TODAY

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has finally partially opened this week after two years of Israeli-mandated closure. The news offers relief for many – particularly those Palestinians in urgent need of treatment abroad.

But for many elderly Palestinians in Gaza, staying in the enclave is an act of survival, resistance, and historical memory. Rafah may be open, but they are not planning to go anywhere.

In Kefaya al-Assar’s mind, that decision to stay is an effort to correct what she perceives to have been a historical mistake made by her parents – fleeing their village of Julis, which was depopulated in the 1948 Nakba, and is now within Israel.

“We blamed [our parents] a lot for leaving our home there,” said the 73-year-old Kefaya.

Kefaya has faced displacement during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza five times. Originally from Jabalia in northern Gaza, she now shelters in a classroom at a school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat.

Widowed in early 2023 and without children, she said displacement revives the trauma she inherited from her parents.

“History repeats itself now,” she said. “My parents lost all their money when they were forced to flee. We also used to have money, but now we are displaced and have lost everything.”

When Kefaya was a child, her family lived in tents in Gaza’s refugee camps, before they became more permanent structures in later decades. Now, she says that she is reliving that same fate.

“I don’t want to repeat history, I want to die in my own country,” she said. “Even here, being in Nuseirat, I feel like a stranger. I wish I could go back to Jabalia.”

Her home in Jabalia was destroyed during the war, meaning that, for now, she is staying in Nuseirat. But she is still adamant that it will not mean her departure from Gaza.

“I will not leave for medical treatment outside … I choose to die on my own land rather than be treated outside,” she said.

That’s despite her own medical issues – Kefaya suffers from high blood pressure, and has not been able to receive adequate medical care because of the war.

Hidden crisis

The Rafah crossing partially opened on Monday after being largely closed by Israel since May 2024.

The opening of the crossing is part of the second phase of the Gaza “ceasefire”, even as Israel continues to violate the agreement by regularly attacking the Palestinian enclave, killing hundreds.

Only a few dozen Palestinians have been allowed to leave so far, all patients needing treatments accompanied by family members.

Other Palestinians have also put their names on the list, some hoping to go abroad for education or simply to escape life in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 70,000 since the war began, and destroyed the majority of buildings, meaning reconstruction will likely be a years-long process, even if Israel cooperates.

“Israel is creating unlivable conditions in Gaza, denying Palestinians all essentials of life,” said Talal Abu Rukba, a political science professor at al-Azhar University in Gaza. “When people resist and stay in their homeland, they ruin the Israeli project of creating an Israeli state on a land ‘without a people’”.

Members of the Israeli right-wing, including members of the government, have repeatedly called for illegal settlements to be established in Gaza, and for Palestinians to be forced out.

The desire to stay in Gaza on the part of elderly Palestinians is despite a largely overlooked humanitarian crisis facing the demographic.

Research by Amnesty International and HelpAge International found that Israel’s blockade of aid and medicines to Gaza had contributed to a “physical and mental health crisis”.

“During armed conflict, older people’s needs are often overlooked. In Gaza, older people are enduring an unprecedented physical and mental health collapse as a direct result of Israel’s deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said after the publication of the report.

The two organisations found that 76 percent of the elderly people interviewed live in tents, with 84 percent saying that their living conditions harmed their health and privacy. In addition, 68 percent of respondents had been forced to stop or reduce medication because of a lack of availability. Nearly half reported skipping meals so that others could eat.

Many are also suffering from mental health problems, with 77 percent reporting that sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or insomnia had reduced their appetite and impacted their wellbeing.

Tired and lonely

Nazmeya Radwan, 85, is one of those struggling.

Ill, underweight and unable to access medication, she still refuses to leave Gaza.

Nazmeya has her own previous experience of displacement at the hands of Israel – like Kefaya’s parents, she was forced to flee her home in the 1948 Nakba, along with about 750,000 other Palestinians.

Originally from Jerusalem, her family was displaced to Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, after 1948.

“All my life was displacement and wars since the Nakba,” Nazmeya said. “I am 85, and tired, lonely, ill and displaced, but I would never leave Gaza. I would live as a beggar and homeless and never leave Gaza.”

The U.S. Air Force has released details of a live-fire test of the Rusty Dagger, one of two new Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) being developed under a crash program. The milestone suggests that Ukraine is a step closer to getting its hands on thousands of air-launched ERAMs that will provide the country with a powerful new and relatively low-cost standoff strike capability. The event is also significant in terms of the Pentagon’s focus on rapidly developing and bringing into operational service new, less-expensive weapons that can be built at scale.

The Air Force recently confirmed that the ERAM standoff cruise missile was tested at the Eglin Test and Training Range in Florida on January 21, 2025, less than 16 months from the program’s initial contract award. The service’s statement doesn’t mention the Rusty Dagger by name, but the weapon is clearly seen in a sequence of photos that show the missile heading vertically down to engage a static target before its live warhead detonates. It’s unclear what platform was used to launch the missile during the test.

ERAM is understood to have a range of between 150 and 280 miles. It is in the 500-pound class and has a blast/fragmentation warhead with at least some degree of penetrating capability.

Alongside industry, the Eglin test was run by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate and the 96th Test Wing, a unit that you can read more about in this TWZ article.

The manufacturer of the Rusty Dagger, Zone 5 Technologies, also announced the test on its LinkedIn page.

“The event, which met all primary objectives including a full warhead detonation, gathered critical data to mature a new, cost-effective, long-range strike capability,” the Air Force said.

“Moving from a contract to a live-fire demonstration in under two years proves we can deliver lethal, cost-effective capability at the speed of relevance,” said Brig. Gen. Robert Lyons III, Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Weapons, in an Air Force statement. “This is how we rebuild our military — by empowering our teams and industry partners to cut through bureaucracy and deliver the tools our warfighters need to prevail.”

“The future fight demands we create an asymmetric advantage by developing cost-effective, attritable systems like ERAM that give commanders the ability to generate mass,” added Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, 96th TW commander. “This test is a critical milestone on that path. The expert teams who executed this complex mission provided the high-fidelity data we need to validate this system, ensuring that when it reaches the warfighter, it is a proven and ready tool for the right target. This is the cornerstone of building a more lethal and effective Joint Force.”

In January 2024, the U.S. Air Force issued its first public contracting notice regarding ERAM, a request for information (RFI), but made no mention at that time about any connection to Ukraine.

It was reported in August 2025 that Washington had approved the sale of 3,350 ERAM missiles to Kyiv. That package is said to be worth around $850 million, with most of the funds coming from Ukraine’s European allies.

As well as the Rusty Dagger from Zone 5 Technologies, CoAspire developed the Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile (RAACM) under the ERAM program. It’s unclear if Ukraine will receive only one of these designs or a mixture of both types. You can read more about the implications of the ERAM for Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force platforms that might be in line to carry the munitions here.

Two candidate weapon prototypes competing for the US Air Force’s Extended-Range Attack Munition program 👇. Both Coaspire and Zone 5 Technologies were awarded contracts late last year in support of the #ERAM program. Both are expected to enter testing this year. https://t.co/9cGBuB9z3s pic.twitter.com/gc3ZDtX54m

— AirPower | MIL-STD (@AirPowerNEW1) February 9, 2025

RAACM Cruise Missile Video Long Range Flights Summer 2025 Cleared for Public Release

Suffice it to say, the ERAM will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with an important new capacity to strike targets beyond the reach of many of the weapons currently in its arsenal, including Western-supplied precision-guided bombs. It will make Ukraine better able to hold at risk a range of Russian targets far from the front lines — command-and-control facilities, air defenses, logistics hubs, military-industrial capacity, and airfields, for example — helping offset Russian advantages in terms of manpower, weaponry, and resources.

However, it remains unclear whether or not Kyiv will be able to use ERAM to strike targets deep within Russia, with these previously having been designated off-limits, at least for the U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

In addition to what it will provide Ukraine, the ERAM effort could well prove to be a big deal for other U.S. allies and partners, and the U.S. military itself.

In the RFP, it was said that ERAM would be “pivotal for accelerating Ukraine’s capability to meet warfighter needs efficiently and effectively and provides an affordable mass weapon to be produced at scale.” The Air Force added: “The Government is seeking to prototype and adapt commercial autonomous modular open-architecture vehicle [sic] that can deliver affordable long-range effects. The resultant prototype will provide a platform that is mass producible.”

Exactly the same concerns are increasingly at the front of war planners’ minds in the United States, too.

When it comes to planning around a potential future high-end conflict with China, the U.S. military is now looking closely at new kinds of weapons with standoff range. Importantly, these need to be rapidly developed and then their production capacity and stockpiles scaled up.

A number of U.S. efforts are now underway with the aim of reducing costs and speeding up large-scale production of weapons systems, especially uncrewed platforms. In parallel to these are plans to prepare missile stockpiles resilient enough for any future high-end conflict, especially one against China.

