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Chilean President Gabriel Boric ‍has announced a ‍state of emergency in two southern regions.

Two dozen active forest fires are tearing across southern Chile, forcing more than 50,000 people to flee their homes and killing at least 16 people, authorities have said.

Security Minister Luis Cordero told reporters at a press conference on Sunday that 15 deaths had been confirmed in the Biobio region, bringing the total to 16 after ‌the government previously reported one death in Nuble.

Biobio and Nuble – central-southern regions located about 500km (300 mi) south of the capital, Santiago – have faced the blazes’ worst effects.

President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency in both regions earlier on Sunday, writing on X that “all resources are available” to contain the fires. The declaration allowed Chile’s armed forces to start pitching in.

The majority of the evacuations have taken place in the cities of Penco and Lirquen, located in Biobio, authorities said. Together, the cities are home to around 60,000 people.

Interior Minister Alvaro Elizalde said unfavourable weather conditions in the coming days – particularly extreme temperatures – were expected to make firefighting efforts more difficult.

“We face a complicated situation,” he added.

The fires have torched around 85sq km (33sq mi) across Biobio and Nuble, prompting the mass evacuations. At least 250 homes have been destroyed so far.

South-central Chile has been battered by forest fires in recent years, with simultaneous blazes in February 2024 leading to the deaths of more than 130 people.

At the time, Boric called it the “greatest tragedy” the Latin American country had faced since a 2010 earthquake that killed at least 500 people.

United States President Donald Trump has promised to steadily increase tariffs on European countries that have opposed his move to acquire Greenland, escalating a dispute over the semiautonomous Danish territory he has long coveted.

So what is behind Trump’s push to control Greenland, the world’s largest island, and how have Washington’s NATO allies responded?

What is Trump’s tariff threat over Greenland?

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump wrote that he has subsidised Denmark and other European Union countries by not charging them tariffs.

“Now, after Centuries, it is time for Denmark to give back – World Peace is at stake! China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it.”

Trump added that “the National Security of the United States, and the World at large, is at stake.”

Trump wrote that starting on February 1, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland will be charged a 10 percent tariff on all their exports to the US.

On June 1, the tariff is to be increased to 25 percent, he said. “This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” Trump wrote.

Trump additionally wrote: “The United States has been trying to do this transaction for over 150 years. Many Presidents have tried, and for good reason, but Denmark has always refused.”

Is Trump the first US president to seek control of Greenland?

Leaders in Denmark and Greenland have consistently insisted that Greenland is not for sale. In the past few days, Greenlanders have been protesting against Trump’s wishes to acquire Greenland. Yet Trump has pushed for acquiring the Arctic territory since his first term, and he is not the first US president to pursue such a purchase.

After buying Alaska from Russia in 1867, then-Secretary of State William H Seward unsuccessfully sought to buy Greenland. During World War II, the US occupied Greenland after Germany’s invasion of Denmark and built military and radio facilities there. It maintains a permanent presence today at the Pituffik Space Base in the northwest.

In 1946, while Greenland was still a Danish colony, President Harry S Truman secretly offered Denmark $100m for the island, but Copenhagen refused. The proposal became public only in 1991.

American citizens do not support Washington acquiring Greenland, polls have indicated. This week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll of US residents showed less than one in five respondents support the idea of acquiring Greenland.

Why does Trump want Greenland?

The location and natural resources of the island make it strategically important for Washington.

Greenland is geographically part of North America, located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean. It is home to 56,000 residents, mostly Indigenous Inuit people.

Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, is closer to New York City – about 2,900km (1,800 miles) away – than the Danish capital, Copenhagen, located 3,500km (2,174 miles) to the east.

It is a NATO territory through Denmark and an EU-associated overseas territory with residents holding EU citizenship.

Its location offers the shortest air and sea routes between North America and Europe, making it strategically vital for US military operations and missile early-warning systems. Washington has also sought more radar coverage around the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap to monitor Russian and Chinese movements.

Greenland is rich in minerals, including most of the EU’s listed “critical raw materials”, but there is no oil and gas extraction, and many Indigenous residents oppose large-scale mining. The economy mainly depends on fishing.

As climate change opens up more of the Arctic, major powers such as the US, Canada, China and Russia are increasingly interested in its untapped resources.

How has Europe responded to Trump’s tariff threats?

All 27 members of the EU will convene for an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss their response to Trump’s threat.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded in a post on X on Saturday, saying: “Our position on Greenland is very clear – it is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and its future is a matter for the Greenlanders and the Danes,” Starmer wrote.

“Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong. We will of course be pursuing this directly with the US administration.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also responded in an X post, saying: “The EU stands in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland. Dialogue remains essential, and we are committed to building on the process begun already last week between the Kingdom of Denmark and the US.

“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty.”

European Council President Antonio Costa shared a post identical to von der Leyen’s on his own X account.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X: “China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among Allies.”

Kallas added: “Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity.”

