NEWS

Several of today’s papers lead with the government’s review of ADHD and autism diagnoses. A “stark warning over rising demand for NHS autism and ADHD care” tops the Guardian. Elsewhere, it reports that two Latvians have been arrested after they were “found inside RAF base”. And, after it was revealed that the three sisters who died in the Brighton sea had taken their own lives, the paper describes their “final pilgrimage”.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – After nearly two weeks of fierce fighting, Ethiopian federal forces entered the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle as forces from an alliance of rebel groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), withdrew from the city.

The fighting that erupted late last month has effectively ended the 2022 Pretoria ceasefire and the fragile peace that followed the devastating Tigray war.

But Mekelle’s capture may mark the end of conventional warfare rather than the end of the conflict. Fighting has continued elsewhere in Tigray, while reports of Eritrean troops entering northern Tigrayan towns have added a potentially more dangerous regional dimension.

Ethiopian federal forces used air power and ground forces to advance across Tigray. After suffering successive defeats around the towns of Alamata and Kobo, rebel forces withdrew into the surrounding countryside. They have pledged to continue fighting.

“We will confront the enemy on our terms and where we choose,” TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said.

A war that may not be over

There are echoes of the war that began in 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government declared victory after federal forces captured Mekelle. Tigrayan forces subsequently regrouped in the mountains, retook much of the region and recaptured the capital, prolonging the war for nearly a year and a half.

The renewed conflict could follow a similar trajectory, particularly if the TPLF and other armed groups succeed in turning the mountainous terrain into a prolonged armed rebellion. Ethiopia is already fighting insurgencies in Amhara and Oromia, raising the prospect of its federal forces being stretched across multiple fronts.

But the battlefield reversals suffered by the rebels could have implications well beyond Tigray. They have raised concern in Egypt and among other Ethiopian rivals, according to Hossamaldeen Ibrahim, an African analyst at the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute.

“Egypt views the Renaissance Dam, and any Ethiopian [army] move towards the Red Sea, as a strategic threat, so it has allied with Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia against any Ethiopian unilateralism,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera.

“Ethiopia is seeking a sea outlet; Eritrea sees this as an existential threat.”

Ethiopia’s Red Sea ambitions

Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea won its war of independence in 1991, leaving Addis Ababa heavily dependent on neighbouring countries for access to international trade.

Abiy has increasingly made access to the Red Sea a strategic priority since 2023, raising concerns in Eritrea over Ethiopia’s ambitions, particularly over the port of Assab.

Ethiopia currently relies heavily on Djibouti for maritime trade, while also pursuing alternative arrangements, including through Kenya and Somaliland.

After being sworn in on Monday for another five-year term following his party’s victory in the June 1 election, Abiy again put the issue at the centre of his parliamentary address.

“Based on the principle of give and take, we will work diligently to ensure that Ethiopia has an outlet to the sea,” he told parliament.

The issue has increasingly become part of a wider regional contest.

A loose regional alignment

In recent months, Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia have found themselves sharing concerns over Ethiopia’s regional ambitions. On October 4, the leaders of the four countries met for a quadrilateral consultative summit in New Alamein, Egypt, where they discussed regional issues and pledged to strengthen political, economic and trade cooperation as well as consultation and coordination.

The meeting does not amount to a formal military alliance, and the four countries have different interests in their dealings with Addis Ababa. The summit’s joint declaration also called for respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, noninterference in internal affairs and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

But their concerns increasingly overlap around Ethiopia’s ambitions in the Red Sea, the Nile and the wider Horn of Africa.

Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have also deteriorated sharply since the Pretoria ceasefire. Ethiopia closed its embassy in Eritrea and expelled Eritrean diplomats on October 1, accusing Asmara of hostile acts and involvement in the renewed fighting. Eritrea responded by severing diplomatic ties, while denying that it supported the opposition alliance. Egypt and Sudan have also denied Ethiopian accusations that they are backing the alliance.

The Ethiopian army’s advance into Tigray has added another layer to that rivalry.

“The [Ethiopian army’s] advance in Tigray directly threatens [Eritrean President] Isaias [Afwerki] and the Eritrean state,” said Etana H Dinka, an assistant professor of African history at the University of Miami.

Eritrean forces fought alongside Ethiopian troops during the 2020–22 Tigray war, but relations between Abiy and Isaias have since deteriorated. Eritrean troops have reportedly been seen in towns in northern Tigray, adding a potentially significant new dimension to the conflict. The Associated Press news agency reported Eritrean troops entering Adigrat and Idaga Hamus after crossing into Ethiopia, while Eritrea has neither confirmed nor denied the troop movements.

Eritrea’s role could be decisive

For Eritrea, the location of the fighting matters as much as its outcome.

A prolonged conflict in Tigray could keep Ethiopian forces tied down and limit Addis Ababa’s ability to pursue its Red Sea ambitions. But a decisive Ethiopian victory could leave the federal government with greater freedom to turn its attention towards regional rivals.

“With reports that Eritrean troops are moving into Tigray, Eritrea seems keen on boosting TPLF forces withdrawing northwards, so that the engagement between Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers takes place in Tigrayan territory, and not in Eritrea,” said Mohamed Kheir Omer, a researcher focused on the Horn of Africa.

That could create an incentive for Eritrea to support forces capable of keeping the Ethiopian army tied down, without necessarily entering a direct confrontation of its own.

Sudan adds another layer

Sudan’s war adds another dimension to the regional rivalry.

Egypt has provided political backing and logistical and technical support to Sudan’s army, according to the Reuters news agency, while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of atrocities in Darfur.

Ethiopia has faced accusations of facilitating support for the RSF. A Reuters investigation reported in February that Ethiopia was hosting a camp in its western Benishangul-Gumuz region where thousands of fighters linked to the RSF were being trained. Reuters cited eight sources, including a senior Ethiopian government official, who said the United Arab Emirates financed the camp’s construction and provided military trainers and logistical support. The UAE denied the allegations, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the UAE’s role.

Those competing relationships are part of a broader contest over the Nile, Sudan, the Red Sea and access to trade routes.

For Egypt, its dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam remains a major strategic concern. For Eritrea, Ethiopia’s search for a Red Sea outlet is viewed through the lens of national security. For Sudan’s neighbours, the conflict threatens to reshape regional power balances.

Will Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia intervene?

The shared interests of Ethiopia’s regional rivals do not necessarily translate into direct intervention.

Egypt has its own calculations over the Nile and Sudan. Eritrea has a direct security interest in developments in Tigray. Somalia is dealing with its own security challenges and a complicated relationship with Addis Ababa. Sudan remains consumed by its devastating civil war.

At the same time, Ethiopia’s federal forces now face the possibility of fighting on several fronts.

The TPLF, Amhara Fano and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) have each sought to challenge the federal government in different parts of the country. If they can maintain pressure on the army while retreating from major population centres, the fall of Mekelle could prove to be only the first phase of a much longer conflict.

For Ethiopia’s rivals, the question is whether to exploit that vulnerability or avoid being drawn into another regional war.

The extent of any regional involvement may ultimately depend on whether the TPLF can keep federal forces tied down in Tigray, and away from the Eritrean border.

“It isn’t difficult to understand Cairo’s commitment to prevent Ethiopia from succeeding in the current warfare, whatever its army’s intended goals, including Abiy’s acclaimed access to the Red Sea, are,” University of Miami’s Dinka said.

The question now is whether those regional calculations will remain largely diplomatic or spill into the battlefield.

Islamic Relief calls for international action as Gaza endures deadly Israeli attacks and worsening humanitarian conditions.

Israeli attacks have killed or wounded a Palestinian in Gaza every 90 minutes on average since the ceasefire was announced in October last year, the aid group Islamic Relief says.

Islamic Relief, a United Kingdom-based charity, said on Thursday that at least 1,454 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,000 wounded over the year. At least 320 of those killed were children, close to one a day.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that 1,471 Palestinians have been killed and 5,189 wounded since the ceasefire, including four killed and 28 wounded in the past 24 hours.

Israel has killed at least 74,254 people since October 2023, the ministry added.

On Thursday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian southeast of Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, and an Israeli air strike on a house in central Khan Younis wounded several people, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

In the occupied West Bank, a 13-year-old boy was shot in the foot during an Israeli raid on Yamoun, west of Jenin, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Islamic Relief said Israel has used the so-called Yellow Line, which marks the area under Israeli military control, to push Palestinians out of 65 percent of Gaza, crowding its nearly 2.1 million people into the remaining 35 percent.

According to the report, an Islamic Relief aid worker in Gaza whose name is withheld for their safety said: “There is no ceasefire in reality. They target displacement camps and crowded areas, so there is still a lot of fear.”

Israel continues to block shelter materials, fuel and medical supplies, the group said.

About 82 percent of Gaza’s structures are damaged or destroyed, more than half of health services have shut down and more than 20,000 severely ill patients are denied permission to leave for treatment.

The charity urged world leaders to increase pressure to protect civilians and uphold international law.

“A ceasefire in name only cannot be an excuse for international inaction,” it said.

Andy Burnham has called on Green leader Zack Polanski to reverse a motion passed by members of his party declaring Zionism a form of racism.