The original RFI for ERAM included the requirement that 1,000 examples of the new missile could be built within two years, for an average production output of around 42 missiles per month.

As such, ERAM is very much a test case for this kind of program.

Notably, Zone 5 is also involved in the U.S. Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). Under this program, four companies — the others are Anduril, Leidos subsidiary Dynetics, and Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. — were tapped to design and deliver prototype ETVs. Ostensibly low-cost cruise missiles, the designs in question skirt an increasingly blurry line separating traditional cruise missiles from uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, as well as decoys.

Looking at the same kind of space more broadly, it is clearly a growth area among defense contractors, both well-established ones like Lockheed Martin and relative newcomers such as Anduril and Kratos.

In August of last year, it was reported that the first ERAM missiles were expected to be delivered to Ukraine “in around six weeks.”

So far, there’s no sign that the missiles have arrived, but that possibility cannot be ruled out, especially bearing in mind an end-to-end test of the Rusty Dagger a little more than a year ago.

Whether it’s now in Ukrainian hands or not, the combat experience of ERAM in Ukraine will be hugely valuable, not just in terms of the technology that will be employed, but also as a prototype program for how the U.S. military might develop and field its next generation of weapons in this class.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency has lost about one-third of its value since the start of the year.

Bitcoin has fallen sharply, racking up more losses after a tumultuous week for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.

The digital currency was down nearly 14 percent on Friday morning, hovering at about $62,900 as of 01:00 GMT.

The slide continues a run of steep losses that kicked off last weekend, when the digital currency fell below $80,000.

After the latest tumble, Bitcoin, which is famed for its dramatic price swings, is down about one-third in value since the start of the year.

Bitcoin soared after United States President Donald Trump’s re-election raised expectations that Washington would adopt a crypto-friendly regulatory regime after years of crackdowns, with the digital currency hitting $100,000 for the first time in December 2024.

But the digital asset has largely been on a downward spiral since October, when it hit an all-time peak of more than $127,000, amid geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty.

A Trump-backed bill to regulate the trade of digital assets has stalled in the US Senate amid divisions between banks and cryptocurrency firms.

The Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial, has also come under scrutiny in the US Congress after The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported that representatives of an Abu Dhabi official had signed a deal to invest $500m for a major stake in the venture.

Bitcoin’s latest tumble comes amid a heavy sell-off in global stocks and commodities.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.2 percent on Wednesday, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite fell about 1.6 percent.

Shares of tech giant Amazon plunged more than 11 percent in after-hours trading after its plans to invest $200bn in artificial intelligence-related infrastructure stoked fears of a tech bubble.

In the Asia Pacific, South Korea’s KOSPI plunged about 5 percent in early morning trading, while Australia’s ASX 200 and Japan’s Nikkei 225 were down more than 1 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Precious metals, which have been on a volatile ride after racking up huge gains in 2025, also continued their recent streak of losses.

Gold was down more than 4 percent on Thursday, trading at about $4,720 an ounce.

Silver, which has seen even more dramatic price swings, fell as much as 18.5 percent, trading at about $69.

Speaking about Trump, she added: “But I think in terms of the news cycle, the fact that you have a president who is tweeting eight different things, eight different stories, eight different things to follow up … it’s like drinking out of a fire hose right now for us.”

A key nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia has expired today, creating the potential for significant changes in U.S. force posture. This could include loading more warheads into Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), restoring nuclear weapons capability to dozens of B-52 bombers, sending Ohio class ballistic missile submarines on patrol with extra Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), or fielding all-new capabilities. There are reports that American and Russian officials are negotiating a voluntary commitment to leave the two countries’ nuclear arsenals as they are, but this would be a temporary measure that could still leave open the door to a new arms race if a more permanent agreement cannot be reached.

U.S. and Russian Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START Treaty in 2010, and it entered into force the following year. The terms of the deal included a provision for a one-time five-year extension, which U.S. and Russian Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to in 2021. Russia formally suspended its participation in the treaty in 2023, citing U.S. actions in relation to the war in Ukraine, but said it would voluntarily continue to abide by the imposed limits. The agreement now sunsets for good today. Years of U.S.-Russian negotiations have so far failed to produce a follow-on treaty.

New START limited each country to 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers (700), 1,550 total strategic nuclear warheads, and 800 relevant deployed and non-deployed launchers. For purposes of the treaty, strategic missiles were defined as ICBMs and SLBMs. Each reentry vehicle inside a single ICBM or SLBM, as well as each nuclear-capable heavy bomber, counted as a single warhead. Bombers, along with silos and mobile transporter-erector launchers for IBCMs and SLBM launch tubes on submarines, were all treated as individual launchers.

Axios has reported that U.S. and Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates have been working to finalize a non-legally-binding voluntary commitment to stick to the New START limits at least for another six months. Delegations from the United States and Russia were already in the Middle Eastern country for talks regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Those meetings have separately produced an agreement to re-establish a high-level U.S.-Russian military-to-military dialogue for the first time since 2021.

The Kremlin had released a statement yesterday that, in part, reiterated a call Putin first made last September for both parties “to commit to voluntary self-limitations to keep the quantitative ceilings on the relevant weapons specified in the Treaty for at least one year after the termination of the agreement.” It’s not clear how this would be verified without the inspection provisions that were central to New START.

“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” President Trump wrote today on his Truth Social platform. However, he did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a temporary voluntary arrangement in the interim.

“Not to my knowledge,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a routine press conference today when asked about whether a temporary agreement to continue abiding by the New START limits had been reached.

Regardless, in the absence of a formally binding agreement, the U.S. government does now technically have a free hand to make major changes to the state of America’s nuclear force posture for the first time in decades. There has been talk for years already about potential near-term steps the U.S. military might take if a more permanent deal did not emerge to follow New START’s sunset.

“A one-year extension would not prejudice any of the vital steps that the United States is taking to respond to the China nuclear build-up,” Rose Gottemoeller, a long-time American diplomat who served as the lead negotiator for New START, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee just this week. “The period will buy extra time for preparation without the added challenge of a Russian Federation, newly released from New START limitations, embarking on a rapid upload campaign. This would not be in the U.S. interest.”

Loading more warheads into LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs could be one option. Each of those ICBMs is currently tipped with a single warhead in line with the New START limits. However, the missiles were originally designed for a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration with three warheads. Even with New START in force, Minuteman IIIs have still sometimes been fired as part of routine testing with multiple unarmed reentry vehicles, demonstrating that this remains an available capability.

Minuteman III Test Launch 4 Aug 2020 Vandenberg AFB, CA

“I do believe that we need to take serious consideration in seeing what uploading and re-MIRVing the ICBM looks like, and what does it take to potentially do that,” now-retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, then head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee back in 2024.

There are questions about how long it might take to ‘upload’ more warheads onto any portion of the 400 Minuteman IIIs currently sitting in silos spread across five states, and what that would cost. At least a portion of the deployed LGM-30Gs would also need to be refitted with MIRV-capable payload buses.

The number of warheads inside deployed Trident IIs, which also have a MIRV configuration, could also change in the future. These SLBMs can carry up to 14 individual warheads, depending on their exact type, but are understood to have often not had maximum loads to keep in line with New START’s provisions.

Under the terms of the treaty, the U.S. Navy also sealed off four of the 24 tubes on each of its 10 Ohio class ballistic missile submarines. In the past, Russian officials had complained about the extent (or lack thereof) of those modifications, which also involved the removal of certain internal components, and raised concerns about being able to regularly verify that the changes had not been reversed. Still, it is unclear exactly how much effort might be required to reactivate those tubes in the future.

There is also the matter of restoring nuclear capability to dozens of B-52 bombers that were modified to only be capable of employing conventional weapons as part of New START. Russia also previously raised concerns about the reversibility of those changes, which that country said involved “removing the nuclear code enabling switch and interconnection box, mounting a code enabling switch inhibitor plate, removing applicable cable connectors, [and] capping applicable wire bundles.” Nuclear-capable B-52s are readily identifiable today by antennas mounted on either side of the rear fuselage.

There has been some public disagreement in recent years about the cost and complexity of re-nuclearizing the B-52s, something TWZ has explored in the past. In the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2025 Fiscal Year, Congress did give the U.S. Air Force authority to pursue this course of action after New START came to a close. However, the provision in the NDAA, which was signed into law in December 2024, did not explicitly compel the service to do so.

There could be additional downstream impacts on the U.S. nuclear arsenal if a more formalized follow-on to New START does not emerge. This might include a MIRVed configuration for future LGM-35A Sentinel ICBMs, expanded orders for nuclear-capable B-21 Raider stealth bombers, and changes to the expected loadout of the forthcoming Colombia class nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

The U.S. Air Force is already looking to ramp up B-21 production, with the possibility that this could lead to an increased overall fleet size in the future. American officials have been supportive of buying additional Raiders beyond the currently stated acquisition target of 100 aircraft. The possibility of purchasing 145 or more of the bombers has been raised in the past. The Air & Space Forces Association’s internal Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies think tank is set to release a new white paper next Monday that calls for a future fleet of at least 200 B-21s (as well as 300 F-47 sixth-generation fighters).