David van Weel, the foreign minister of the Netherlands, said during an interview on Dutch television on Sunday: “It’s blackmail what he’s doing, … and it’s not necessary. It doesn’t help the alliance [NATO], and it also doesn’t help Greenland.”

Venezuelanalysis editor Ricardo Vaz joined Steve Grumbine on the Macro N Cheese podcast to take a broader look at the Bolivarian Revolution and its historical context.

The discussion included the revolutionary advances under Hugo Chávez, including communes and the path to socialism, as well as an analysis of the struggle for sovereignty in Venezuela’s oil industry.

Source: Macro N Cheese

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deployed a military radar in the Somali region of Puntland as part of a secret deal, amid Abu Dhabi’s ongoing entrenchment of its influence over the region’s security affairs.

According to the London-based news outlet Middle East Eye, sources familiar with the matter told it that the UAE had installed a military radar near Bosaso airport in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region earlier this year, with one unnamed source saying that the “radar’s purpose is to detect and provide early warning against drone or missile threats, particularly those potentially launched by the Houthis, targeting Bosaso from outside”.

The radar’s presence was reportedly confirmed by satellite imagery from early March, which found that an Israeli-made ELM-2084 3D Active Electronically Scanned Array Multi-Mission Radar had indeed been installed near Bosaso airport.

READ: UAE: The scramble for the Horn of Africa

Not only does the radar have the purpose of defending Puntland and its airport from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, but air traffic data reportedly indicates it also serves to facilitate the transport of weapons, ammunition, and supplies to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), further fuelling the ongoing civil war in Sudan.

“The UAE installed the radar shortly after the RSF lost control of most of Khartoum in early March”, one source said. Another source was cited as claiming that the radar was deployed at the airport late last year and that Abu Dhabi has used it on a daily basis to supply the RSF, particularly through large cargo planes that frequently carry weapons and ammunition, and which sometimes amount to up to five major shipments at a time.

According to two other Somali sources cited by the report, Puntland’s president Said Abdullahi Deni did not seek approval from Somalia’s federal government nor even the Puntland parliament for the installation of the radar, with one of those sources stressing that it was “a secret deal, and even the highest levels of Puntland’s government, including the cabinet, are unaware of it”.

READ: UAE under scrutiny over alleged arms shipments to Sudan

The UK decision to ban supporters of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv from a match against Aston Villa last year sparked such intense backlash that the West Midlands Police Chief Craig Guildford has stepped down. A gov’t report concluded inaccuracies and ‘bias’ factored into the police’s decision to ban fans, even though they had acted violently in Amsterdam.

The Syrian army is advancing towards Raqqa, the stronghold of the United States-trained, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), after capturing the northern strategic city of Tabqa and its military airport on the Euphrates River in a lightning offensive.

Government forces captured the Euphrates Dam, also known as the Tabqa Dam, about 50km (31 miles) west of Raqqa city, after heavy fighting with SDF forces. Government forces are amassing heavy military equipment in Raqqa governorate, which has been under SDF control since 2015.

Fighting erupted between the army and SDF forces in Aleppo on January 6 after talks aimed at integrating the Kurdish fighters into Syria’s national army stalled. The two sides also clashed last month before a deadline for the SDF to lay down its heavy weapons and hand over control of areas in Aleppo to the national army.

So what’s the latest situation on the ground? Will the offensive by the Syrian army heighten the conflict in northern Syria?

What is the latest from Syria’s northeast?

On Sunday, the Syrian army took control of Tabqa, about 40km (24 miles) west of Raqqa. It also captured the Euphrates Dam, the largest in the country and adjacent to the strategic city, as well as the Freedom Dam, formerly known as the Baath Dam.

Government-allied groups said they have taken control of the Asayish headquarters, the security and police force in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, in the town of Markada while tribal fighters allied with the government have taken control of several major oil- and gasfields in the northeast, including Jafra and Conoco located in Deir Az Zor province bordering Iraq.

The Syrian Petroleum Company said Syrian forces seized the Rasafa and Sufyan oilfields in Raqqa, which could now be returned to production, according to the Reuters news agency.

Syrian state media on Sunday accused the SDF of using drones in areas east of Deir Az Zor, another SDF stronghold in the northeast.

Video clips and live footage published on social media and verified by Al Jazeera show celebrations in the cities of Hajin and al-Shuhayl in the eastern countryside of Deir Az Zor after news of the withdrawal of the SDF from the area. The Deir Az Zor governorate has announced the closure of all public institutions for the safety of residents as fighting continues to rage.

Syrian Ministry of Interior spokesman Noureddine al-Baba told Al Jazeera that police have secured all areas captured by Syrian soldiers after the rapid territorial gains over the past few days.

On Saturday, the SDF withdrew from Deir Hafer and some surrounding villages in Aleppo governorate that are home to predominantly Arab populations, after which Syrian forces moved in, triggering celebrations. Deir Hafer is about 50km (30 miles) east of Aleppo city.

“It happened with the least amount of losses,” Hussein al-Khalaf, a resident of Deir Hafer, told Reuters. “There’s been enough blood in this country, Syria. We have sacrificed and lost enough. People are tired of it.”