The prime minister said the motion, approved on Sunday at the party’s conference in Brighton, was “completely wrong” and showed “terrible judgement”.

The motion defined Zionism as an ideology supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state” and backed a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine”, which includes modern-day Israel.

In the wake of the vote, Polanski has said he would not accept anyone being excluded from the Green Party “because of the religious or communal body they are part of”.

The Green leader has declined media interviews since the motion was passed and did not answer questions from a BBC reporter about the motion ahead of Burnham’s comments.

It comes as polls close in Thursday’s Holborn and St Pancras by-election, in which Polanski is a candidate.

The motion has complicated the final days of Polanksi’s campaign in the contest, where the Greens have been looking to overturn a substantial Labour majority in the seat vacated by former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

It has sparked days of controversy, with four of the five Green MPs opposing it, its co-deputy leaders split on supporting it, the Green deputy leader in Wales resigning, and condemnation from members and Green counterparts in Europe.

Polanski did not vote on the Zionism motion, having left the conference early to return to London for the by-election campaign.

An amendment he had backed to specify that the motion should not be used to discipline Jewish members attending synagogues that consider themselves Zionist was voted down by members.

Before the vote, he had also said he wanted to see the reference to a single Palestinian state changed, arguing: “I don’t believe we as a Green Party of England and Wales, or even the British government, should be deciding what the future settlement looks like.”

The Green Party has an internal democracy model, under which official party policy is decided by members. However, these positions are not necessarily included in the party’s general election manifestos.

However, Jorge Galindo, director at the Esade centre for economic policy, says that available data makes it difficult to know exactly how many Spanish properties are owned by so-called “vulture funds” and being used for speculation.

He points to Bank of Spain figures from 2024 showing that only 8% of properties for rent are owned by companies.

Galindo says he concludes from the data available that there is not a notable accumulation of property to rent among a small number of owners in Spain.

“When it comes to explaining the rise in rentals, that is not the big cause,” he says. “What explains it is the shortage of supply compared to demand over recent years.”

The Bank of Spain appears to agree, and has estimated that the country has a housing shortfall of around 750,000 homes.

The institution’s deputy governor, Soledad Núñez, warned in September that by 2028 that could rise to one million.

There are 3.8 million empty properties in Spain, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), but a large number of those are in depopulated rural areas and therefore have little relevance to the current crisis, which is most acute in urban hubs.

Other explanations for this high number include properties awaiting renovation, or legal disputes between family members who have inherited them.

Demographic changes play a major part in the imbalance between supply and demand.

Between 2021 and 2025, there were about 1.2 million new households in Spain, driven in great part by the arrival of migrants who have played a major role in the country’s recent economic growth.

However, house building has not kept pace, with fewer than half-a-million new homes during that period.

That was partly because Spain’s construction industry had shrunk in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, while the cost of materials rose substantially after Covid, and a lack of political consensus put legal obstacles in the way of building.

“It was not a priority for us to build new houses,” Galindo says. “But, once the demographic boom came, we realised how costly it was for us.”

He adds that short-term tourist accommodation, like Airbnb, which has been identified by both the Spanish government and many activists as a culprit, is likely to have had a more localised effect, pushing up prices in specific urban areas rather than having an overall impact.

Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella had promised closer ties with Israel on the campaign trail.

Israel has announced that Colombia will open an embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the latest country to establish a diplomatic mission in the disputed city claimed as a capital by Israelis and Palestinians. Most countries have their embassies in Israel in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday the Latin American country’s embassy would open next week as he touted expanding relations with the region.

“Next Wednesday, we are going to inaugurate … the Colombian embassy,” Saar told attendees at a conference in Jerusalem.

An official at the Colombian Foreign Ministry in Bogota told AFP news agency the country’s Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar would travel to Jerusalem on Sunday ahead of the opening.

Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella, who was sworn in as president in August, promised close relations with Israel during his election campaign. When he came into office, he restored diplomatic ties between Colombia and Israel. Colombia had previously severed ties with the country over Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

The announcement comes as a small but growing list of countries has opted to route their diplomatic ties with Israel through Jerusalem.

Since 2018, the US, Guatemala, Paraguay, Kosovo, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru and Somaliland, which has been recognised as an independent entity only by Israel, have opened embassies in the city.

Other countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel have located their embassies in Tel Aviv, as Jerusalem is not recognised by the international community as Israel’s capital.

“We will work hard because this is the diplomatic battle over the truth. And the truth is, Jerusalem was always the capital of one nation,” Saar said, dismissing Palestinian claims to the capital.

The Israeli minister said the Democratic Republic of the Congo would open its embassy in Jerusalem “very soon” and hinted at another opening.

“I think that with the possible results in Brazil, they might have the same move,” he said after right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro won the first round in the country’s presidential election.

Protesters in Colombia took to the streets of Bogota on Wednesday to rally against the new far-right government’s policy towards Israel, including the decision to open the Jerusalem embassy.

“When diplomatic relations with Israel were broken off, the message was that we would not be a nation complicit in their atrocities,” Nicolas Isaza, who took part in the protest, told Al Jazeera.

“Today our government is no longer drawing a line against the atrocities being committed in Palestine,” he added.

Syrian authorities questioned why search and rescue operations were called off before the fate of 10 sailors was known.

Syria has called for an “independent and transparent” investigation into the sinking of a cargo ship in the Black Sea, demanding answers over the fate of the ship’s 10 crew members, including nine Syrians and an Egyptian, who remain unaccounted for.

The Togolese-flagged Alfa Watan, went down in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone early on Tuesday, amid a rising number of drone strikes hitting Black Sea shipping during the Russia-Ukraine war.

It is unclear who carried out the attack.

Mazen Aloush, from the Syria’s port authority asked the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Bulgarian authorities to find out why a search and rescue mission was called off, before the missing sailors were found.

“Their fate is still unknown” said Aloush, adding that “the reasons that led to the suspension of search and rescue operations” had to be established.

The attack on Tuesday also hit the Palau-flagged Able, setting it ablaze. Eighteen Turkish and Indian crew members were rescued from the burning vessel, while the Alfa Watan sank.

Both commercial ships were managed by Turkey-based companies, according to the Equasis merchant shipping database.

The Syrian sailors’ union said contact with the ship’s crew had been lost and no survivors had been found after search operations were halted.

Aloush condemned the targeting of a civilian commercial vessel saying it was a serious breach of maritime security and a threat to sailors.

He said Syrian General Authority for Ports and Customs was closely monitoring the incident.

He urged ⁠authorities to use all available technical means to locate and inspect the wreckage to help establish what caused the ship to sink.

He called for international and maritime bodies to strengthen measures to help commercial shipping as attacks in the Black Sea rise.

The next stage in this legal dispute will be a behind-closed-doors hearing over whether the police can still retain material seized from Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes under alternative powers designed for situations like this.

The error that has led to Thames Valley Police accepting the search warrants were unlawful relates to the particular power the judge permitted the force to use when its officers raided the properties.

Strict legal safeguards on searches bar the police from automatically seizing sensitive material without thinking through in advance the need to take it.

Examples of that material include advice from a suspect’s lawyer or material which does not really belong to them, such as copies of confidential work-related papers from an employer.

In practice, if the police find such material during a search, they should return it rather than use it in their investigation.

The category of search warrant that was granted by the court in this instance did not take into account the possibility of such protected material being seized.

However, the law says police can in fact seize that kind of material – or potentially retain it in the event of an error – providing they pass some extra tests.

Thames Valley Police must now convince a judge that the material is likely to be of “substantial value” to their investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor and, ultimately, potential evidence to present to a court.

So while the force has conceded the search warrant was unlawful, a judge will have to decide whether this alternative search power, with its extra safeguards, justifies them keeping and using the material after all.

The vote in London’s Holborn and St Pancras parliamentary seat tests whether Burnham can restore faith in Labour.

Londoners are voting in a special by-election in the electoral district of Holborn and St Pancras, where the Green Party is posing a threat to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour Party.

Zack Polanski, leader of Britain’s left-wing Greens, was among candidates bidding on Thursday to win the parliamentary seat vacated by the resignation of former Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Labour has held the seat continuously since its creation in 1983. Thursday’s vote is widely considered a two-horse race with the Greens, with thousands of activists from both parties out canvassing in recent weeks.

The vote is seen as a first test of whether Burnham can restore voters’ faith in Labour, which saw its popularity among left-wing voters plunge over the war in ⁠⁠⁠⁠Gaza.

The by-election also offers him a chance to rob the Greens of the momentum they have built up under Polanski, the 43-year-old self-styled “eco-populist” who became party leader in September last year.

Green gains in areas of London contributed to Labour’s dismal local election results in May, which helped ⁠⁠⁠⁠set in train a process that culminated on July 20 with Starmer’s resignation and his replacement by Burnham.

He has since adopted a tougher position on Israel and seeks to blunt the Greens’ rise by laying out a more left-wing vision for the UK.

Polanski, as the Greens’ candidate, faces Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, a local council leader who arrived in Britain as a child refugee from Somalia in the 1990s and is expected to be declared the winner.