Future U.S. developments could also extend to categories of nuclear weapons not currently in the American arsenal. The Air Force has at least explored the idea of a nuclear-armed hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Charles Richard, who served as head of STRATCOM from 2019 to 2022, issued a new call for the U.S. military to develop a weapon of this kind at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. This is a capability already in service in Russia, at least to a degree. China has also been pursuing nuclear-capable weapons of this type, if they have not fielded them operationally already. The Russian and Chinese armed forces have also been working on other novel nuclear weapon capabilities, including space-based systems, which could influence future U.S. planning going forward.

It is worth noting here that any efforts to increase the total size of America’s stockpile, rather than field new capabilities that replace existing ones, would require significant investments on various levels. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the current slate of U.S. nuclear modernization efforts would cost nearly a trillion dollars, in total, between 2025 and 2034. The U.S. military is also now pushing ahead with the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, which is also expected to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars and will otherwise impact the strategic landscape.

China, which is in the midst of a massive buildup of its nuclear arsenal, has been a central factor in discussions to date about a follow-on strategic arms control agreement to New START. U.S. officials have pushed to include the Chinese in any future agreement, something authorities in Beijing have repeatedly balked at. China’s current nuclear arsenal is still much smaller than those of either the United States or Russia. The U.S. government has assessed that China’s total stockpile could go from approximately 600 nuclear warheads today to 1,000 by 2030, and then to 1,500 by 2035. As noted, the U.S. and Russian governments were each allowed 1,550 strategic warheads under New START. Both countries have even more nuclear weapons that were never covered by New START, to begin with, and more are in development now.

“The President’s been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile,” Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said during a press conference yesterday in response to a question about New START.

SECRETARY RUBIO: The President has been clear that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China — because of their vast & rapidly growing stockpile. pic.twitter.com/FiYVUsBAVb

— Dylan Johnson (@ASDylanJohnson) February 5, 2026

New START’s expiration has fueled already growing concerns about the prospect of a new global nuclear arms race, which would not necessarily be limited to the United States, Russia, and China. The treaty’s sunset follows the steady collapse in recent years of a series of other arms control agreements between the United States and Russia, as well as other treaties intended to promote general transparency in military affairs. The U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, in 2019 over complaints about Russian violations has already had a notable impact on the development and fielding of new nuclear and conventionally-armed missiles in both countries.

The end of New START presents a “grave moment for international peace and security,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement yesterday.

Whether or not a temporary voluntary moratorium on the expansion of stockpiles on both sides leads to a new agreement, and one that might include China, is still an open question. Altogether, it remains to be seen now whether the New START limits continue to hold in the United States or Russia in the absence of a binding agreement.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

An amnesty law that would provide clemency to political prisoners in Venezuela has passed an initial vote unanimously in the National Assembly, stirring hopes among the country’s opposition.

On Thursday, members of both the governing socialist party and the opposition delivered speeches in favour of the new legislation, known as the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence.

“The path of this law is going to be full of obstacles, full of bitter moments,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the National Assembly.

But he added that it would be necessary to “swallow hard” in order to help the country move forward.

“We ask for forgiveness, and we also have to forgive,” Rodriguez said.

But critics nevertheless pointed out that the text of the bill has yet to be made public, and it offers no clemency for individuals accused of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, corruption or human rights violations.

Instead, media reports about the legislation indicate that it focuses on charges often levelled against protesters and opposition leaders.

What does the bill say?

The bill would grant amnesty to individuals accused of crimes like treason, terrorism, rebellion, resisting authorities, instigation of illegal activities, and spreading hate, if those crimes were committed in the context of political activism or protest.

Opposition leaders like Maria Corina Machado would also see bans on their candidacy for public office lifted.

In addition, the legislation specifies certain events that would qualify for amnesty, including the demonstrations that unfolded in 2007, 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2024.

That period stretches from the presidency of the late President Hugo Chavez, founder of the “chavismo” movement, through the presidency of his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro.

Both Chavez and Maduro were accused of the violent suppression of dissent, through arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killings.

But on January 3, the administration of United States President Donald Trump launched a military operation in Venezuela to abduct Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They have since been transported to New York City, where they await trial on charges related to drug trafficking.

While members of Venezuela’s opposition have cheered the military operation as a long overdue move, experts have argued that the US likely violated international law as well as Venezuela’s sovereignty in removing Maduro from power.

Weighing Maduro’s legacy

Images of Chavez were a common sight during Thursday’s debate at the National Assembly, which has been dominated since 2017 by members of the chavismo movement.

That year, Venezuela’s top court dissolved the opposition-led National Assembly and briefly absorbed its powers, before re-establishing a legislature stacked with Maduro supporters.

In 2018 and again in 2024, Maduro claimed victory in contested elections that critics say were marred by fraud.

In the July 2024 vote, for instance, the government refused to release voter tallies, as was previously standard practice. The opposition, however, obtained copies of nearly 80 percent of the tallies, which contradicted the government’s claims that Maduro had won a third six-year term.

After Maduro’s abduction last month, the remnants of his government remained in power.

Within days, his vice president — Delcy Rodriguez, the sister of the National Assembly leader — was sworn in as interim president.

She used her inaugural speech to denounce the “kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores”.

Rodriguez has nevertheless cooperated with US demands, including by supporting a bill to open Venezuela’s nationalised oil industry to foreign investment.

On the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday, her brother Jorge raised a photo of Chavez holding a crucifix while he spoke. Maduro’s son, National Assembly member Nicolas Maduro Guerra, also presented remarks.

“Venezuela cannot endure any more acts of revenge,” Maduro Guerra said as he appealed for “reconciliation”.

Venezuela’s opposition reacts

Still, opposition members in the National Assembly expressed optimism about the bill.

National Assembly representative Tomas Guanipa, for instance, called it the start of a “new, historic chapter” in Venezuelan history, one where political dissidents would no longer be “afraid to speak their minds for fear of being imprisoned”.

Nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent decades, fleeing political persecution and economic instability.

But there have been lingering concerns about the human rights situation in Venezuela in the weeks following Maduro’s abduction — and whether it is safe to return home.

President Rodriguez has pledged to release political detainees and close the infamous prison El Helicoide, where reports of torture have emerged. But some experts say the number of people released does not match the number the government has reported.

The human rights group Foro Penal, for instance, has documented 383 releases since January 8.

That figure, however, is lower than the 900 political prisoners the government has claimed to have released. Foro Penal estimates 680 political prisoners remain in detention.

Opposition figures also allege that the government continues to intimidate and harass those who voice sympathy for Maduro’s removal and other opinions that run contrary to the chavismo movement.

Still, the head of Foro Penal, Alfredo Romero, applauded the initial passage of the amnesty law as a step forward.

“Amnesty is the framework that will ensure… that the past does not serve to halt or derail transition processes,” Romero told the news agency AFP.

A second vote is expected to be held on Tuesday next week.

Directly addressing Epstein’s victims, he said: “I am sorry, sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you. Sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him and sorry that even now you’re forced to watch this story unfold in public once again.”

Even as the U.S. and Iran are scheduled to hold talks in Oman on Friday in hopes of defusing tensions between the two nations, Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran are all preparing for what could be a very violent future conflict. With the talks widely seen as a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avoid another war, the buildup of U.S. military capabilities in the region is continuing.

“While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in history,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House Thursday afternoon.

Her comments followed those made Thursday morning by President Donald Trump, who continued his verbal pressure campaign against Iran.

“They’re negotiating,” Trump said during the 74th National Prayer Breakfast. “They don’t want us to hit them. You know, we have a big fleet going over there.”

“U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, currently in Abu Dhabi, are expected to travel to Qatar to consult with Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani ahead of the talks in Oman,” according to the Jerusalem Post. At the moment, the U.S. and Iran are scheduled to talk about Tehran’s nuclear programs. Under the proposed framework for an agreement, Iran would commit to zero enrichment of uranium for three years, Al Jazeera reported.

“After that, it would agree to limit enrichment of uranium to below 1.5 percent,” the publication explained. “Its current stock of highly enriched uranium – including about 440kg (970lb) that has been enriched to 60 percent – would be transferred to a third country. The proposed framework goes beyond Iran’s nuclear program with mediators proposing that Iran should agree not to transfer weapons and technologies to its regional, non-state allies.”

BREAKING: Al Jazeera claims to have obtained the US-Iran deal framework proposed by Turkey, Qatar and Egypt:

1. Iran agrees to commit to zero uranium enrichment for 3 years, and then agrees to under 1.5% enrichment after that

2. Its stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium would be…

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) February 5, 2026

A wide gap, however, remains about the ultimate outcome of these talks. While Iran wants to limit them to just its nuclear program, the Trump administration has a more comprehensive range of issues that need to be addressed.