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, affiliated with the SDF, on Saturday accused the Syrian government of violating a withdrawal agreement, saying it “attacked our forces on multiple fronts since yesterday morning”. The SDF also warned that the attacks on Raqqa might threaten security as the city hosts thousands of ISIL (ISIS) detainees.

The US-backed SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, was formed in 2015, nearly four years after the armed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began. Al-Assad remained in power until he was ousted in December 2024 by Syrian opposition fighters led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is now interim president.

The US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, will meet SDF leader Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) and al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, according to the Syrian Ministry of Information.

The renewed fighting has widened the rift between al-Sharaa’s government, which has pledged to reunify Syria after 14 years of war, and wary Kurdish authorities who distrust the new administration. On Friday al-Sharaa issued a decree declaring Kurdish a “national language” and granting the minority group official recognition.

How significant is the control of Raqqa?

Raqqa is an Arab-majority governorate in northern Syria and has some of the country’s largest oil- and gasfields.

Kurdish anxieties have been sharpened by sectarian bloodshed last year when almost 1,500 Alawites were killed by pro-government forces in western Syria and hundreds of Druze were killed in clashes in the south.

When the Syrian army seized these regions, Arab civilians took to the streets to celebrate.

“This indicated the social and demographic fragility of the SDF. Now the question is, will the SDF see this reality and agree to demands by Damascus to integrate into the Syrian state,” Omer Ozkizilcik from the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs said.

Omar Abu Layla, a Syrian affairs analyst, told Al Jazeera Barrack tried on several occasions to bring the SDF to the negotiating table with the authorities in Damascus but “they didn’t listen to him.”

Abu Layla said the central government made many overtures to the group but the SDF “wasted time”, assuming the authorities in Damascus were weak and allowing nearly a year to pass since an agreement in March that would have seen the SDF’s forces integrated into the regular army.

“What [we] are witnessing now in the region is the end of the SDF,” he argued.

What was the March agreement between the Syrian army and SDF?

On March 10, al-Sharaa reached an agreement with Abdi.

The agreement emphasised the unity of Syria and stipulated that “all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria” be merged “into the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport and oil and gas fields”.

The agreement also included affirmation that the Kurdish people are integral to Syria and have a right to citizenship and guaranteed constitutional rights.

After a breakdown of this deal, heavy fighting between the SDF and Syrian army resumed in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo city last month. A US-brokered ceasefire took effect on January 10.

The SDF’s secular Kurdish leadership is linked to the Kurdish nationalist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which fought a decades-old rebellion against the Turkish state until last year. Although the PKK announced in May that it would lay down its arms and disband, it is still listed as a “terrorist” group by Turkiye, the European Union and the US.

Despite this, the US backed the SDF because it was an effective partner against ISIL, which the SDF and a US-led coalition defeated in northeastern Syria by 2019.

How has the US reacted?

Washington has urged the Syrian army to stop advancing into Kurdish-held territory.

Admiral Brad Cooper, who is in charge of US Central Command, which oversees the US military’s Middle East operations, wrote in a statement published on X that the Syrian army should “cease any offensive actions in areas” between Aleppo city and Tabqa.

Aleppo is roughly 160km (100 miles) west of Tabqa.

“Aggressively pursuing ISIS and relentlessly applying military pressure requires teamwork among Syrian partners in coordination with US and coalition forces,” Cooper said. “A Syria at peace with itself and its neighbors is essential to peace and stability across the region.”

William Laurence, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, and a former US diplomat, said “it’s going to be very difficult” for the US to resolve the political impasse between Syria’s government and the SDF.

“[US President Donald] Trump wants the quick fix, and he wants Tom Barrack to sort of wave a magic wand and get what he wants. But that’s not really how things work,” Laurence told Al Jazeera.

“Sustainable solutions rely on trust-building, and we’ve had very little of that.”

What has al-Sharaa said?

After fierce clashes earlier this month, al-Sharaa issued a decree on Friday formally recognising Kurdish as a “national language” and restoring citizenship to all Kurdish Syrians.

At least 22 people were killed and 173 wounded in Aleppo after fighting broke out there on January 6.

The decree for the first time grants Kurdish Syrians rights, including recognition of their Kurdish identity as part of Syria’s national fabric. It designates Kurdish as a national language alongside Arabic and allows schools to teach it.

It also abolishes measures dating to a 1962 census in Hasakah province that stripped many Kurds of Syrian nationality and grants citizenship to all affected residents, including those previously registered as stateless.

The decree declares Newroz, the Kurdish New Year festival, a paid national holiday. It bans ethnic or linguistic discrimination, requires state institutions to adopt inclusive national messaging and sets penalties for incitement to ethnic strife.

Reacting to the decree, the Kurdish administration in Syria’s north and northeast said the decree was “a first step, however it does not satisfy the aspirations and hopes of the Syrian people”.

It added that “rights are not protected by temporary decrees, but… through permanent constitutions that express the will of the people and all components” of a society.