Polls are scheduled to close at 10pm local time (21:00 GMT) and the result is expected to be announced in the early hours of Friday.

The other candidates are: Barmy Brunch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party; Ewan Cameron, Conservative Party; independent candidate Tom Darwood; Clare Fischer of the Climate Party; George Galloway, Workers Party; Tyler Johnson, Restore Britain; Briony Anne Lonbay Kapoor of Rejoin EU; Peter Newman of Reform UK; Ketankumar Pipaliya, UK VOICE; Jonathan Silberman of the Communist League; Helen Spiby-Vann, Christian Peoples Alliance; Patrick Thomas Stillman, Liberal Democrats; Ben Walker, UKIP.

After blowing past a self-imposed August deadline, the U.S. Navy has finally announced Boeing as the winner of its F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter competition. F/A-XX has become one of the most hotly anticipated U.S. defense procurement decisions in recent memory after the Pentagon tried to shelve the program indefinitely last year.

Boeing had been competing against Northrop Grumman for the F/A-XX contract. An earlier down-select reportedly eliminated Lockheed Martin back in March 2025.

TWZ has now published an initial analysis of Boeing’s winning F/A-XX design based on what can be seen in the new rendering, which you can find here.

As mentioned, the Pentagon had moved to freeze the F/A-XX program in June 2025. Three months earlier, Boeing had won a separate U.S. Air Force competition to produce what is now called the F-47. U.S. military officials had argued that the U.S. industrial base lacked the capacity to support work on two next-generation fighters simultaneously.

Congress subsequently intervened to keep the F/A-XX program running, but its future had remained very murky until earlier this year. In April, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Daryl Caudle said that a winner of the competition would finally be announced in August. Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao both publicly committed to that same timeline later that month. There had been concerns that the program might have slipped back into limbo after that deadline came and went. Adm. Caudle told Aviation Week‘s Brian Everstine that he himself was no longer aware of when this decision might come on the sidelines of the Tailhook Association’s annual convention last month.

Just two weeks ago, Air Force Gen. Dale White, the service’s Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems, reiterated concerns about industrial capacity in response to a question about potential challenges in building F/A-XXs at the same time as F-47s. White also acknowledged that these concerns were “not unique” to F/A-XX and F-47.

In this context, Boeing’s win today is perhaps unsurprising. The company will be able to leverage design work it has already been doing in relation to the F-47 program, as well as relevant production experience and supply chains. TWZ had previously highlighted similarities between what was seen in a rendering the company released of its F/A-XX proposal and official renders of what it is building for the Air Force. We still have yet to learn just how closely related the two designs are.

It is also worth noting here that Boeing previously pushed back publicly on the assertion that it was not ready to meet Air Force and Navy needs at the same time.

Regardless of any industrial base considerations, top Navy officials have been consistently vocal about the need for F/A-XX, even after the Pentagon’s move to put the program on ice last year. The service has presented the next-generation fighters as essential for staying ahead of top global competitors like China and Russia, as well as smaller adversaries, such as Iran.

“I know these things are expensive, and I know the defense industrial base is compressed, but we have got to figure out how to walk and chew gum here with aircraft,” CNO Caudle said in January, just weeks before the start of major combat operations against Iran. “The folks that used to be not in [the] headspace that I needed a stealth aircraft of this level to fly a mission into their country, will gain capability that the F-18 [F/A-18E/F Super Hornet] will not match against.”

“This is an ever-evolving theme, and when you’ve got partnerships … well coupled with each other across China and Russia and Iran and North Korea, and terrorist groups that are getting that kit from all of those through back-channel ways, our ability to fly with impunity with our existing airframes is fleeting,” he added at that time. “So, if I don’t start building that [F/A-XX] immediately, you’re not going to get it for some time.”

The conflict with Iran, where U.S. crewed and uncrewed aircraft have now been lost to that country’s air defenses, adds a certain weight to Caudle’s comments here.

The selection of Boeing for F/A-XX also comes now as the Navy is making new moves regarding other aspects of its future carrier air wing plans. In particular, the service is increasingly solidifying its vision for new carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. Acting as airborne controllers for advanced drones has long been understood to be a key mission for the Navy’s forthcoming sixth-generation crewed fighters.

Update: 5:52 PM ET –

The Pentagon has now issued a full press release for the F/A-XX contract award to Boeing, which is valued at approximately $20 billion. The deal covers the “full-scale development phase” and includes the procurement of “multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems, and weapons integration testing.”

“The F/A-XX is a critical pillar in our commitment to maintaining peace through strength. F/A-XX will dominate contested airspace, extend operational reach, and deliver a decisive combat advantage for the warfighter,” Michael P. Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, has said in a statement. “The F/A-XX platform represents a crucial, non-negotiable investment in America’s national security and long-term air combat capabilities. We are joining forces with Boeing to field these capabilities rapidly, ensuring our warfighters possess the lethal and highly networked systems required to deter aggression, project undisputed power, and secure absolute air superiority.”

“This achievement marks a new era for the U.S. Navy,” Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao also said in a statement. “The Sixth-Generation fighter is a generational leap in air superiority and will provide the world’s best aviators with unparalleled capabilities to fight, win, and come home safe. We are excited to partner with Boeing, and for our warfighters to continue to dominate the skies and defeat our nation’s enemies.”

“The F/A-XX will provide advanced carrier-based power projection that extends the range of the most agile and survivable airfields: U.S. Navy carriers. In addition, F/A-XX will be interoperable with manned and unmanned platforms such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and increase the capability of every CCA it teams with,” the press release adds. “Following this contact award announcement, Boeing will deliver the platform to augment and eventually replace legacy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers beginning in the 2030s, and operate alongside the F-35C.”

The Navy has not yet announced a formal designation for the F/A-XX aircraft. If Boeing’s base design does share significant DNA with the F-47, it is possible that the designation for the new sixth-generation carrier-based fighter could reflect that.

It is also worth noting how muted the F/A-XX announcement has been across the board given how hotly anticipated it was. The contrast with the F-47 contract announcement, which was a live-broadcast event headed up by President Donald Trump from White House, is particularly striking.

Update: 6:14 PM ET –

Boeing has now put out its own press release regarding the F/A-XX contract award, which notes that “technical and programmatic details” about the aircraft “remain classified under U.S. national security and export laws.”

“It’s an honor to be selected to produce the Navy’s first sixth^–generation platform,” Steve Parker, President and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in a statement. “Backed by decades of work, bolstered by game-changing innovations and solidified by the investments we’ve made in new facilities uniquely suited to build multiple products with next generation capabilities, our dedicated and talented team is ready to execute this critical program.”

“Delivering two advanced fighters in parallel was always our plan, and we invested accordingly,” Parker added. “We are ready and able to build multiple concurrent future combat aircraft franchise programs.”

Boeing’s release explicitly highlights a major ongoing expansion of its production and other facilities in St. Louis, Missouri. That work is also widely understood to be supporting the F-47 program, as TWZ reported separately just earlier today.

“Investment in facilities is just one part of the story,” Boeing’s Parker also said. “We’re also investing in technology and people so that we can deliver for our customers.”

As an aside, Boeing also received a separate contract today from the Navy, valued at $16,667,607, to support the final shutdown of the production line for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jet.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

During his time as the lead propulsion engineer for SR-71 Blackbirds at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Tim Conners looked into how to push the iconic recon plane to fly faster than it had ever flown before. The world record for any crewed jet-powered aircraft is officially Mach 3.3, or 2,193 mph. It was set by a Blackbird in 1976 “on a straight-line course over Edwards Air Force Base in California.” In a recent interview with TWZ, Conners said he investigated whether there were ways to get Blackbird to approach Mach 4, equivalent to roughly a whopping 2,660 mph at altitude. Fast forward to today, with the possibility that NASA could be returning the SR-71 in some configuration to its test fleet, as well as its potential missions, the question of just how fast could the airframe go has become far more relevant than just a hypothetical exercise.

Conners spoke to us about his knowledge of plans to restore SR-71 #844, which had mysteriously disappeared from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, as well as its potential uses, in a deep-dive interview here. Prior to the revelations about the missing Blackbird, speculation about NASA’s renewed interest in the type was sparked last month, when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman showed the silhouette of an aircraft that immediately drew comparisons to SR-71 during a speech at the annual All-In Summit in Los Angeles, California. Isaacman pushed back on a direct link to the SR-71 but said his agency is working hard to get “back in the business of flying high and fast again.”

Given that, we wanted to know what limited the SR-71’s speed in its original configuration and how fast Conners thought it could go with modifications.

“The study that I did at Dryden was purely conceptual,” Conners explained of his work on the topic there in the early 1990s. “I asked questions of the Lockheed folks and the Pratt folks regarding limitations on speed. So stagnation temperature. What can we get to at altitude?”

The Blackbird, he said, “flew a trajectory that was usually operationally limited to 450 knots equivalent airspeed. If you look at the flight envelope, that defines the right edge of the envelope.”