“At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage, and has always been prepared to engage with Iran,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.  “For talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles. That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region. That includes the nuclear program. And that includes the treatment of their own people.”

SECRETARY RUBIO on IRAN TALKS:
They will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles, their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region, the nuclear program, the treatment of their own people.pic.twitter.com/i9i97giQSe

— Dylan Johnson (@ASDylanJohnson) February 4, 2026

Trump’s initial threats against Iran came as information trickled out about the nation’s brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests that have seen upwards of 30,000 killed, according to some estimates. The unrest began in Iran on Dec. 28 over rising prices and a devalued currency that saw the rial crater now to basically nothing, as well as a devastating drought.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his country is working hard to prevent U.S.-Iran tensions from tipping the Middle East into a new conflict.

“Speaking to reporters on a return flight from a visit to Egypt, Erdogan added that talks at the level of the U.S. and Iranian leadership would be helpful after lower-level nuclear negotiations due in Oman on Friday,” Reuters reported, citing a transcript of Erdogan’s comments shared by his office on Thursday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Ankara was doing its utmost to prevent tensions between the United States and Iran from dragging the region into a new conflict.

Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Egypt, Erdogan said diplomacy remained… pic.twitter.com/A63xLbI6QJ

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 5, 2026

Regardless of diplomacy, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday threatened Israel, America and the nations hosting U.S. military bases.

“When Americans threaten to attack us, they should know our first target would be the Zionist entity,” said IRGC General Hossein Daghighi, using the term Iran refers to when discussing Israel. “It is well within the range of our missiles. It is America’s weak spot in the region.”

“The enemy’s return to negotiations – the Americans’ return to negotiations – is a sign that they fear the capabilities of the Iranian people,” Daghighi added. “If attacked, we will immediately target all U.S. bases in the region. The countries and governments of the region are our brothers. We have no problems with them, but we will target the U.S. bases in these countries. If America wants to go to war with us, it should evacuate all its bases in the region and leave the region altogether. This is our objective. Our main goal is to drive America out of all the countries in the region.”

IRGC General Hossein Daghighi:

Our main goal is to drive America out of the region; if the U.S. attacks Iran, we will strike Israel first and target all American bases. Washington returned to negotiations out of fear of the Iranian people’s capabilities. pic.twitter.com/nsog54sw7X

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 5, 2026

Iran’s Army spokesman said the U.S. bases in the region are easy targets to attack.

“We are ready to defend, and it is the American president who must choose between compromise or war,” said Amir Akraminia. “Our access to US bases is easy, and this issue has increased their vulnerability.”

US military bases are within Iran’s reach, the army spokesman said on Thursday, warning President Donald Trump to choose between compromise and war.

“Our access to US bases is easy, and this has increased their vulnerability,” Amir Akraminia said. “We are ready to defend… pic.twitter.com/vDBoDV8W5O

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 5, 2026

Perhaps in anticipation of a new attack on its nuclear facilities, satellite images show Iran burying the entrance to the Isfahan site, which was one of three attacked during last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran did something similar prior that operation when it covered entrances to the Fordow facility with dirt to prevent an Israeli commando raid.

👀👀👀

Iran is burying the entrances to its nuclear facilities once again.

Satellite imagery analyzed by @TheGoodISIS shows dirt is being placed at the entrance to the Esfahan nuclear site that was hit during operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER in June of last year. https://t.co/JlmbrgZsQY

— TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) February 5, 2026

Israel, which has vowed that Iran will never get nuclear weapons, remains a large wildcard in the current situation.

While Jerusalem has been urging Trump to attack Iran, has been told it has to “refrain from any unilateral military action” against its archenemy, Sky News Arabia stated. “Ahead of the talks, which are to be held on Friday in Oman, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth described the coordination between Israel and the United States as ‘very close.’ Senior Israeli officials pointed to the frequent visits by military and intelligence officers between the two countries.”

“The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding a meeting with the heads of the security services on Thursday to discuss the tensions with Iran,” Sky News Arabia added.

It should be noted, of course, that Israel attacked Iran last June in what became known as the 12-Day War even as Washington was negotiating with Tehran.

Israeli officials said that the US has asked Israel to refrain from any unilateral military action against Iran, coinciding with the scheduled negotiations between Washington and Tehran. https://t.co/ZQMK6octb4

— Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) February 5, 2026

In addition to being concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel is worried about its ability to produce ballistic missiles, of which Iran already has thousands.

“With help from China…and other countries, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zami has warned that it could increase its ballistic missile production to 300 per month, and within a few years, dwarf its prior ballistic missile totals,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “At 6,000, 8,000, and 10,000 missiles in 2027-2028, analysts worry that even Israel’s awesome multi-layer defense shield would find it hard to keep up.”

Amid all the rhetoric, Israel is bracing for war.

“The Air Force, and especially you, must continue to maintain a high level of alertness,” Israeli Air Force commander, General Tomer Bar, said during a visit to an Iron Dome air defense battery on Thursday. “Every day, we are strengthening our readiness and our defensive and offensive capabilities. The reserve forces present at this battery, in the air defense system, and in all units of the Air Force and the Israel Defense Forces, are the central element of our power and of the State of Israel. Your mission and the heavy responsibility you have carried since the beginning of the war and on all fronts, together with the families who support you, are truly inspiring. The professionalism, dedication, and motivation you demonstrate here give me complete confidence that the Air Force is capable of confronting any challenge that lies ahead of us.”

“As we understand the situation, we are on a thin line between preparedness and attack,” an Israeli security official said. “A dramatic weekend awaits the region.”

Visiting a reserve Iron Dome battery in northern Israel, Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar says the military continues to “strengthen preparedness and capabilities in both defense and offense,” amid the ongoing tensions with Iran.

“The air force, and you in particular,… pic.twitter.com/NYHeFkwLP0

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) February 5, 2026

The stream of U.S. Air Force cargo jets to the region, however, is continuing at a brisk pace. Online flight trackers estimate that well over 100 aircraft have arrived in the Middle East over the past few weeks, bringing additional forces, including additional Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems for increased protection from any Iranian attack.

While that may seem like a large number of flights, remember that last year, when the U.S. wanted to bolster its forces in the Middle East ahead of a potential conflict with Iran, it took 73 C-17 loads to move one Patriot air defense battalion across the globe. That is just one example of how hard-pressed U.S. military transport logistics are in a time of a major conflict that would require massive movements — in the air and at sea — of materiel.

2/5 AM Air Defense Move Update

Flights carrying air defenses have continued to stream into the Middle East overnight with more leaving Texas for Europe.

I have logged 50 flights since 1/23 total with 10 still in progress and no final destination is known yet. For context, last… pic.twitter.com/WlvFep7TEC

— TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) February 5, 2026

As part of the effort to handle all these aircraft movements, the U.S. base at Spangdahlem, Germany, is now operating around the clock, the BBC noted. In addition, it appears another E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) jet is now in the region.

“A third US Air Force E-11A aircraft departed from Chania International Airport on the Greek island of Crete yesterday. It touched down about four hours later at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.”

Separately Spangdahlem Air Base, a large Nato facility in Germany operated…

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) February 5, 2026

The U.S. has already deployed additional F-15E Strike Eagles, E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare jets and A-10 Thunderbolt close support aircraft to the region, where some F-15Es and A-10s were already located. The U.S. Navy also has squadrons of F-35C stealth fighters, F/A-18E-F Super Hornets and Growlers embarked aboard the Lincoln. However, as we have frequently pointed out, there still does not appear to be enough tactical jets for the U.S. to maintain a sustained operation, even of limited scope, against Iran.

A flight of Air Force F-35A stealth fighters, used in the raid to capture Maduro, is still stuck in Rota, Spain, according to online flight trackers. The jets, reportedly bound for Jordan, became marooned there after a KC-46 mishap at Moron Air Base, some 50 miles to the northeast, shut the runway for days. While the Moron runway has since been reopened, it remains unclear how many flights have been launched. We have reached out to the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command and U.S. Air Forces Europe-Air Force Africa (USAFE) for details.

We have not seen any major movement of strategic bombers yet either and there does not appear to be any major increase of assets on Diego Garcia, a U.S. base in the Indian Ocean. Last year, ahead of rising tensions with Iran, the U.S. sent a large force of bombers and other supporting assets to Diego Garcia, which TWZ was first to report on.

Though Trump on Thursday mentioned that the U.S. has a “big fleet” heading to the Middle East, there have been no ship movements today, a U.S. Navy official told us. There are still 10 ships in the U.S. Central Command region, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three of its Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer escorts. There are also two Arleigh Burke class ships in the eastern Mediterranean as well, the official added.

In a veiled message to Iran, CENTCOM released a time-lapse video showing the launch and recovery of jets from the Lincoln.