Gaza City, al-Mawasi, Bureij refugee camp and Rafah all come under Israeli
air attacks and gunfire.

Israeli forces have wounded several Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, firing on civilians and launching air and artillery attacks in the latest near-daily violations of the ceasefire in place since October, as its genocidal war on the besieged enclave continues unabated.

Medical sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli drone fire on Sunday injured civilians in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in southern Gaza City. In southern Gaza, two people, including a girl, were wounded by Israeli gunfire in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis.

Additional injuries were reported in areas from which Israeli forces were meant to have withdrawn under the ceasefire.

Medical staff at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in eastern Gaza City said three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire near Netzarim, south of the city. Witnesses told the Anadolu news agency that an Israeli drone opened fire on the group.

At Nasser Medical Complex, medics confirmed that two more Palestinians were injured by Israeli fire in al-Mawasi. In central Gaza, doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said Israeli forces shot a Palestinian man in the head in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, describing his condition as serious.

The Israeli military also carried out air attacks on buildings in Rafah in the south while Israeli artillery shelled areas east of Jabalia in the north and the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Helicopter gunfire was reported near the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, and Israeli naval forces fired towards the coast of Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

The latest attacks were carried out as Hamas has welcomed the establishment of a 15-member technocratic committee of Palestinians that would operate under the overall supervision of a “board of peace” to be chaired by United States President Donald Trump.

The administrative body will be tasked with providing public services to the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza, but it faces towering challenges and unanswered questions, including about its operations and financing and whether Israel will block its operations.

Palestinian officials said Israel has repeatedly violated the US-brokered ceasefire, killing more than 460 Palestinians and wounding over 1,200 since it came into effect on October 10.

Israel continues to restrict the entry of food, medical aid and shelter materials into Gaza, where about 2.2 million people face acute humanitarian need in cold weather, barely shielded by flimsy tents.

Israel still has a military control of large swaths of Gaza, including much of the south, east and north, according to Israeli military data, but effectively occupies the entire territory.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians and wounded over 171,000, most of them women and children.

The assault has destroyed about 90 percent of civilian infrastructure with the United Nations estimating reconstruction costs at $50bn.

Government forces have seized a strategic town in eastern Syria, part of an ongoing offensive against Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates River.

The rapid army operation on Sunday follows battles earlier this month between Damascus and the United States-backed SDF, which led to deadly clashes and the government taking control of three neighbourhoods in Aleppo city from the group.

Sunday’s advance into Tabqa, in Raqqa province, is seen as critical because of a nearby dam that regulates the southward flow of water into areas held by the SDF.

The government and the SDF have exchanged accusations of violating a March agreement intended to reintegrate northeastern Syria and Kurdish-led forces into the structures of the Syrian state.

The SDF controls large swathes of northeastern Syria and has for years been Washington’s key ally in combating the ISIL (ISIS) group. Over that period, the US has developed strong ties with the SDF and has tried to ease tensions between the two sides.

The US had urged calm after this month’s clashes in Aleppo killed 23 people and displaced tens of thousands. After the fighting subsided, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) said on Friday that the group would withdraw its forces from areas east of the Euphrates following an announcement by Syrian official al-Sharaa on measures to strengthen Kurdish rights in Syria.

Tabqa is the latest in a series of mostly Arab-majority areas captured by government forces in Raqqa province. It remains unclear how far into the Kurdish heartland the Syrian military intends to advance.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government has accused the SDF of executing prisoners in Tabqa before withdrawing.

The SDF has denied the allegation, saying it transferred detainees out of the prison and accusing government forces of firing on the facility.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported that government forces have taken control of more than a dozen villages and towns in the eastern Deir Az Zor countryside following the SDF withdrawal.

People in the Syrian town of Deir Hafer have been celebrating after the Syrian army pushed out the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces from areas in eastern Aleppo Governorate. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi spoke to residents there.

On December 25, 2025, the United States launched strikes on some specific targets in Sokoto State, northwestern Nigeria. Fired from its naval assets in the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 16 GPS-guided precision munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, were launched. Some landed in the Bauni forest near Nigeria’s border with the Niger Republic, while others struck locations including a farmland in Jabo village and in Kwara State, in the country’s North Central region. 

The Nigerian government said the strike was carried out at its request in a “joint operation”, marking one of the clearest instances of direct American military action on Nigerian soil. 

In the weeks before the action, surveillance drones had repeatedly loitered over parts of the North East and North West, signalling a level of intelligence activity that went beyond routine cooperation. The strike, which HumAngle’s investigation found to have killed nobody, has so far not been followed by any. But recently, the US president, Donald Trump, said Nigeria will see more if Christians “continue to be killed”. 

For northern Nigeria, long trapped in a grinding war against multiple non-state armed groups such as Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), IS-Sahel (locally referred to as Lakurawa), and other local terror groups, the incident raised a pressing question: What kind of American war on terror is about to arrive? And, judging by US interventions elsewhere, what does history suggest it will bring to the region? 