“The engines, however, were optimized to fly at about 500 knots equivalent airspeed, 475 to 500, and for whatever reason, there was a mismatch between what the engines were designed to do and what the airframe was ultimately optimized for, which was flight at around 450 knots,” the engineer added. “And you end up with that limitation now, the equivalent airspeed curve hooks up and to the right as you go up in altitude, so it sweeps out Mach number, and as you sweep out Mach number, the stagnation temperature is going up on you.”

“So you do reach a point, even at 500 KEAS [knots equivalent airspeed], where you end up with a constant value up at altitude once you’re in the stratosphere,” Conners said. “The Blackbird was trimmed or limited at that speed on the right side of the envelope, and that equated to a certain stagnation temperature. That limitation was driven primarily by the material strength of the engine front frame, from what it was described to me, and that’s what drove the analysis we did at NASA.”

To even consider pushing the aircraft past the world record speed, Conners said something had to be done to mitigate the tremendous effects of the extreme heat on the air entering the engines.

“We weren’t looking at active cooling of the frame by pumping coolant through it,” Conners recalled. “What we looked at was spray cooling of the incoming airflow to lower the bulk temperature, so it would only be used when you were accelerating beyond about Mach 3.4. You would only very briefly do Mach excursions to a higher Mach number, and then come back. That was the conops for that system.”

“This is a way to [get to a higher Mach range] briefly,” the engineer postulated. “You could probably get to a higher Mach number. The problem is that if you clog or freeze the system, if it fails while you’re at higher speed, you have to decelerate in a hurry to protect the assets.”

Among other impediments to breaking the speed record, the Blackbird’s existing power plant was not up to the job, according to Conners.

“So that weak link was the J58,” he explained. “It had the performance, but not the material strength. If we’re looking at alternate engines designed to handle the higher Mach capability, then that could put the limiter on the airframe at that point, which we were told at NASA was somewhere like up near Mach 4 for brief excursions.”

The Pratt & Whitney J58 – The Engine of the SR-71 Blackbird

Aviation expert Paul F. Crickmore, who’s written several books about the Blackbird, told us that the aircraft was designed around a sustained cruise speed of Mach 3.2, with the primary critical limitation being aforementioned compressor inlet temperature (CIT).

Above 427 degrees Celsius (about 800 degrees Fahrenheit), the engines would be damaged, Crickmore noted. But if outside air temperature was colder, the aircraft could go faster before hitting that limit (in practice, Mach 3.3).

Temperature was just one factor in limiting how fast the SR-71 could travel, Crickmore explained. The shock waves from traveling so fast would also tamp down the Blackbird’s ultimate speed potential.

“On the SR, you have to think three-dimensionally,” Crickmore explained. “But looking in just two dimensions, you would have an oblique shock wave on the nose, the first shock wave, and it would be at 90 degrees on either side. As the airplane got faster, that cone became more sharp until you got down to about 32 degrees. Now, at that speed, you’re at [Mach] 3.2. That oblique shock wave was still outside the envelope of the airplane – you don’t want to get that shockwave going anywhere near the flight controls. The faster you go, the narrower that cone, and the closer it gets to the wingtips, which is not good. This is the thing: People say, ‘Oh yeah, we can go maybe Mach 6.’ Well, right. But it’s not just about that. It’s about a lot of other things.”

The limiting factors imposed by the CIT value and the shockwave effect are also recalled by the late SR-71 pilot David Peters, recounted on the Habubrats SR-71 account on X.

“A little clarification on the speed. The issue is that I have been limited to less than Mach 3 on a few occasions because the outside air temperature was entirely above standard, and 427C came up at about [Mach] 2.95. On other occasions, like the Murmansk deal I got above 3.4 (3.49 on one occasion) and wasn’t close to 427C. The actual limiting airspeed is around 3.55; that is where the spike, being at full retraction loses the intercept on the shock wave and can no longer position it correctly in the inlet. Also, the overflow of the shock starts to go over the wing and interfere with the flight controls. So the limiting speed as configured would be about 3.55 so long as you don’t exceed 427C.”

Dare to Dream: A SR-71 Pilot’s Tale

For his part, Conners said that “shock effects at the inlet can be accommodated through rescheduling the inlet spike movement and perhaps making changes to the bypass schedules. None of that would necessarily be simple, and any changes would require careful envelope expansion. But it would not be impossible.”

Regardless of any other factors, Conners, the Blackbird engineer, remembered that his effort in boosting the jet’s speed never took off.

“It never got beyond me just sizing tank volume, considering different fluids that might work as a coolant, and then just gauging the relative appetite of NASA hierarchy for something like that,” Conners stated. “They weren’t interested in the risk. Nobody was asking for that Mach range.”

But that may be changing. It seems clear that one of the biggest challenges of getting the Blackbird back in the air will be its engines. They have sat for a long time, and getting them into a flyable condition could be the limiting issue. Beyond that, equipping the SR-71 with new engines also may represent the biggest opportunity for NASA getting a return on investment from its revived Blackbird.

In our interview, Conners told us that the feedback he heard about the remaining Blackbird J58 engines was “discouraging” because “the engines are indeed unserviceable.”

“I don’t believe that is based on an actual attempt to run them,” he explained. “It is based on inspection. Probably no surprise. They’ve sat idle, you know, for 27 years. That is what led to questions going back and forth regarding how the airframe would be powered. And that’s what led into, if you connect the dots, that’s where the airframe would be used as an engine test bed.”

Different engines “would have to be high-Mach bypass systems,” he noted. “We can speculate on which engine company might be developing those systems, but yeah, I don’t want to give it too much away because I don’t want us to lose the inside information that we got.”

Also, the flight regime approaching Mach 4 would likely be one of the areas NASA is most interested in. It’s here where a combined cycle engine capable of hypersonic flight, one that contains both turbojet and ramjet or scramjet functions, would ‘hand-off’ propulsion from the turbojet to the other that is optimized for extreme speed. This is the same concept behind Lockheed’s SR-72 concept. Having an aircraft, and especially one that is not mired in deep classification and hidden from view, that can actually test this transitional flight regime could be of extreme value in unlocking a future where hypersonic flight is more accessible.

“Yeah, that could very well be what we’re looking at here,” Conners told us when we asked whether Blackbird’s open classification level is a driving factor in using it as a test bed for this research. “I’ve had friends ask that question this week. We were talking about the SR-72. Where is that at? I don’t know. I know people who went to work on it years ago. I’ve never heard anything since. So it could be that that’s so deep black that there’s no way that platform could be used as a test asset. So I think it’s precisely what you said. The Blackbird’s no longer classified, and that it’s possible that the engines that might be used in Blackbird wouldn’t be classified either.”

So, reengining the SR-71 may solve two birds with one stone — providing a modern powerplant that won’t require the J58s to be revived and taking care of the inlet temperature issues discussed above that would allow the SR-71 airframe’s full potential to be exploited in testing. The fact that the jet can carry a massive payload on its back could allow it to provide critical testing of the handoff for dual cycle engine concepts.

This is just one use, of course. With the explosion in high-speed flight for defense purposes over the last decade, there are many other reasons to push a Blackbird to higher Mach numbers.

So with all this in mind, if we get the Blackbird back at all, maybe it will roll out with some major modifications that could indeed push it to new velocities.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Ukraine says it has received proposals from India, Turkiye, Egypt and the United States to broker talks with Russia. The offers come as the two adversaries escalate attacks on each other’s energy and port infrastructure with their war now in its fifth year.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha revealed the four proposals at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday and singled out New Delhi’s. “The most comprehensive is India’s proposal,” he said, adding that India had signalled a willingness to play a role for the first time.

None of the proposals aims to end the war. Each seeks a narrower truce, covering energy facilities, ports or commercial shipping in the Black Sea.

Here’s what we know:

What is India proposing?

India has not made its plan public. Quoting unnamed sources, however, Indian media have reported it has three parts. According to the Hindustan Times, it would aim to protect infrastructure, keep grain and energy supplies moving through Black Sea ports, and ensure the safety of commercial shipping.

The first part – mutually halting strikes on energy facilities and ports – matches what Kyiv has been demanding. Sybiha said any deal must be a complete energy truce that covers port infrastructure as well.

The second part builds on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Turkiye and the United Nations mediated in 2022 but Russia abandoned in 2023.

The third part, protecting merchant ships and their crews, is particularly important to India because Indian sailors have been killed or harmed on Black Sea routes.

The sources were quoted as saying India’s plan goes further than the other three proposals because it covers infrastructure and shipping together. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that it incorporates elements of the Turkish, Egyptian and US initiatives. The Kyiv Post reported that Sybiha also described the plan as addressing a possible ceasefire along the front lines, although other accounts said he gave no specifics.

The proposal likely took shape during Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s first visit to Ukraine last month and in a later meeting with Sybiha at the UN General Assembly in New York, also in September. Jaishankar said New Delhi was “trying to be helpful, starting with the Black Sea safety of shipping issue”.

What do we know about the Turkish and Egyptian proposals?

Very little. Neither Ankara nor Cairo has published details. Both reportedly focus on keeping Black Sea grain supplies moving by suspending attacks on commercial shipping. Some reports said the two countries proposed a grain truce jointly while others described two separate plans.