On the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, what looks like a random rush of jets and people is actually a well-orchestrated routine. Sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are trained to work as a team to launch and recover safely and on time, every time. pic.twitter.com/64ubKaG1wC

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 5, 2026

Iran is no match for American military forces, the Navy’s highest-ranking active-duty officer said this week.

“Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told hundreds of sailors at an all-hands call Wednesday that although he doesn’t take Iranian posturing lightly, U.S. forces overmatched Tehran’s threats ‘significantly’ when it comes to capabilities,” Stars and Stripes reported. “We have a very good approach of providing the president of the United States military options. Iran knows this. So, the fact that we have that type of capability is a strong deterrent.”

Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told hundreds of sailors at an all-hands call that although he doesn’t take Iranian posturing lightly, U.S. forces overmatched Tehran’s threats “significantly” when it comes to capabilities.https://t.co/onC0T1tj5L

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) February 5, 2026

As CENTCOM was showing off the Lincoln, the IRGC on Thursday claimed it seized two oil tankers with their foreign crews in Gulf waters for “smuggling fuel,” the official Iranian Tasnim news agency reported.

“More than one million liters of smuggled fuel were discovered on these two violating vessels, and 15 foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities for legal proceedings,” Tasnim added. It was not immediately clear what flags the tankers were carrying, nor the nationalities of the crews.

BREAKING:

Iranian IRGC terrorists claim they have captured two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf carrying around 1 million liters of diesel fuel.

Fifteen foreign crew members were detained. pic.twitter.com/LbUcrTlkVQ

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 5, 2026

The seizures, part of an ongoing Iranian effort in the Gulf, came just two days after an F-35C from the Lincoln shot down an Iranian drone. In a separate incident that day, IRGC forces harassed a U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed merchant vessel lawfully transiting the Strait of Hormuz. “Two IRGC boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached M/V Stena Imperative at high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker,” Col. Tim Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesperson, said in a statement to TWZ. “Guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul (DDG 74) was operating in the area and immediately responded to the scene to escort M/V Stena Imperative with defensive air support from the U.S. Air Force.”

We will keep you up to date with new developments in this fast moving story.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

The January 3 US strikes in Caracas have no historical precedent, not only for Venezuela but for all of South America. It was the first US military attack against a capital in this part of the world in our history as independent nations. 

To understand the underlying motivations behind such an outrageous bombing of Caracas, and going beyond the professed US interests in the country’s natural resources, we have to understand the position, the ideas, and the role played by elites in shaping key areas of national interest, including the concept of sovereignty, the nation’s resources, the model of state, and Venezuela’s foreign relations – in their own image, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This meant the imposition of a political thought and socioeconomic model that ended up, above all, benefiting the Spanish-descendant or Creole oligarchy, which had been known in colonial times as the mantuanos.

Venezuela emerged from the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest as what is known in Venezuelan historiography as the “colonial-implanted society” (1), that is, a settler formation. At its zenith, it was a Creole elite with ample economic privileges but with a highly restricted political reach, limited to participation in municipal town halls (“cabildos”). This privileged sector was the dominant political class in colonial society for three centuries, with deep Hispanic cultural roots, a notion of superiority towards the popular classes alongside a complex of inferiority towards peninsular Spaniards who controlled the political and administrative affairs of the colony.

Between 1810 and 1816, the Creole elite played a leading role in the national independence struggle. Later, during his Caribbean tour of Jamaica and Haiti, the Liberator Simón Bolívar managed to pierce through his social and ideological class blinders, thus evolving from a mere mantuano military chief to become the revolutionary leader of the process of Venezuelan and South American emancipation. The historic step was taken through the decree issued in July 1816, in Ocumare de la Costa, with the momentous incorporation of enslaved people into the independence struggle, promising freedom, land, and citizenship to all those who answered the patriotic call. This revolutionary act, like many others in Bolívar’s life, would provoke splits and internal conflicts among military leaders and patriotic politicians, which would later lead to the separation of Gran Colombia in 1830 and the creation of Venezuela as an independent state. Likewise, the founding of the new Venezuelan republic in that same year by the Creole elites was essentially based on anti-Bolivarian political and ideological foundations, and it would undergird the model of the state and the socioeconomic system to be maintained until the end of the twentieth century. (2)

The main political positions assumed by Bolívar during his lifetime certainly did not please certain social sectors within independent America. His clear vision of a centralist government in contrast to the federal model adopted in the United States; his desire to grant freedom to enslaved Black people so that they could become citizens with full rights; his ideal of Colombian unity and the creation of a confederation of independent American states under a model of regional integration –all these plans became factors of discord and internal disagreement among the Venezuelan elites who, together with seditious elements in New Granada and Quito, ultimately brought about the disintegration of Gran Colombia.  

At the same time, in 1823, a geopolitical doctrine emerged from the United States that would mark the history of US interventionism in the hemisphere to this day. Known as the Monroe Doctrine, it proclaimed US hegemony over political, economic, and military affairs in the hemisphere, against any intervention from outside the region and in favor of US capital, exacting a horrific toll on the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean over the last two centuries.

In Venezuela, the entire first century of republican life was marked by struggles between liberal and conservative elites. Conservative sectors launched political campaigns against liberal factions with the hidden intention of handing the country over to foreign interests while securing their own economic benefits. Once the republic was established, internal strife prevented the Venezuelan political class from even diplomatically agreeing on the border limits with Colombia, eventually leading the country to lose vast territories due to external interference before the borders with our neighbors were ultimately settled. (3) Later, amid the post-1858 crisis, Conservative Creole elites even promoted the creation of an English protectorate in Venezuela, with Pedro Gual and Manuel Felipe Tovar appealing to the then United Kingdom chargé d’affaires in Venezuela, Edward St. John, for British intervention in order to prevent the Liberal Party from coming to power with the support of the African-descendent masses. It was this ongoing political hostility between these two parties for almost three decades that, over time, inevitably degenerated into the so-called Federal War or Long War, between 1859 and 1864, the last episode of civil war in the country.

Thus, throughout the nineteenth century, Venezuela lost all the political power it had gained during independence, all the accumulated military power that had led it to victory across the continent, and all its productive and economic capacity. It became trapped in a monoculture agricultural dependency based on coffee and cocoa crops. In addition, during these times of neglect, the country became a republic without the material capabilities needed to institutionalize a central state that did not even have its own infrastructure until 1873, when the first part of the Federal Legislative Palace was finally built. 

Later, at the end of the nineteenth century, during the government of General Cipriano Castro, a military chief from the southwestern Andean state of Táchira who put an end to the struggles between liberal and conservative elites, the country once again fell victim to imperialist designs on the national wealth. In 1899, in the so-called Paris Arbitration Award, Venezuela was stripped of a significant part of its eastern territory when it lost Guayana Esequiba to the British Empire, thanks to the legal assistance of Russia, acting as judge, and the United States, as the supposed defender of Venezuelan interests before the international courts.  

A few years later, in 1902, Venezuela was once again the target of imperialist threats through diplomatic siege and international media campaigns against the government by the UK, Germany, and Italy. Under the pretext of collecting debts acquired by the Venezuelan state, the European powers imposed a naval blockade and took over the ports of La Guaira and Maracaibo. These events were clearly acts of intervention intended to trigger a military invasion of the country, supported by elite sectors in favor of the presence of imperialist forces in the country.

There has thus been a clear continuity in the servility of the Creole oligarchy to imperial powers since the nineteenth century, with the appeal for an English protectorate, followed by whitening immigration policies, territorial dispossession, and a naval blockade. In the twentieth century, the subordination took the form of oil concessions, with petroleum becoming a key battleground for class struggle. Fast forward to the present, over the past 27 years, Venezuela under the Bolivarian Revolution, has been the target of relentless US-led hybrid warfare, with traditional manutano elites like María Corina Machado openly calling for a US military intervention. 

These internal and external efforts to dismantle the sovereign national project and seize the country’s vast wealth and resources finally culminated in the January 3 US bombing of Caracas and kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, bringing two centuries of republican history full circle.

Notes

1. The term “colonial-implanted society” was coined by Venezuelan historian Germán Carrera Damas to explain the long and ongoing process of the establishment of Venezuelan society, which began in the 1500s and can be approached theoretically and methodologically as a historical continuity that extends to the present day. By the 19th century, the socioeconomic elites would promote policies to position Venezuela as a mere supplier of raw materials for the global capitalist system, while guaranteeing their economic privileges. This sociopolitical dynamic, institutionalized through national projects, would continue until the end of the twentieth century. 
2. Not only in Venezuela, but the separatist oligarchies of Quito and New Granada, after their separation from Gran Colombia, also imposed political and administrative models contrary to Bolivarian ideas, establishing federal republics in the US style and opposed to Bolívar’s centralist model. 
3. The Pombo-Michelena dispute between the governments of Venezuela and Colombia, which lasted from 1833 to 1840, led to diplomatic conflicts between the two countries that were ultimately settled by Spain in an 1891 arbitration, with Queen Regent Maria Christina of Habsburg as the decision-maker. This award significantly harmed Venezuela, granting extensive territories to Colombia, such as La Guajira, the plains of Casanare, and the regions of the Meta, Guainía, and Vichada rivers.

