting in place a new separate Pension Tax Allowance, which will ensure that low-income pensioners, with income up to the value of the full new state pension, will not pay income tax.

The personal allowance threshold is set for the whole UK, so people in Scotland will also be affected, although other tax bands there vary, external.

National Insurance Contributions (Nics) are levied according to the same thresholds.