Turkiye has done this before. With the UN, it steered the 2022 grain deal, one of the few narrow truces of the war to hold for any length of time. Ankara and the UN are now organising new Black Sea talks with a round planned for October.

Beyond its Black Sea focus, almost nothing is known about Egypt’s proposal. Its interest, however, is clear: Egypt relies on Ukraine for nearly one-third of its grain supplies.

What is the US pitching?

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Washington has proposed three steps: a mutual halt to energy strikes, a reopening of the grain corridor and a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and Russia, possibly in Abu Dhabi.

The latest effort began in early September when US President Donald Trump’s envoys visited Kyiv and Moscow and secured an agreement in principle for a trilateral meeting. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 5 while Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev visited the US twice in September.

The trilateral meeting has since been pushed back. It had been expected to take place in the United Arab Emirates in early October. Washington now wants it in late October, and people close to the talks blamed the delay on Russia.

Washington has also invited Putin to the Group of 20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. The Kremlin said no decision has been made.

At the same time, the US is applying pressure to try to end the war. Trump recently signed a law giving him sweeping powers to sanction buyers of Russian energy.

He has also called on Ukraine to stop targeting Russian diesel facilities amid a diesel prices crisis in the US, where Trump faces tricky midterm elections next month. “Mr Zelenskyy has to do one thing,” he said on September 13. “He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.” This drew much criticism that Trump instead should focus his comments on Russia, which began the war with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He is reportedly sceptical about his own government’s latest diplomatic initiative. People familiar with his thinking have told US media that he doubted Putin would agree to an energy truce before winter.

How have Russia and Ukraine responded?

Sybiha said Ukraine would agree to a truce but with conditions. It would accept an energy and Black Sea shipping ceasefire, but only as a combined package, he said.

He added that Kyiv is also open to an unconditional ceasefire along the current front lines. Zelenskyy backs the US-proposed meeting but stressed it needs “not only Ukraine but also the Russian side” to support it.

Moscow has been warm in tone but has committed to nothing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would welcome India’s peace efforts while Putin said Modi has “very good ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable solutions”, but he did not elaborate.

In private, Moscow appears to have said no. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that Russia has rejected India’s proposal although this has not been confirmed publicly. Ukraine’s agriculture minister said Russia had rejected every Black Sea ceasefire option the mediators have presented.

Why are Global South countries becoming more involved?

Food supplies, the lives of their citizens and fuel prices are all at stake.

“I think it’s clear to many countries that this war is not a localised war, but it’s a war that has these global consequences,” Fredrik Wesslau, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.

Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of global wheat shipments, and their attacks on each other’s ports helped push wheat futures to a three-year high in August.

Sailors from countries with no links to the war are being killed. At least five Indian seafarers have died in strikes on Black Sea shipping in recent months along with seven Azerbaijani crew members since June. On Saturday, a Russian strike on a Liberian-flagged ship in a port in the Odesa region killed a crew member. Ukraine, for its part, has targeted tankers it links to Russia’s shadow fleet since July.

The energy war is also being felt in global markets. Ukraine reported more than 194 drone attacks on Russian refineries this year, hitting all 11 of the largest. Bloomberg News estimated that Russia’s fuel output has fallen by more than 30 percent. With Middle East supply already down as a result of the US-Israel war on Iran, global diesel markets are more exposed to the loss of Russian supplies.

Maximilian Hess, a nonresident senior fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said energy is at least as important as grain in driving the diplomatic efforts. He pointed to a “clear frustration” among many countries over high oil prices, which reflect both the Russia-Ukraine war and the crisis in the Middle East.

“Of course, Ukrainian grain is important for them, but the oil-price factor is important there as well,” he told Al Jazeera. “I think it is those commodity-shock concerns that are pushing them to re-embrace this rhetoric, rather than anything else.”

What are the challenges ahead?

Every previous attempt at diplomacy has failed to end the Russia-Ukraine war. A US-brokered, 30-day energy truce in early 2025 collapsed amid accusations of violations on both sides. At talks in Istanbul in May 2025, Zelenskyy complained that Russia had sent a junior delegation with no authority to sign a ceasefire.

In August 2025, a meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska yielded no results despite Trump claiming to be close to a deal ahead of it.

Wesslau said Washington’s efforts have faltered partly because Trump – who had boasted he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office in January 2025 – has appeared unwilling to put real pressure on Moscow. “The Russians see this, and they conclude that they can continue this war,” he said.

Deep distrust remains. Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said: “Putin never keeps agreements.”

Moscow’s actions on the ground suggest it is in no hurry, Wesslau said  “They’re trying to strangle Ukraine, strangle the economy, and make it unliveable ahead of the winter,” he said. He added that Moscow’s occasionally softer rhetoric was aimed mainly at the Trump administration and “has always proved to be a bluff”.

Russia’s terms are another obstacle. Hess said Moscow’s demands have not softened at any point since it launched the war and at times have grown. Putin has demanded all of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, including territory Russian forces have never controlled, as well as a buffer zone in northern Ukraine. Moscow is also seeking sanctions relief and military concessions for any Black Sea deal.

“I don’t think it’s a question of who actually mediates. I think it’s really a question of the calculation in Moscow,” Wesslau said. “Fundamentally, the problem is that Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire or a peace agreement. He wants to continue the war. He believes that he can win.”

Analysts said only greater economic pressure is likely to change that calculation.

Wesslau said if Europe can close down Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, “this would be a massive blow to Russia’s war economy.” Hess said the country best placed to shift things quickly is China, rather than the US, by cutting its purchases of Russian oil. However, he added: “I don’t think Beijing is interested in doing so.”

Hess said that unless there is an outside shock, the war “is much more likely to last another four years than another four months”.

Multiple reports now say that U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancers left the United Kingdom over the weekend due to the threat of an Iranian-directed near-field drone attack broadly akin to Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb that decimated Russian bombers. Though many specific details are still unconfirmed, this is an entirely plausible mode of attack that TWZ has been warning about for many years now.

Short- and long-range drone threats against parked aircraft have now morphed fully from theory to reality, as also demonstrated by losses in the course of the conflict with Iran, and even non-state actors are increasingly brandishing these capabilities. Despite the increasing dangers posed to planes out on open flightlines, the Pentagon continues to drag its feet on building hardened aircraft shelters and other fortified air base infrastructure.

Before the hasty and unexpected departure of the bombers on Sunday, B-1s had been deployed to RAF Fairford continuously since March, initially in support of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. A contingent of B-52s had also conducted strikes on Iran from Fairford, but left back in July. The base is a major operational hub for the U.S. military in the United Kingdom, and regularly hosts strategic aircraft, including bombers and U-2 spy planes.

B-1s first mission to Iran out of RAF Fairford UK

Dan Rivers, U.S. correspondent for ITV News in the United Kingdom, was among the first to report on Monday that the B-1’s quick departure had been prompted by concerns about a potential Spiderweb-like drone attack ordered by Iran, citing an unnamed source. Other outlets have subsequently reported similar details, all sourced to anonymous U.S. and British officials.

Ukraine’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb last year involved simultaneous covert near-field attacks using explosive-laden quadcopter-type drones on airbases across Russia. At least 10 Russian bombers, as well as a variety of other aircraft, all parked on open flightlines, were destroyed.

“They didn’t fly out by accident,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters during a gaggle at the White House on Monday when asked about why the B-1s had left Fairford. “There were some threats.”

“I can’t tell you that, but if they did, they’ll suffer greatly,” Trump added in response to a separate question about whether Iran might have managed to get weaponized drones into the United Kingdom.

“What you saw there was the Secretary of War [Pete Hegseth], out of an abundance of caution, trying to protect our guys,” U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said during a separate press engagement on Monday. “We do feel, with some confidence, that the Iranians are – they’re trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States, and a lot of other people, as well. So, we are being extremely cautious.”

It’s also worth noting here that British authorities had arrested five men on suspicion of driving bomb-laden vans toward the base back on September 27. Those individuals were released on bail after no explosives were found in the vehicles. U.S. and British officials have also raised the possibility of an Iranian link to that incident.

“We’ve documented what happened [near Fairford] last week. I wouldn’t just directly tie that to the move that was made,” U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio also told members of the press on Monday. “The only reason why you guys are focused on how many planes are at Fairford is because of the threat that happened last week.”

“We have confidence in the security of all of our bases, because all of our bases are [sic] theoretically could be threatened at any moment,” he added.

LIVE: UK police gives update on explosive-related arrests near air base used by US

Rubio’s comments notwithstanding, the remarks from Trump and Vance make clear that there was some recent threat intelligence that contributed to the decision to pull the bombers from Fairford. There are still many questions about the exact nature of the potential attacks, and how imminent, or not, the danger may have been.

Regardless, as mentioned, the prospect of a near-field drone attack on a base like Fairford carried out by actors in close proximity is extremely plausible, and the barrier to entry to such an operation is relatively low. Spiderweb may have thrust this reality into the public consciousness in dramatic fashion, but the danger well predates that operation, and even the start of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

TWZ has been highlighting exactly these kinds of threats in the course of a decade or so now of regular reporting on drone incursions over U.S. and foreign military facilities and critical infrastructure, as well as American naval vessels operating offshore. Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, some of America’s most strategic airbases domestically, are among the facilities that have had to grapple with this in the past. After the Langley incident, in particular, it had become clear to the larger public what we had been reporting for many years, that the United States does not control the airspace over even its most critical military installations.