For more than two decades, the United States has fought non-state actors across the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel. The outcomes have ranged from tactical victories to strategic collapse. Nigeria now stands at the edge of this long and uneven history, watching closely and wondering which version of America’s counter-terrorism playbook it might inherit.

This analysis examines whether US intervention tends to contain violence or merely reshape it, and what that history suggests for a country already grappling with deep social fractures. As Nigeria edges closer to direct American military action, the central issue is not whether the US can strike militants, but whether its involvement will stabilise an already fragile conflict or further entrench it.

How the US has fought terror elsewhere

In Iraq and Syria, the US response to the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in 2014 was deliberately constrained. America avoided a large-scale occupation, instead leading a multinational coalition that relied on airpower, intelligence dominance, and partnerships with local forces, including the Iraqi military and Kurdish fighters. 

The goal was not to remake the state but to degrade ISIS’s ability to hold territory, and it was largely successful. By 2019, the group’s so-called caliphate had collapsed, although ISIS itself was not eliminated. Today, the group survives through attacks on rural and border regions between Iraq and Syria, forcing many of its members to migrate to other locations, particularly in Africa, where IS encouraged its members to migrate.

James Bernett, a Nigeria-based researcher who specialises in African conflicts and armed groups, argues that the outcome reflected design rather than chance. “Not all US military interventions are the same,” he explained. “Those with more limited scopes, clear targets, stronger regional cooperation, and coordination with competent local forces are more likely to be successful than open-ended interventions with more nebulous strategic objectives.”

Afghanistan followed the opposite path. What began in 2001 as a focused mission to dismantle Al-Qaeda gradually expanded into a prolonged attempt to secure territory, build institutions, and reshape governance. Despite nearly two decades of operations and trillions of dollars spent, the Taliban returned to power shortly after US forces withdrew in 2021. 

Analysts said that the collapse exposed the limits of foreign military power in contexts where political legitimacy is weak and local institutions remain fragile.

In Somalia, US involvement in the longest American counter-terrorism operation has been narrower but no less revealing. Since 2003 when the first US operation against Al-Shabab was recorded under President George W. Bush, the war against the group has continued to date. 

American strategy in Somalia has relied primarily on drone strikes and support for regional partners against Al-Shabab. While senior militant leaders have been killed, the group remains resilient, violence persists, and governance remains fragile. Under Trump’s current administration, airstrikes increased dramatically, with more than 125 declared strikes in Somalia in 2025 alone—far exceeding previous years, including Trump’s first term. This marks the highest annual figure since the major offensive began in 2007.

Despite progress recorded elsewhere, especially in Mogadishu, which was previously controlled by Al-Shabaab, the group still controls over 30 per cent of Somalia and continues to push towards the capital. Al-Shabab is arguably the most successful Al-Qaeda affiliate in the world after Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

A somewhat similar pattern emerged in the Sahel. Despite years of US and allied counter-terrorism efforts, jihadist groups expanded across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Foreign military engagement coincided with coups, political instability, and growing public resentment toward external actors. 

More recently, the United States has significantly scaled back its direct military presence and large-scale counterterrorism operations in the core Sahel region due to the expulsion of Western forces by the ruling juntas. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have now pivoted toward partnerships with Russia via the Africa Corps (formerly Wagner) for security support, while rejecting or limiting US and French involvement. 

However, the US, although not having fighters on the ground, still engages in some intelligence sharing to counter the threats from what it described as the “epicentre of global terrorism”. 

Bernett places these cases within a broader pattern. Where interventions lack clarity or rely on weak local partners, he argues, violence is often “reshaped rather than resolved”. Nigeria’s case differs in one key respect: the government has welcomed US support, while simultaneously seeking changes in tactics.

The withdrawal of Western forces from the Sahel has emboldened jihadist groups. Mali, in particular, is struggling to contain JNIM, the Al-Qaeda affiliate that’s blocking fuel imports and advancing towards the country’s capital, Bamako.

A signal or a strategy?

The sustained presence of US surveillance drones over northern Nigeria in late 2025 suggested a deepening intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance effort, rather than a fleeting show of interest.

The Christmas Day strikes reinforced that impression. President Trump framed the operation as a response to extremist violence and what he described as the persecution of Christians, language that immediately reverberated within Nigeria’s already polarised political landscape.

Malik Samuel, a Nigerian security researcher, told HumAngle that such rhetoric risks undermining the US counter-terrorism operation by “setting one religious group against another, as has been seen before”. 

Trump has repeatedly framed the entirety of Nigeria’s conflicts as a Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative that has been widely debunked and is seen to likely cast US intervention in a negative light—especially in the Muslim majority areas in the northern region, where terrorism has been most severe and misinformation about US intervention is prevalent. Although President Trump recently acknowledged that Muslims are also being killed, he continues to emphasise religious persecution as a major reason behind his intervention.

For several local security analysts, such as Bernett, this ambiguity is itself a warning sign. “The lack of clarity over what the US military objectives are in Nigeria raises the spectre of mission creep and a more open-ended and indecisive US military presence,” he cautions, one that could begin to resemble Somalia or the Sahel.