The Insurgent History column features Venezuelan historians who explore key episodes of the country’s nineteenth and twentieth century history and their relevance for the present.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Christian E. Flores G. (Caracas, 1974) holds a bachelor’s degree in History from the Central University of Venezuela and MSc. in Venezuelan History from the National Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE). He currently serves as Director of Research and Historical Advisory Services for the Venezuelan National Assembly, Professor of Critical History of Puntofijismo (1958-1999) and Critical History of the Bolivarian Revolution at UNEARTE. He’s a researcher with more than 20 years of experience, and some of his published books are: 4F: Collapse of the Puntofijista Parliamentand 1815-2015, bicentennial of the Letter from Jamaica, in addition to articles and papers in Venezuelan and international publications.

Friedrich Merz said concerns about a further escalation with Iran have dominated his trip to the Gulf region.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned of the threat of a military escalation in the Middle East before talks between Iran and the United States in Oman on Friday.

Speaking in Doha on Thursday, Merz said that fears of a new conflict had characterised his talks during his trip to the Gulf region.

“In all my conversations yesterday and today, great concern has been expressed about a further escalation in the conflict with Iran,” he said during a news conference.

Merz also urged Iran to end what he called aggression and enter into talks, saying Germany would do everything it could to de-escalate the situation and work towards regional stability.

The warning came in the run-up to a crucial scheduled meeting between officials from Tehran and Washington in Muscat.

Mediators from Qatar, Turkiye and Egypt have presented Iran and the US with a framework of key principles to be discussed in the talks, including a commitment by Iran to significantly limit its uranium enrichment, two sources familiar with the negotiations have told Al Jazeera.

Before the talks, both sides appear to be struggling to find common ground on a number of issues, including what topics will be up for discussion.

Iran says the talks must be confined to its long-running nuclear dispute with Western powers, rejecting a US demand to also discuss Tehran’s ballistic missiles, and warning that pushing issues beyond the nuclear programme could jeopardise the talks.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said the US is eager for the talks to follow what they see as an agreed-upon format.

“That agreed-upon format includes issues broader than what the US understands Iran is willing to discuss in this initial set of talks,” she explained.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that talks would have to include the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, its support for armed groups around the Middle East and its treatment of its own people, in addition to its nuclear programme.

A White House official has told Al Jazeera that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key figure in his Middle East policy negotiations, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, have arrived in the Qatari capital, Doha, in advance of the talks.

Halkett said that Qatar is playing an instrumental role in trying to facilitate these talks, along with other regional US partners, including Egypt.

“We understand, according to a White House official, that this is perhaps part of the reason for the visit – to try and work with Qatar in an effort to try and get Iran to expand and build upon the format of these talks.”

Pressure on Iran

The talks come as the region braces for a potential US attack on Iran after US President Donald Trump ordered forces to amass in the Arabian Sea following a violent crackdown by Iran on protesters last month.

Washington has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East, as well as an aircraft carrier, other warships, fighter jets, spy planes and air refuelling tankers.

Trump has warned that “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on Iran.

This is not the first time Iranian and US officials have met in a bid to revive diplomacy between the two nations, which have not had official diplomatic relations since 1980.

In June, US and Iranian officials gathered in the Omani capital to discuss a nuclear agreement, but the process stalled as Israel launched attacks on Iran, killing several military leaders and top nuclear scientists, and targeting nuclear facilities. The US later briefly joined the war, bombing several Iranian nuclear sites.

Volker Turk appeals for $400m after cuts to operations in 17 countries.

The human rights chief of the United Nations says his office has been pushed into “survival mode” as he appealed for $400m to cover its funding needs this year.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Thursday that budget cuts last year reduced operations in 17 countries, including Colombia, Myanmar and Chad.

Turk warned the cuts are undermining global human rights monitoring as he outlined his agency’s funding needs after the United States and other major Western donors last year reduced their humanitarian spending and support for UN-linked agencies.

“These cuts and reductions untie perpetrators’ hands everywhere, leaving them to do whatever they please,” he told diplomats at his office’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. “With crises mounting, we cannot afford a human rights system in crisis.”

While the US government under former President Joe Biden was the top single donor to Turk’s agency in voluntary contributions at $36m in 2024, the current administration under President Donald Trump halted its contributions in 2025.

“I am thankful to our 113 funding partners, including governments, private and multilateral donors, for their vital contributions,” Turk said. “But we are currently in survival mode, delivering under strain.”

Trump has repeatedly said the UN has potential but has failed to live up to it. During his time in office, the US has withdrawn from UN bodies such as the World Health Organization and UNESCO and cut funding to dozens of other agencies.

Last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a letter sent to all UN member nations that the world body faces “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues.

Last year, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had appealed for $500m in voluntary contributions but received $257m. It received $191m through the regular budget, about $55m less than initially approved, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Saudi Arabia has launched a project to issue passports for camels, in a move seen as a “qualitative step” to regulate the sector and strengthen the kingdom’s credibility in local and international markets, the government said on Wednesday, Anadolu reports.

A statement by the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture said Deputy Minister Mansour bin Hilal Al-Mushaiti inaugurated the camel passport project Tuesday evening.

The initiative is designed to organize the camel sector, document identity and improve service efficiency while enhancing market trust domestically and internationally, the ministry said.

The project seeks to record camels’ data, ownership and breeds and link them to verified health and regulatory information, making the passport an officially recognized reference that supports more efficient services, the statement added.

READ: Saudi minister denies claims of refusal to receive UAE’s deputy ruler

The camel passport serves as a comprehensive identification document, containing a microchip number, passport number, the camel’s name, date of birth, breed, sex, color, place of birth, and date and place of issuance, as well as photographs of the animal from both sides to ensure accurate identification, the ministry said.

It also includes a dedicated vaccination table that clearly documents veterinary immunization records, certified by the name, signature and stamp of the veterinarian, according to the statement.

The ministry said the passport will help regulate sales and trading by tightening controls over camel sales, transport and official documentation.

In a census released in June 2025, the ministry said the total number of camels in the kingdom reached 2,235,297 heads.

Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top camel-owning countries, with an estimated 80,000 owners, according to unofficial figures.

READ: Saudi Arabia: Citizens can invite Muslim friends abroad for Umrah on new visa

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to reveal the vetting process used by the ruling Labour Party to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States in December 2024 after new revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files about the relationship between the diplomat and the billionaire sex offender.

For one, the latest release of files relating to the investigation of Epstein by the US Department of Justice showed that Mandelson maintained his relationship with Epstein after Epstein served a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. But chief among the claims against Mandelson now are the suggestions he received payments from the late financier and may have shared market-sensitive information with him that was of financial interest to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison by suicide in 2019 before his trial stemming from his second prosecution for sex offences, including allegations of trafficking dozens of girls, could take place.

On Thursday, Starmer apologised to victims of Epstein for appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to the disgraced financier.

“It had been publicly known for some time that Mandelson knew Epstein, but none of us knew the depth and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said.

“I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him.”

Who is Peter Mandelson and what is he accused of?

Since the release on Friday of the latest tranche of Epstein files, including emails between Epstein and Mandelson, UK media have widely reported that the government suspects Mandelson may have illegally shared market-sensitive information with Epstein 15 years ago.

The newly released files include more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

As a life peer, Mandelson, 72, was a member of the House of Lords before he resigned this week. He was a veteran Labour politician who served in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. After Labour swept back into power after 14 years in the opposition in 2024, he was appointed ambassador to the US, taking up his post on February 10 last year.

He resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday.

“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter reported by British media.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.”

Alleged leaks of sensitive information by Mandelson took place in 2009 when he was serving as the UK’s business secretary in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is not the first time that Mandelson has been embarrassed by his friendship with Epstein. On September 11, the UK fired Mandelson as ambassador to the US over emails between the two men, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

On Tuesday, UK police launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson over suspected misconduct in public office linked to his relationship with Epstein.

Misconduct in public office is punishable in the UK with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Besides his sacking as ambassador, Mandelson has previously been forced to resign from ministerial posts for alleged misconduct on two occasions – in 1998 and 2001.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein was a billionaire financier born and raised in New York who was known for socialising with celebrities and politicians.

Criminal investigations indicated he may have abused hundreds of girls over the course of his high-profile career. He was arrested in 2019 on federal criminal charges relating to alleged exploitation of underage girls dating back two decades. He died in prison before he could come to trial.

He also was previously accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 2005 after her parents made a report to the police. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in relation to a single victim.

He spent 13 months in prison on a work-release programme, which allowed him to leave jail to go to work during the day and return at night.

The US attorney in Manhattan also prosecuted Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell as a coconspirator in his sexual abuse scheme. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, which she received in 2022.