This all extends overseas, as well. In November 2024, there was a rash of drone sightings over and around several airbases in the United Kingdom, including RAF Fairford. This has been an issue more broadly in Europe in recent years, as well. This was only further underscored by an attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian An-124 at an airport in Germany in August, which authorities in that country have blamed on Russia.

A drone attack on Fairford would also not necessarily have had to come from somewhere very close by. Longer-range one-way attack drones are steadily proliferating, and can be launched using a variety of methods from positions on the ground, as well as vessels at sea. TWZ explored the very real threat of sea-based drone attacks, including ones conducted covertly, and Iran’s specific ability to carry them out globally, following the leak of an FBI alert back in March.

The proliferation of lower-end one-way-attack drones has ‘democratized’ precision-guided attacks, even for non-state actors. The fielding of automated targeting capabilities, driven by developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, is also becoming more and more widespread. That technology will soon enable these weapons to find and strike even moving targets on their own. Even without anyone at the controls and without the drone putting out any detectable radio emissions, very effective precision attacks can still be launched at static targets, like known parking areas for aircraft at airbases, just by using basic map coordinates or Google Earth. It’s also worth pointing out here that the definition of a stand-off attack is becoming increasingly blurry, with even quadcopter-type drones capable of flying miles away to conduct a kamikaze attack on a target based on a set of GPS coordinates.

Overall, it is an indisputable fact that aircraft sitting exposed on a flightline are particularly vulnerable to drone attacks, as well as other threats. This is something U.S. military officials have acknowledged themselves. Fairford, where B-1s and other bombers have no option but to park out in the open in well-established areas that are plainly visible from outside the base’s immediate perimeter, is indicative of how American military aircraft are generally positioned on the ground abroad and at home.

As we wrote all the way back in 2017:

“Similar swarming strikes could be unleashed behind the front lines as well, with hugely expensive and low density/high demand combat aircraft being especially vulnerable to this sort of tactic—something General James Holmes alluded to inadvertently while speaking to the Air Force Association, stating:

‘Imagine a world where somebody flies a couple hundred of those and flies one down the intake of my F-22s with just a small weapon on it.’

Actually, it would be even easier to just strike the jets as they sit idle and vulnerable on the flight line. One swarm could see a whole squadron of tightly packed fighters destroyed without even having a chance to fight back.“

With all this in mind, a heated debate has emerged in the past few years in and around the U.S. military about the value of investing in new hardened aircraft shelters, as well as other fortified infrastructure.

To date, the U.S. Air Force, in particular, has put virtually all emphasis on surface-to-air missiles and other active defenses, as well as the dispersal of aircraft, over physical hardening. The conflict with Iran, in which a number of American military aircraft have been damaged or destroyed on the ground by drone and missile attacks, has underscored the limits of these strategies.

“I’m not a big fan of hardening infrastructure,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said at a roundtable at the Air and Space Forces Association’s main annual symposium in 2023, offering a prime example of this viewpoint. “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.”

Wilsbach was commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) at the time. He subsequently became head of ACC and is now Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the service’s top officer.

“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,” Wilsbach said in an interview with Breaking Defense in July of this year when asked explicitly if his position changed. “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.”

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.

Active defenses, especially surface-to-air missile batteries and interceptors to go with them, have historically been very expensive. Lower-end counter-drone-focused interceptors and directed energy weapons are helping to bring these costs down in some regards. Even so, those capabilities come at a significant cost.

There are magazine and stockpile depth issues at play here, too. This is something that has also been brought front and center by the conflict with Iran, which has fueled already long-standing concerns about the sufficiency of stockpiles of air defense interceptors, other critical munitions, and the capacity to replenish them quickly. This is something the British government, among others, is also grappling with, as you can read more about in our separate reporting here.

Furthermore, losses of aircraft on the ground are not without their own costs, which are even more lopsided if an opponent can simply use lower-cost weaponized drones. U.S. bombers are particularly expensive and prized assets that are in short supply compared to the level of demand, as seen during the height of combat operations earlier this year against Iran. When it comes to B-1s, specifically, there are only 45 of them left in service today. A dozen of them being knocked out in one go would have major repercussions strategically. Losing even one would also be a propaganda coup for whoever might be responsible.

How many shelters can we build for the upgrade cost of one Zumwalt class DDG that will probably be parted out in 10 years anyway?

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 5, 2026

On top of all this, the U.S. military simply will not always have the luxury of being able to rapidly relocate aircraft in response to threats. Moving a dozen bombers on short notice takes massive resources. It is not just aircraft that have to be repositioned, but supporting personnel and assets, as well as weapons and fuel. Having to shift to alternate locations could easily have negative impacts on tempo and other aspects of operations, especially in the midst of actual conflict. RAF Fairford is one of only a few bases globally that can support bomber operations for a prolonged period.

More recently, there have been signs of changing mindsets on the matter of hardening across the U.S. military. In January, Joint Inter-Agency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), a focal point for counter-drone efforts the Pentagon established last year, issued explicit guidance regarding the use of netting, cables, and other kinds of passive physical defenses around bases and other critical infrastructure. A contracting notice in March also called attention to plans for new hardened underground facilities at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“There is value in some light protection against small, unmanned threats,” Gen. Wilsbach also told Breaking Defense in July. “Some of them — just nets that are up that keep a small, few-$100 drone from getting next to a $2 billion aircraft. That actually works, [and is] really cheap.”

“It’s not either or,” Wilsbach said in a separate interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine in July. “The net keeps the small UAS [uncrewed aerial system] from getting close to an aircraft that you’re trying to protect… That’s a very inexpensive way to give you some modicum of protection without killing your checkbook on really exquisite defensive systems.”

In spite of these institutional developments, action to implement such recommendations on a broad basis has continued to lag. There still does not appear to be any major department-wide push to build new hardened aircraft shelters or other fortified structures at facilities globally. The U.S. Air Force does have a certain number of hardened aircraft shelters at bases now, especially in the Pacific and Europe.

This is all despite a very visible trend in the construction of new aircraft shelters and other hardened infrastructure elsewhere around the globe, including in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Even before Operation Spiderweb, Russia had already initiated a large-scale effort to build new hardened shelters at various bases, especially on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, in the face of expanding Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. This effort has now extended to building the huge hardened shelters for the country’s bomber force, something the country has never done before.

“It is inappropriate to discuss matters of intelligence, and we will not discuss specific force protection measures,” a U.S. Air Force spokesperson told TWZ yesterday when asked about the reports that Iranian drone threats prompted the recent removal of the B-1s from Fairford. “The Department will continue to assess the threat environment surrounding our installations and take appropriate actions to protect our people, our platforms and the bases where our forces operate from.”

We still do not know exactly how serious or imminent any recent threat to the B-1s at Fairford was that contributed to their hasty departure. Regardless, the reports of concerns about potential drone attacks remain very plausible. The reality here is that a dozen bombers were yanked from a forward operating location in Europe without an adversary ever having to fire a shot. This is a problem set that is only growing, especially as lessons and expertise on low-end weaponized drones from the war in Ukraine are spreading around the globe.

Erecting new aircraft shelters and other hardened infrastructure would not be a full solution to those threats by themselves. At the same time, they would be a valuable added layer of defense, and a passive one that would have a huge logistical footprint to operate once the initial investment is made. The lack of movement to better fortify American airbases globally is only becoming more and more glaring, and it remains to be seen if real action will not occur until lessons are learned in a most unfortunate way.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Police say the incident is not connected to ongoing investigations at the RAF Fairford airbase.

Police in the United Kingdom say they have arrested and charged a member of the Royal Navy accused of working with an unnamed foreign power after an investigation by counterterrorism police.

Teddy Young, 24, was charged with two offences under the National Security Act for allegedly obtaining protected information and preparing to transfer it for the benefit of a foreign power.

In a statement, authorities alleged that between November 2024 and May 2025, Young “obtained, copied, recorded or retained protected information, intending the conduct to benefit a foreign power… contrary to section 1 of the National Security Act 2023″.

Young is due to appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Thursday.

“These are very serious charges against a serving member of the armed forces,” Commander Helen Flanagan, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said in a statement.

“We have worked extremely closely with relevant operational colleagues within the Ministry of Defence as our investigation has progressed to ensure appropriate measures could be taken to mitigate any potential risks linked to this matter,” she added.

UK media reported that the officer was arrested at his home in Bedfordshire on Tuesday before he was taken into custody in London.

The police clarified that the case is not related to the ongoing investigation into an incident at the RAF Fairford airbase.

Last month, director general Matt Brittin said the BBC’s financial situation and changing audience habits “may well mean” some channels and radio stations have to close so resources can be invested in on-demand services.

Brittin told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that “we wouldn’t guarantee any programme or any channel will exist forever”.

In June, the BBC announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of its first stage in its plan to save £500m across the corporation over the next two years.