At the same time, he notes that the strikes may have been largely symbolic. After an initial show of force, the US may retreat to behind-the-scenes support, particularly as West Africa “is not much of a priority for the administration on the whole”. 

This interpretation appears consistent with developments on Tuesday, January 13, when the US, through its Africa Command (AFRICOM), announced that it had supplied military equipment to the Nigerian armed forces for counterterrorism operations. Although the nature of the equipment was not disclosed, the move suggests that the US intends to work with the Nigerian government rather than acting unilaterally, an approach that has historically yielded limited success in counterterrorism efforts.

Whether signal or strategy, the strikes nonetheless marked a shift. For years, US involvement in Nigeria’s security crisis had been indirect, centred on arms sales, training, and intelligence sharing. The December 25 operation moved Nigeria closer to the category of countries where the US is willing to act directly, even if cautiously.

Yet Nigeria’s security crisis predates foreign attention and is unlikely to be resolved by it alone. What began in 2009 with Boko Haram’s uprising has since metastasised into a complex web of conflicts across much of the country’s northern region. 

Despite sustained military operations, the Nigerian state has struggled to impose lasting control. Airstrikes have killed commanders but rarely dismantled networks. Ground operations remain constrained by logistics, allegations of human rights abuses, and deep mistrust between communities and security forces.

If the US continues with airstrikes, it will lead to problems, ranging from mistakenly hitting civilians instead of terrorists to opening up opportunities for terrorists to launch attacks on the population. If this happens, achieving the expected success will be difficult because locals will avoid engaging with the operation.

This environment, Bernett warns, is particularly vulnerable to retaliation dynamics. “There are indications that jihadist militants in both the North West and the North East have been targeting civilians, including Christians, in retaliation for the airstrikes,” he said. The pattern mirrors Nigeria’s own past experience, where terrorists “punish civilians after getting hit” and exploit any civilian casualties for propaganda and recruitment.

This is what happened after the US attack in Sokoto. Villagers told HumAngle that Lakurawa terrorists increasingly sought refuge within civilian settlements, avoiding the Bauni Mountains where they usually operate. This suggests that the terrorists are using civilians as cover, so that if another attack occurs, many innocent civilians are likely to lose their lives.

Airpower alone, he adds, is “hardly ever decisive in defeating insurgencies” and can even trigger short-term spikes in violence if not paired with effective ground coordination and civilian protection.

Christians have been targeted in brutal attacks, but Muslims have also been killed in large numbers by the same militant groups. Entire Muslim communities have been displaced or accused of complicity. Analysts warn that jihadist groups are adept at exploiting polarising narratives, turning rhetoric into a recruitment tool.

Samuel believes that even if the US proceeds with a ground operation, it will not achieve the success it seeks because, from the start, the issue was approached in the wrong way. “If the problem had been framed as a fight solely against terrorists, almost everyone would have welcomed it, as they would have seen it as a call for help,” he noted. 

Nigeria differs in important ways from past theatres of US intervention. It is not a collapsed state propped up by foreign forces, as Afghanistan was, it retains functioning national institutions and regional influence, in contrast to Somalia. Its military is large, experienced, and politically embedded, even if its effectiveness is uneven.

The conflict itself is also more fragmented. Armed actors pursue overlapping but distinct agendas shaped by local grievances, economic desperation, and regional instability. Any attempt to impose a single counter-terrorism framework risks misunderstanding the violence it seeks to confront.

Religion further complicates the picture. Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, and both communities have suffered devastating losses. External narratives that frame the conflict primarily as religious persecution risk inflaming tensions and erasing shared suffering.

At the local level, Bernett warns, foreign strikes risk “further undermining trust between communities and the state or between Muslims and Christians”, particularly in areas where state presence is already minimal.

Nationally, Nigeria is deeply polarised, with tensions likely to rise ahead of the 2027 elections. US strikes, Bernett notes, will become part of Nigeria’s political discourse, shaped not only by America’s actions but also by domestic actors seeking advantage.

What comes next

Bernett is sceptical that Washington is prepared for a sustained commitment. “I’m quite doubtful that the US government will dedicate the resources, bandwidth, and patience to degrading any militant group decisively over the long haul,” he says. 

The Christmas strikes, he adds, were “flashy” and accompanied by bold rhetoric that may raise expectations the US is unlikely to meet.

If American involvement remains limited, discreet, and tightly coordinated, it may help disrupt specific threats. If it expands without clarity, legitimacy, or attention to civilian harm, it risks deepening instability.

Ultimately, Nigeria’s long war will not be decided by drones or warplanes alone. Its future hinges on governance, trust, and political choices that no foreign power can impose. America’s experience elsewhere suggests that how it fights matters as much as whether it fights at all.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused President Donald Trump and the US of being behind the deaths of ‘several thousand’ people during weeks of anti-government protests, alleging direct foreign involvement in the violence.

University students have proposed banning corrupt officials from politics and investigating their wealth.