What do we know about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein?

When Mandelson was fired as ambassador to the US in September, the FCDO wrote: “In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador.

“The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”

These particular emails were obtained and published by the UK’s Sun newspaper in September. In them, Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced in 2008.

“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told Epstein before his sentence began.

“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain,” Mandelson wrote. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can.”

It is now clear from the latest tranche of Epstein files that Mandelson continued his friendship with Epstein for some time after the financier had been convicted of sex offences.

What do the new Epstein files reveal?

From 2003 to 2004, bank records indicated that Epstein made three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts connected to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said he does not recall receiving any such funds and has pledged to examine whether the documents are genuine.

According to these documents, in 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds ($13,607, or $20,419 today after inflation) to pay for an osteopathy course. This week, Mandelson told The Times of London: “In retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgement for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”

Emails revealed in the latest tranche of files from the US Justice Department also shine a light on the close friendship between the two men.

In October 2009, Epstein wrote in an email to Mandelson: “You can marry princess beatrice, the queen would have a queen as a grandson,” referring to the daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince whose royal titles were stripped last year over his own links to Epstein and allegations of the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, who successfully sued Mountbatten-Windsor.

“does that make it incest, how exciting,” Epstein wrote.

In 2010, Lesley Groff, known to have been Epstein’s long-term executive assistant, emailed his boss: “Mandelson’s holiday plans arc still being sorted out. They hope to be in touch soon.”

In 2013, Epstein emailed Mandelson, saying he knew Mandelson was visiting St Petersburg, Russia. Mandelson described the city as “a rave”, to which Epstein asked whether “its for gays”. Mandelson responded, “Er no, tastey [sic] models and dancing.”

But the emails also suggested Mandelson passed sensitive information to the financier.

On May 9, 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost compelte [sic].” The next morning, European governments approved a 500-billion-euro bailout for banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Also in May 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying, “Finally got him to go today.” It is believed that Mandelson was referring to former Labour Prime Minister Brown.

Epstein replied to this email: “I have faith, the value of some chapters in your book should now increase.”

Brown announced his resignation just hours after this email exchange.

What has Starmer said?

Under mounting pressure from opposition politicians and within his own party this week, Starmer agreed to release information about the process through which Mandelson was appointed ambassador in 2024.

At a question and answer session on Wednesday in the House of Commons dominated by the Epstein revelations, Starmer admitted that he knew of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein but said Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador”.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party,” Starmer said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

Starmer said he would ensure that “all of the material” is published, except for documents that compromise Britain’s national security, international relations or the police investigation into Mandelson’s activities.

On Tuesday, Starmer told his cabinet he was “appalled by the information” regarding Mandelson and was concerned more details could come to light, according to a Downing Street readout of the cabinet meeting.

Starmer also said he had ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

“The alleged passing on of emails of highly sensitive government business was disgraceful,” Starmer said, adding that he was not yet “reassured that the totality of information had yet emerged”.

How will this affect Starmer?

Members of parliament expressed their dismay and called on him to step down.

Conservative MP Luke Evans said: “At the end of the day, he [Starmer] made the decision to appoint Mandelson to the post of ambassador, so he must explain his decision-making process.”

Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “There is no doubt that the prime minister’s judgement is being called sharply into question at this moment. It is becoming harder to see how any of us can rely on his judgement in future.”

Conservative MP Graham Stuart added: “The fact is that he appointed a person who had already broken all the Nolan Principles before his appointment as well as doing so after it. I think that makes the prime minister’s position untenable.”

The Nolan Principles are a set of ethical standards for all public office holders in the UK.

“I would say that today is the crumbling of Starmer. His judgement is poor, and it is ruining this country and the Labour Party,” Conservative MP Esther McVey said.

What do we know about how Mandelson was approved as US ambassador?

Facing questions from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the House of Commons in September, Starmer maintained that “full due process was gone through” for the purposes of Mandelson’s appointment.

Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, who is said to have nicknamed him “Petie”, had been publicly known for years.

But The Times of London reported that Starmer received just a two-page vetting note from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team about Mandelson’s appointment.

That document suggested that while Epstein was in prison in 2009, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The report also contained a photograph of Mandelson and Epstein together.

This indicated that by late 2024, the UK government had documentation showing Mandelson had remained close to Epstein even after his 2008 conviction.

Food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition exceeded in Darfur’s Um Baru and Kernoi.

Acute malnutrition has reached famine levels in two more areas of western Sudan’s Darfur region, United Nations-backed experts warn, as a civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army has caused widespread hunger.

In an alert issued on Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), global food security experts said famine thresholds for acute malnutrition had been surpassed in North Darfur State’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.

The IPC alert is not a ‍formal famine classification, but it highlights alarming levels of hunger based on the latest data.

In Um Baru, the rate of acutely malnourished children aged under five was ​nearly double the famine threshold with 53 percent affected, the report said.

Nearly a third of children in Kernoi suffered from acute malnutrition, it added.

“These alarming rates suggest an increased risk of excess mortality and raise concern that nearby areas may be experiencing similar catastrophic conditions,” the report said.

Thursday’s alert, based on data available up to February, comes nearly three months after the IPC confirmed famine conditions in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, about 800km (500 miles) to the east.

El-Fasher, long the Sudanese army’s final stronghold in the Darfur region, fell to the RSF in October after 18 months of bombardment and starvation.

Um Baru and Kernoi are near the border with Chad and have received some of the tens of thousands of displaced people who fled el-Fasher when it fell to the RSF. Fighting subsequently has been reported in both locations.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the army and the RSF, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 11 million and driven multiple regions into famine and hunger.

The IPC said 20 more areas in Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan were at risk of famine.

Israeli warplanes conducted more than 50 raids on Lebanon last month amid major surge in attacks, says refugee rights NGO.

Israel is carrying out a “clear and dangerous” surge in air attacks on Lebanon, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said, with its warplanes conducting more attacks on its neighbour in January than in any previous month since the ceasefire.

The humanitarian organisation said on Thursday that Israeli warplanes had carried out at least 50 air raids on Lebanon last month – about double the number of the previous month.

The group said the repeated attacks made a mockery of the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, after more than a year of cross-border attacks and a two-month-long Israeli intensification that killed thousands in Lebanon and devastated civilian infrastructure.

“These attacks – as well as the many ground incursions that continue to happen away from the cameras – have deemed the ceasefire agreement little more than ink on paper,” said Maureen Philippon, NRC’s country director in Lebanon.

The data, provided to the NRC by security company Atlas Assistance, captures only attacks carried out by manned Israeli warplanes and does not include Israeli drone attacks, which regularly result in deaths in Lebanon, or attacks carried out during Israeli ground incursions.

The Israeli attacks have continued in recent days. On Monday, Israeli warplanes targeted buildings in two villages in southern Lebanon, Kfar Tebnit and Ain Qana, after issuing evacuation orders to residents.

Israel’s military claimed the buildings were Hezbollah “military infrastructure” and said it was targeting them in response to what it said were the group’s prohibited attempts to rebuild its activities in the area.

On Wednesday, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of committing an environmental crime after Israeli aircraft sprayed an unknown substance over southern Lebanese towns.

Death and displacement

The NRC said the ongoing attacks have created a climate of fear and instability for residents and were hampering much-needed reconstruction efforts, in a country still reeling from the effects of the conflict with Israel before the ceasefire.

The attacks have struck targets in dozens of cities and villages in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, destroying homes and displacing families in an environment where approximately 64,000 people have already been displaced by the conflict.

“Aid agencies, including NRC, are still dealing with the aftermath and consequences of months of destructive conflict which left much of Lebanon in ruins,” said Philippon.

She said the effect of the attacks was being felt by families and children, citing a school in west Bekaa that had recently been repaired by her organisation, only to be damaged again in a recent attack in the area.

“This means yet another spell of interrupted education for children,” she said.

Philippon called on Israel’s allies to do “everything they can to stop these attacks on civilian areas and villages”.

“This vicious cycle has to end,” she added.

‘Thousands’ of breaches

Under the terms of the November 2024 ceasefire, cross-border attacks were supposed to stop; Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, which runs across south Lebanon; and Israel was to withdraw troops that had invaded south Lebanon in October.

Israel, however, has continued its attacks across the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east on a near-daily basis, while its army continues to occupy five points in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese government says Israel has committed thousands of breaches of the ceasefire agreement.

Hezbollah has launched only one attack in the 14 months since the ceasefire, while Israel has killed more than 330 people in Lebanon, including at least 127 civilians, and a top Hezbollah commander, Haytham Ali Tabatabai.

The U.S. Marine Corps says it is planning to award a sole-source contract for a new AGM-114 Hellfire missile-armed mobile counter-drone system to defense contractor V2X. This is the same firm that developed the Tempest, a high-mobility 4×4 vehicle with launchers for radar-guided Longbow Hellfires and optimized for shooting down uncrewed aerial threats. At least two Tempest vehicles are now in active service in Ukraine, where they first emerged unexpectedly earlier this month.