Staff were told of proposals including ending Radio 4’s The World Tonight, and reducing the number of permanent presenters on Today from five to four, with a single anchor on Saturdays.

It was revealed that BBC One’s Breakfast would no longer be shown on Sunday mornings, and that the production teams making Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and Newsnight would merge.

It followed April’s announcement that the BBC would cut between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs – or almost one in 10 – in an attempt to tackle “significant financial pressures”.

Last week, an influential group of MPs said the BBC licence fee should be extended to cover services other than TV, and that the corporation’s charter review should be scrapped and made permanent.

In its recommendations, the DCMS committee also said that political appointments to the BBC board should end, to improve public trust.

‘I have the utmost respect for what you’ve accomplished with Argentina,’ Ronaldo writes in response to Messi’s post.

Cristiano Ronaldo has hailed his longtime adversary Lionel Messi in a tribute to the Argentinian icon, who bid a grand farewell to international football.

The Portuguese forward wrote the message in response to Messi’s social media post on Wednesday, a day after Argentina’s friendly match against Benin in Buenos Aires, where the local idol and global icon bid an emotional goodbye.

“Leo, ‌‌after so many years of defending your country, you’ve made history that will last forever,” Ronaldo said in his reply to Messi’s Instagram post in which the Argentinian poured out his emotions after hanging up his boots for his country.

“I have the utmost respect for what you’ve accomplished with Argentina,” Ronaldo added, ending the message with: “A hug”.

The careers of Messi and Ronaldo followed a similar trajectory and crossed paths for many years in club and international football.

It resulted in a hotly contested rivalry, mostly between the two players’ supporters over the past two decades.

The pair dominated the sport for more than 15 years, winning the prestigious Ballon d’Or award 13 times between them.

Their rivalry grew over the nine years in which they faced off against each other in Spain, with Messi starring for Barcelona and Ronaldo for Real Madrid.

Messi, 39, announced his retirement from international football after leading his country to the World Cup final in July in the United States, where the 2022 champions were runners-up behind Spain.

“Yesterday was my last game, and I already miss wearing the blue and white. I know I’m making the right decision,” Messi said in a lengthy message a day after his final match in the famous number 10 blue and white shirt. “It’s been an incredible journey, full of ‌‌joy and also some sadness, but I know for sure that every step I took was worth it.”

“I don’t want to forget Diego [Maradona], who put our country where it deserved to be and who, as I always say, I know helped us both by being here with us and also from heaven, with every step we took,” he said.

“Thank you to the clubs where I played, for always ⁠⁠respecting my feelings and allowing me to dedicate myself to ⁠⁠my country whenever it was time to put on the national team jersey.”

Messi scored Argentina’s final goal in a 3-0 win and provided assists for the other two as the Albiceleste played in front of 85,000 fans at the Monumental Stadium.

Messi captained Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title and Copa America triumphs in 2021 and 2024, while also helping them win ⁠⁠the 2022 Finalissima.

“I am grateful. I love you all very much; I’m going to miss you, and I will always thank ⁠⁠you for having been by our side, by my ⁠⁠side,” the Inter Miami playmaker added.

Messi and Ronaldo have vied for recognition as the greatest player of their generation throughout their illustrious careers.

The 41-year-old Portuguese forward was among the hundreds of thousands who responded to Messi’s post.

Messi’s final game came the same day Ronaldo apologised for his controversial departure from the Portuguese national team’s camp after a fallout with coach Jorge Jesus. It remains unclear whether Ronaldo will play for his country again, despite his apology for walking out, which leaves the door open to a return.

Messi and Ronaldo last met on the pitch in an exhibition match in Saudi Arabia in January 2023, when they took fans back in time to the heyday of their storied rivalry, as both forwards got on the scoresheet.

Ronaldo, who plays for Saudi Pro League champions Al Nassr, was part of a Riyadh Season Team that took on Messi’s then-club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG).

In the past three years, following the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the wider region has been marked by conflict, economic turmoil, and a shattering of the balance of power.

The network of alliances maintained by Iran, long central to its regional power, has been hit hard and severely weakened. Yemen’s Houthi rebels remain one notable exception.

Israel has made gains. Many of the leaders of the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas have been killed, while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also assassinated in February. Israel occupies most of Gaza, where it has also killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.

Its military aggression has come at a cost, isolating it from its traditional allies and making it globally unpopular, including in the United States. The potential for more normalisation deals with Arab countries seems unlikely, at least in the short term.

Instead, Israel continues to launch attacks across the region, crossing previously held red lines – such as the 2025 attack on Doha, Qatar – and making many governments around the world view it as the primary source of unrest in the Middle East.

US not a protector

“Before October 7, the US’s entire policy in the Middle East rested on normalising Israel’s presence in the region through its so-called Abraham Accords,” HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute said, referring to the normalisation deals with several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates. “Israel’s response to the October 7 attack ended that.”

Instead, rather than a stable Middle East with Israel at its centre, the US entered into a war with Iran this year, and has since looked on as Tehran targeted US allies across the Gulf, shattering the perceived security of the US security umbrella.

Drones and missiles hit Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas hub and started fires near Dubai airport and at Fujairah’s oil zone. In September, the Houthis surged down Yemen’s Red Sea coast, taking the port of Mocha and nearby islands. Their gains tightened their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb strait, threatening a key route for global trade and energy supplies that had become even more important amid disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s been a loss of faith in the US as a singularly sufficient security guarantor,” Hellyer continued.

“This is why you’re seeing many in the region talk to other external actors, in addition to continuing, and in some cases deepening their US ties, as well as initiatives such as the Mecca security pact as states in the region look elsewhere for ways to safeguard their security,” he said, referring to the defence agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan, signed in August, agreeing that an attack on one was to be regarded as an attack on all.

Alliances

Alongside the loss of confidence in the US as a security guarantor has come a dramatic reordering of alliances and rivalries. Much of Iran’s network – most notably Hezbollah, whose reputation had long served as a deterrent against Israeli attack – appeared to buckle under Israeli pressure.

That, in turn, emboldened an Israeli military push that saw troops invade Lebanon in October 2024 and again in March 2026, and seize Syrian territory during the brief power vacuum that followed Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in 2024.

“The Middle East has always been multi-aligned. However, now it’s even more so,” Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, said of the increased leverage given to external actors, such as Turkiye in Syria and China’s involvement in negotiations over the end to war on Iran, as Beijing finds its own energy supplies under threat.

“It’s ironic, since October 7, it’s Israel that has emerged as the revisionist power and Iran almost as the status quo power,” she said of the apparent reversal in status of the two belligerents, with Tehran seemingly more focused on regaining the ground it has lost in the last three years rather than advancing beyond them.

However, none of this was to overstate Israeli influence, or liken it to a regional superpower, Vakil cautioned. “Israel may currently be the preponderant military power in the Middle East, but real power is typically classed as being able to project stability, which Israel hasn’t shown itself able or willing to do,” she said.

Clogged arteries

While Israel and the US hoped February’s attacks would swiftly topple Iran’s government, they have instead opened a new front. Tehran now wields economic leverage over Israel, the US and their partners through the Strait of Hormuz, which borders Iran and typically carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, and through Bab al-Mandeb, which is now threatened by its Houthi allies.

Whatever Tehran’s intentions, the economic pain has been uneven. The West, cushioned by emergency reserves, record US oil production and supplies from countries such as Norway, has so far avoided the turmoil of the 1970s oil shocks, when US drivers queued for petrol, even though the current disruption is on a greater scale. In April, the International Monetary Fund trimmed its 2026 global growth forecast only slightly, to 3.1 percent from 3.3 percent.

Gulf exporters, in contrast, have fared far worse. The same assessment cut its forecast for Saudi Arabia from 4.5 to 3.1 percent, and turned Qatar’s from growth of 6.1 percent into a contraction of 8.6 percent.

“It’s curious, in many ways the West’s reduced need for Gulf oil has increased the degree to which Israel has become a liability for the US,” Israeli political economist Shir Hever told Al Jazeera, referring to a diplomatic alliance between the two states long underpinned by Israel’s strategic position in an oil-rich region central to US interests.

“There’s a train of thought in Israel that the current crises may push the Gulf states into allying with it,” he said, while noting the irony that Israel had been the main aggressor in the conflicts that followed October 7. “Though that seems fairly unlikely.”

Thursday marks 30 days since Israel’s foreign minister ordered the closure of the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem.

Workers at the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem have removed its signage as the Israeli shutdown deadline arrives, further damaging strained ties between allies.

Journalists from the Reuters news agency saw ‌workers remove a plaque reading “British Consulate General” from the building on Thursday, as well as another sign for its consular section. The UK flag was still flying over the building.

Thursday marks 30 days since Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the consulate in occupied East Jerusalem. The move was in response to the UK’s wave of sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements, including a ban on importing goods made there.

The United Nations and most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law. Israel disputes this.

The United Kingdom threatened to expel 27 Israeli diplomats if Israel proceeded to close the consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, according to unverified Israeli media reports.

The consulate has not responded to an immediate request for comment.

Israel has been adamant the consulate will close even as the UK has sought to keep it open, including sending the country’s top national security adviser to Israel last week for talks.