Thousands of people have rallied in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, as university students who have led more than a year of mass demonstrations pledged to continue fighting against endemic corruption during the tenure of right-wing nationalist President Aleksandar Vucic.

Protesters, chanting “thieves”, accused the government of rampant corruption. University students told the crowd on Saturday that they had drawn up a plan on how to rid Serbia of corruption and restore the rule of law. They proposed banning corrupt officials from politics and investigating their wealth as first steps for a post-Vucic government.

The protest was dubbed “What victory will mean”. Last month, students said they had collected about 400,000 signatures in support of their election bid.

The next protest rally is planned for January 27 in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, organisers said.

Regular student-led protests have gripped Serbia since a November 2024 train station disaster in the northern city killed 16 people, becoming a symbol of entrenched corruption.

Thirteen people, including former Construction Minister Goran Vesic, were charged in a criminal case over the collapse. The Novi Sad High Court dropped the charges against Vesic last month, citing a lack of evidence.

A separate anticorruption inquiry continues alongside a European Union-backed investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds in the project.

Tens of thousands of people marked the first anniversary of the train station roof collapse in Novi Sad in November, observing 16 minutes of silence for the 16 victims of the tragedy.

The protests over the station’s collapse have led to the resignation of the prime minister, the fall of his government and the formation of a new one. But Vucic has remained defiantly in office.

Vucic has denied accusations of corruption and regularly labelled demonstrators as foreign-funded coup plotters, while members of his SNS party pushed conspiracy theories, claiming that the train station roof collapse may have been an orchestrated attack.

Vucic has refused to schedule an immediate early election that students have demanded. Hundreds of people have been detained, or reported losing their jobs or facing pressure for opposing the government.

Vucic came to power more than a decade ago, promising to take Serbia into the EU. But he has since strengthened ties with Russia and China, while facing accusations of curbing democratic freedoms in Serbia and allowing corruption and organised crime to flourish.

The student movement has garnered big support among Serbs who are largely disillusioned with mainstream politicians. Vucic has accused the students of working under unspecified Western orders to “destroy Serbia”.

The U.S. Navy is putting major emphasis on containerized weapons and other systems to make up for limitations in the built-in capabilities of its forthcoming FF(X) frigates. The design’s lack of an integrated Vertical Launch System (VLS), which TWZ was first to confirm, and other capabilities, has prompted questions and criticism. As it stands now, the FF(X)s will have nearly the same armament installed as the Navy’s much-maligned Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

Navy officials shared new details about the FF(X) design, which is derived from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Legend class National Security Cutter (NSC), at the Surface Navy Association’s (SNA) annual symposium this week, at which TWZ was in attendance. The service rolled out the new frigate program last month. The announcement followed the cancellation of the abortive Constellation class program, which had been intended to address the chronic shortcomings of the LCSs, but had turned into its own boondoggle.

“We are pursuing a design [for FF(X)] that is producible, it has been proven, it is operationally in use today, and it will evolve,” Chris Miller, Executive Director at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told attendees at the SNA conference yesterday.

The Navy’s FF(X) frigate design, as it exists now, is 421 feet long, has a beam (the width of the hull at its widest point) of 54 feet, and displaces 4,750 tons. It can sail at up to 28 knots, has a range of 12,000 nautical miles, and an endurance of 60 days. For comparison, the Coast Guard says its NSCs are 418 feet in length, have a 54-foot beam, and a displacement of 4,500 tons. The previously planned Constellation class frigate was a significantly larger ship that displaced thousands of tons more.

In terms of integrated capabilities, the ships will have a 57mm main gun in a turret on the bow, as well as a 30mm automatic cannon mounted on the rear of the main superstructure alongside a point defense launcher that will be loaded with up to 21 RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM). They will also feature an AN/ALQ-32(V)6 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block II suite, launchers for expendable Nulka decoys, and an AN/SPS-77 Sea Giraffe medium-range multi-mode surveillance radar. There is a flight deck and hangars at the stern that will allow for the embarkation of helicopters and uncrewed aerial vehicles. The 30mm cannon, RAM launcher, and Sea Giraffe radar are not found on the Coast Guard’s NSCs, which also have an earlier variant of the SEWIP system. Both ships have a standard crew complement of 148.

The biggest difference between the NSC and the FF(X) is the Navy’s plans to use the fantails on the latter ships as a space for containerized weapon systems and other modular payloads.

“We are going to evolve it over time. Everybody keeps asking me, what about this? What about that?” NAVSEA’s Miller said. “You know, my answer back is, I care about getting this ship into production, [and then] learning, adapting, and figuring out what this ship needs to grow into.”

“The vision here is we will have capability in a box,” he added. “I think you all will agree that we have come a long ways in our ability to use shipping containers, and I am excited.”

The Navy says it is looking first at installing launchers for up to 16 Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), a stealthy anti-ship cruise missile with secondary land attack capability already, or as many as 48 AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The Navy has also presented the Hellfire armament option as being focused on knocking down hostile drones, though they could be employed against other target sets. As noted, the NSC-based frigates will not have an integrated VLS array, at least initially.