Last week, Marine Corps Systems Command (MARSCORSYSCOM) quietly put out a contracting notice regarding what it is currently referring to as the Denied Area Sprinter-Hellfire (DASH) system.

“The program office within Program Executive Officer, Land Systems (PEO LS) Marine Corps for the Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) intends to award a hybrid contract (Firm-Fixed Price and Cost Type) on a sole-source basis to V2X … for the Denied Area Sprinter-Hellfire (DASH) system,” according to the notice. “The Marine Corps has a unique and specific need to procure Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System already at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-9 level, to support dismounted Marines.”

“The DASH system fills a critical need to detect, identify, track, and defeat small UAS in a highly mobile, rugged form factor that will help protect Marines,” the notice continues. “The United States Government intends to procure up to 50 systems to include training, initial spares, and reimbursable repairs with an expected delivery date for two systems of no later than 30 May 2026 and delivery of the remaining 48 systems no later than December 2026 to meet an FY27 initial operational capability requirement. This effort is expected to be awarded in Fiscal Year 2026.”

The notice does not provide specific details about the DASH system’s configuration. TWZ has reached out to the U.S. Marine Corps and V2X for more information.

However, the mention of TRL-9 does point to DASH being a Marine Corps version of Tempest or a direct derivative thereof. In U.S. government contracting parlance, TRL-9 refers to systems that are not just fully developed, but that have also proven themselves in operationally relevant conditions.

V2X first unveiled Tempest at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention in Washington, D.C., last October. The configuration that has been seen to date, including in Ukraine, consists of a pair of launch rails for Hellfire missiles and a small form factor active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar mounted on what looks to be a modified Can-Am Maverick X3 4×4 off-road buggy.

The vehicle also has an array of antennas mounted on the left rear side, which are likely tied to a passive radio frequency (RF) detection system. The system does not have any other readily apparent sensors, such as electro-optical and/or infrared cameras.

The combination of the radar and a passive RF detection system would be enough to enable the vehicle to be able to spot and track drones, and then cue its AGM-114L Longbow Hellfires to intercept them. Unlike the majority of Hellfire variants that are laser-guided, the AGM-114L has a millimeter wave radar seeker. Despite originally being designed to engage targets on land and at sea, the Longbow variant of the Hellfire has been in increasing use in the anti-air role in recent years. This extends beyond ground-based platforms, with the AGM-114L now having demonstrated counter-drone capability when employed in the surface-to-air mode from ships and as an air-to-air weapon launched from crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

At the same time, it is still possible that V2X may have developed a variation on this concept for the Marine Corps that uses a different underlying platform. The fact that the Tempest system can be installed on something as small and lightweight as a modified Can-Am Maverick X3 underscores the potential for it to be ported over to an array of other vehicles. V2X itself has said in the past that it was working on a trailer-based version intended primarily for point defense of static sites. It’s also worth noting here that laser-guided Hellfires can even be employed in a man-portable configuration using tripod launchers on the ground, further speaking to the adaptability of the missile to different launch environments.

For its part, the Marine Corps has already fielded counter-drone systems mounted on 4×4 Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicles, which it calls Light Marine Air Defense Integrated Systems (LMADIS). A complete LMADIS system consists of one MRZR with small AESA radars, electro-optical cameras, and passive RF detection capability paired with another one of the vehicles carrying an electronic warfare jammer. Marines also train to employ shoulder-fired heat-seeking Stinger surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), in conjunction with LMADIS. An early version of LMADIS, lashed to the deck of the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, was used to knock down an Iranian drone as the ship transited the Strait of Hormuz back in 2019.

The Marines also have MADIS systems that utilize the 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JTLV). Like LMADIS, the larger MADIS distributes different sensors and effectors between individual JLTVs, as you can read more about here.

Regardless, V2X’s Tempest or a variation on the system mounted on a different vehicle would give the Marines a new, highly mobile platform for engaging drones and potentially other aerial threats. AGM-114Ls could be used against helicopters and some types of cruise missiles under certain conditions. It might also be possible to engage fixed-wing aircraft, but the range and speed of the Hellfire present significant limitations against that target set.

A platform like the Can-Am Maverick X3 also allows for the employment of ‘shoot and scoot’ tactics. This means the system can pop up suddenly and reposition just as quickly, helping to create unpredictability for opponents and reduce vulnerability to counterattacks. This is a capability that is also beneficial for responding to aerial threats that might emerge unexpectedly. As already noted, Ukrainian authorities say they have been making good use of their Tempest systems to knock down incoming Russian drones.

Footage of a V2X Tempest SAM system in Ukrainian service shooting down Russian drones with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

The first confirmed footage of the Hellfire-equipped dune buggy in Ukraine, likely supplied for live combat testing by an unknown nation. pic.twitter.com/1I1NK537Dj

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) January 11, 2026

All of this aligns with the Marine Corps vision for future expeditionary and distributed operations, especially in island-hopping scenarios in the context of a high-end fight in the Pacific. The service sees relatively small force packages operating from forward bases spread across broad areas, likely within range of enemy stand-off weapons. These are concepts of operations in which mobile air defense capabilities with low operational and logistical footprints would be advantageous, if not essential, to mission success.

Hellfire-armed air defense systems have historically presented cost benefits, as well. As of 2020, Hellfire had an average cost, across all variants, of more than $200,000, though AGM-114Ls were likely substantially more expensive. As a comparison, the cost of a single Stinger missile has reportedly surged in recent years to as high as $400,000. Past reports have also said that Raytheon’s Coyote Block 2 counter-drone interceptors, which are growing in popularity across the U.S. military, have unit costs in the $100,000 range.

It is important to point out that the AGM-114L is now out of production, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin. That company has recently been touting potential anti-air applications for the successor to the Hellfire family, the AGM-179A Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), which has a dual-mode laser and millimeter wave guidance system.

With the schedule the Marines have laid out for the DASH effort, targeting delivery of the first pair of systems by May, more specific details about the system and its capabilities may now emerge in the coming weeks and months.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

GB started with the hammer, took two in accomplished first end, and looked like they might enjoy a comfortable start to the day in Italy.

Estonia responded by doing the same, though, after a slight Dodds error with her last stone. “Sorry, Bruce,” said the 34-year-old, who was slightly errant again with her opening rock of the third end.

But Dodds, peerless against Norway, righted herself to deliver a magnificent final store and restore GB’s two-point advantage.

The Estonians should have pulled level again, but a Marie Kaldvee mistake ensured they still trailed at the break. “It’s been a bit of back and forth,” was how 2022 Olympic gold medallist Vicky Wright described it.

Kaldvee was slack again upon the resumption and Mouat – fuelled by an interval munch of mango – delivered with GB’s final stone to extend the advantage to 6-3 with three ends remaining.

Estonia – who overcame a four-point deficit in the final end against Switzerland in their opener – employed their powerplay in the sixth and moved back within one after capitalising on a rare Mouat error.

GB played their own powerplay in response and made full use of it, a furious double sweep by both Mouat and Dodds earning a decisive four points after some deliberation with the measuring stick.

That opened up a five-point chasm, which persuaded the Estonians to shake hands and concede defeat with an end to spare.

“That was better from me today. I had a few that slipped up, but I called myself a bad word, and moved on,” Mouat told BBC Sport.

“We’re very happy with how we’re performing and excited to get GB off on the right foot.”

Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham – the top two try-scorers in Scotland history – as well as British and Irish Lions Test full-back Blair Kinghorn have been left out of the side for the Six Nations opener against Italy.

Coach Gregor Townsend has opted for a back three of Bristol’s Tom Jordan at full-back flanked by Glasgow Warriors wingers Kyle Steyn and Jamie Dobie – who will make his first start in a Six Nations game – for Saturday’s game in Rome.

Graham is among the replacements but Van der Merwe and Kinghorn are not even in the matchday 23, with stand-off Adam Hastings and scrum-half George Horne the other backs cover.

Other than the shock omissions of three 2025 Lions tourists, Townsend’s selection for Scotland’s first game of the championship is otherwise predictable.

Grant Gilchrist, 35, has beaten off the challenges of the more youthful Gregor Brown and Max Williamson to partner Scott Cummings, who missed last year’s championship through injury, in the second row.

Matt Fagerson, vice-captain Rory Darge and Jack Dempsey form an all-Glasgow back row, with versatile Warriors forward Brown also covering the breakaway unit.

Ewan Ashman, Scotland’s leading try-scoring forward, gets the nod at hooker ahead of George Turner and will have Lions props Pierre Schoeman and Zander Fagerson either side of him.

Ben White partners vice-captain Finn Russell at half-back despite strong claims from in-form Horne.

The midfield is the familiar pairing of Huw Jones and captain Sione Tuipulotu – the 18th Test match the pair have played together.