The UK’s presence in the city dates back almost 200 years, long before the state of Israel was established in 1948. The closure order does not affect the UK’s embassy in Tel Aviv, which handles diplomatic relations with Israel’s government.

The consulate, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, handles the UK’s relations with Palestinians in Jerusalem, as well as in ‌the occupied West ⁠Bank and Gaza. It also provides consular services to Palestinians.

The UK Foreign Office on Wednesday declined to comment when asked whether the consulate was still operating or if diplomats working there had returned to the UK.

Despite the current strains, the ⁠UK and Israel are close economic, security and intelligence partners.

Burnham is set to be greeted with military honours at the German capital’s Chancellery ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with the chancellor.

On Thursday, the two leaders will formally ratify the 2025 Kensington Treaty, a partnership committing both countries to tackle hostile activity through deeper cooperation on science, technology, defence, security and growth.

Speaking ahead of the visit, Burnham said the UK and Germany were “joining forces to find, expose and disrupt” threats.

He continued: “Attacks on our infrastructure, our businesses and our democracies are not a distant threat.

“They reach into people’s homes and workplaces, and they are designed to make us weaker and more divided.”

European leaders have warned the threat of hybrid attacks against Europe by Russia has intensified in recent weeks.

Hybrid warfare or hybrid attacks are loose terms which tend to describe non-military methods designed to exert pressure and destabilise an adversary – for example cyber attacks, sabotage or misinformation.

Last month, a senior Russian diplomat was summoned by the British government over an “egregious and reckless attack” on Leipzig airport.

It is a major international freight hub used for providing support to Ukraine. Moscow has denied any involvement in the incident.

Meanwhile, questions have also been raised this week about Germany’s reliability as an intelligence partner, following the bombshell arrest of a former spy chief on suspicion of espionage.

August Hanning has been accused of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office says.

He ran the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1998 to 2005 and has since been working as a private consultant.

The talks also come during a period in which Merz’s own political future has come under intense scrutiny.

Burnham replaced Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in July after the former leader was forced out by his own MPs just two years after winning a landslide election victory.

Similarly, Merz has faced persistent rumours he could be replaced by his party due to his poor approval ratings and following setbacks in regional elections.

Although the chancellor appears to have overcome an immediate crisis in his leadership, questions remain over his future.

Additional reporting by Ottilie Mitchell.

As part of the largest U.K. Commando Force exercise in 15 years, British special operators conducted a submarine insertion off Scotland, making use of a German Navy Type 212A — a boat you can read about in detail here. The maneuvers are the first time since the war in Afghanistan that all of the Commando Force’s specialist elements have operated together. The submarine insertion, conducted at Cape Wrath on September 29, is part of Exercise Strike Warrior, a major NATO drill intended to rehearse allied crisis-response and warfighting operations across the North Atlantic and High North.

The U.K. Royal Navy-led Commando Force specializes in amphibious, littoral, and expeditionary operations. It brings together Royal Marines commandos with specialist elements including reconnaissance, intelligence, targeting, artillery, logistics, and medical capabilities. The force is increasingly focused on smaller, dispersed teams operating across contested littoral environments.

Commandos attempt to drive RIB onto German submarine casing in heavy swell

Including elements of the Commando Force, more than 2,000 personnel from the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, and Norway are currently participating in Strike Warrior, with eight warships and 19 aircraft involved in activity spanning Scotland, the Western Isles, the North-West Approaches, Galloway, the Borders and the North Sea.

The submarine insertion underscores the type of maritime special operations the British Commando Force is now increasingly training to conduct. Personnel from 148 (Meiktila) Commando Forward Observation Battery, Royal Artillery, boarded the unnamed German attack submarine off Scotland before being infiltrated toward the coast. The sub provided intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support as the force approached the target area, after which the commandos conducted a discreet small-boat insertion using inflatable raiding craft.

Once ashore, the commandos moved onto the cliffs and established an extemporized observation post. From there, they confirmed the simulated target and coordinated live naval surface fires against a simulated enemy position. Here, firepower was provided by the Portuguese Karel Doorman class frigate Dom Francisco de Almeida, presumably using its Oto Melara 76mm deck gun. Following the engagement, the team was extracted. The complete sequence incorporated submarine infiltration, small-boat insertion, covert reconnaissance and targeting, live naval gunfire, and withdrawal into a single mission profile.

The German submarine involved is particularly well suited to this kind of mission. Conventional diesel-electric attack submarines (SSK) lack the nuclear-powered endurance and sustained high speed of an SSN, but those characteristics are not necessarily what a short-range clandestine insertion mission requires. Modern SSKs such as Germany’s Type 212A are designed around extremely low acoustic signatures and can remain submerged for extended periods using air-independent propulsion, making them difficult to detect while operating in relatively shallow and constrained waters.

That combination is hugely valuable for special operations. An SSK can approach a coastline covertly, conduct ISR, release a small team and its boats, and withdraw without exposing a large surface vessel or maintaining the high-speed transit capability associated with a nuclear submarine. Its comparatively small size can also be advantageous when operating closer to shore, where depth, seabed conditions and the presence of coastal sensors can constrain larger submarines. Conventionally powered boats are also far cheaper to procure and operate and have smaller crews.

An SSN offers major advantages for longer-range deployments: far greater endurance, sustained speed, and the ability to carry and support larger payloads over intercontinental distances. These payloads can include dry deck shelters and swimmer delivery vehicles, allowing divers easy exit and entrance while the boat is submerged and at a standoff distance from the coast.

But for a mission whose essential requirement is to quietly loiter near a coast, put a small team ashore and leave, an SSK remains a highly relevant platform. Conventional submarines are particularly valuable to the kind of distributed littoral operations NATO is rehearsing in northern European waters.

The U.K. Royal Navy’s four Upholder class were its last diesel-electric submarines. They were withdrawn in 1994–95 and subsequently transferred to Canada. The Royal Navy today operates an all-nuclear submarine fleet.

The Upholders were also particularly suited to inshore operations, reconnaissance, and other missions demanding extreme quietness and maneuverability.

With this in mind, TWZ has, in the past, examined whether the U.S. Navy should complement its all-nuclear submarine fleet with advanced conventional boats. Sweden’s Gotland demonstrated the value of these kinds of boats when it was leased to the U.S. Navy for adversary training and proved exceptionally difficult for American ASW forces to detect.

Returning to the Cape Wrath drill, the 148 Battery operations officer involved explained that “This level of complexity and coordination of live assets has not been achieved by 148 for nearly 30 years.”

“We wanted to demonstrate to our partners across the United Kingdom Commando Force, wider U.K. Defense and NATO SOF community the type of missions we are prepared to execute against future threats,” the officer added.

Multinational integration is central to the exercise. Strike Warrior is testing the ability of the British Commando Force to plug into a much larger allied force in which submarines, surface combatants, aircraft, drones, and small specialist teams can contribute to different parts of the same operation.

Earlier in Strike Warrior, 148 Battery also directed fires from the Dutch Karel Doorman class frigate HNLMS Van Amstel and Royal Canadian Navy Halifax class frigate HMCS St. John’s after establishing observation posts. Those ships were operating as part of Standing NATO Maritime Group One.

The exercise also provides a snapshot of how Britain’s commandos have evolved since their intensive employment in Afghanistan. The Royal Marines’ Future Commando Force concept emphasizes smaller, more dispersed formations capable of operating in contested littoral environments, with greater reliance on maritime mobility, uncrewed systems, long-range fires, and allied capabilities.

Strike Warrior combines those elements, with the exercise including amphibious landings, boarding operations, intelligence and surveillance missions, maritime security, and anti-submarine warfare, alongside drone missions involving strikes and combat resupply. Other elements have practiced establishing protected medical facilities.

The geography of Strike Warrior is equally significant. The exercise extends across Scotland and its surrounding waters, including the Western Isles and out into the North Sea, placing the Commando Force in the maritime environment connecting the highly strategic North Atlantic, Norwegian Sea, and northern European approaches.

That region has become increasingly important to NATO planning because of the difficulty of monitoring and controlling such a large maritime battlespace. Submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, surface combatants, drones, and long-range weapons all have roles to play, while the geography provides numerous opportunities for small forces to operate from the coast and islands.

The United Kingdom has been repeatedly using the region and the wider High North as a training ground for this type of activity. Earlier this year, British commandos conducted a submarine insertion during Exercise Cold Response in Norway using the German Navy’s Type 212A submarine U-35. That also involved submarine infiltration, small-boat deployment, establishment of an observation post, and the direction of allied naval fires.

Strike Warrior expands that concept considerably and across a much larger battlespace, providing an opportunity to test not simply individual capabilities but the ability to combine them during a sustained NATO exercise.

The exercise began September 28 and concludes October 9.

For the British Commando Force, the significance extends beyond the dramatic imagery of troops emerging from a German submarine at Cape Wrath. After years in which British commandos were heavily committed to land-based counterinsurgency operations, the exercise is intended to put them firmly back in a maritime and high-end warfighting context.

This is the kind of operation that the U.K. Commando Force is now preparing to conduct alongside NATO partners in the increasingly contested waters of the North Atlantic and High North.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com