“We developed these [FF(X) requirements based on what we thought we needed in a frigate,” Rear Adm. Derek Trinque, head of the Navy’s surface warfare division, or N96, also said while speaking alongside Miller and other members of a panel yesterday. “There was a lot of desire to put an awful lot of expensive capability into these ships. And that would have been cool, except that wasn’t really what we needed, because we have in the Flight III [Arleigh Burke class] destroyers coming down the ways right now, the large surface combatants that are appropriate for today.”

This is a pronounced shift in thinking from what led to Constellation class program, which explicitly sought a larger and more capable warship to make up for the shortcomings of the Navy’s two classes of LCSs.

The LCS program also notably focused heavily on modular capability packages, or modules, to help give those ships flexibility to perform different mission sets as required. In practice, the Navy has deployed LCSs with largely fixed configurations. More recently, the service has been looking to containerized weapon systems as a way to bolster the still-lacking firepower of those ships.

“I want to distinguish between LCS mission modules and containerized payloads. One of the challenges with LCS mission modules was we were taking systems that did not yet exist and marrying them with a ship that we were just starting to build,” Rear Adm. Trinque explained. For FF(X), “we are going to take existing systems and to all intents and purposes, put them in a box with an interface to the ship’s combat system. That will make this work, and it will allow [for] rapid switch out of capability, [and] rapid addition of capability.”

NAVSEA’s Miller also stressed the benefits containerized payloads would offer in terms of being able to “burn down risk.” A system that does not prove itself or is otherwise found not to meet the Navy’s needs could simply be unloaded from the ship and readily replaced with something else.

It is important to note here that the containerized payloads the Navy is eyeing for FF(X) could include more than just additional weapons. This modularity is seen, in particular, as a way to address the design’s current lack of a built-in sonar array (fixed and/or towed) and other anti-submarine warfare capabilities, which were expected to be another important feature of the Constellation class frigate. In 2022, the Navy also scrapped plans for an anti-submarine warfare missions module for its LCSs.

“We are not walking away from ASW [anti-submarine warfare] at all. We are all in on ASW,” Rear Adm. Joseph Cahill, Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic, another member of the panel at SNA yesterday, declared. At the same time, he put emphasis on the Navy’s workhorse Arleigh Burke class destroyers as the main warship for executing that mission, while also acknowledging how other assets, and not just at sea, could contribute to the anti-submarine fight.

Overall, the Navy has made no secret that its main goal with FF(X) is to get hulls in the water as quickly as possible to start helping make up for shortfalls now in its surface fleets. The hope is that this will also have a positive impact on the naval shipbuilding industry in the United States by jump-starting demand for work that could be spread across multiple yards, as you can read more about here. The service has expressed a clear willingness to trade capability, at least up front, to meet its aggressive timeline goals. The hope is that the first FF(X) will be in the water by 2028.

The schedule for the delivery of the future USS Constellation had slipped to 2029 at the earliest before that program was cancelled. The Navy had awarded the first contract for those ships in 2020. The Constellation class design was also based on a proven in-production frigate, the Franco-Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM; European Multi-Mission Frigate in English). However, successive changes meant that it ultimately had just 15 percent in common with its European ‘parent.’

“This ship [FF(X)] is done being designed,” NAVSEA’s Miller said yesterday. “We are going to go through a very, very, very – like, on one hand – number of engineering changes to get it to be what we want.”

“This frigate is designed off of a proven blue water modern hull, [the] NSC. That hull is designed following Navy rules, standard structural ship design Navy rules for the Navy,” Rear Adm. Trinque also noted, in part to address separate questions about vulnerability and survivability in using a ship based on design intended for Coast Guard use. “It’s a very, very common rule set that we’re familiar with back to DDG-51 [the Arleigh Burke class destroyer]. That’s how that platform was designed. So, there’s commonality in the robustness of that design, and that’s something that we would leverage and depend on in looking towards the ability to address the vulnerability issue.”

There are still questions about whether the focus on containerized payloads will hamper the FF(X)’s operational utility, even as the Navy works to evolve the design. The missile options the Navy has presented so far are decidedly limited compared to the 32-cell Mk 41 VLS array that was a central requirement for the Constellation class, each of which would also have carried 16 NSMs. TWZ previously explored in detail earlier questions about whether that was even a sufficient number of VLS cells for that ship to perform its expected missions. On top of this, the Navy is looking at major losses in total VLS capacity in its surface and submarine fleets with the impending retirement of the last of the Ticonderoga class cruisers and its four Ohio class guided missile submarines toward the end of the decade.

Though containerized payloads do offer flexibility, any ship can only be configured in one way at a time, on top of only being able to be in a single place at once. As an example, the Navy would not be able to readily re-task an FF(X) at sea and loaded for the surface strike mission to go hunt submarines. The service does see the frigates being deployed as part of larger surface action groups, which would have the benefit of a wider array of capabilities spread across multiple types.

“If one of those things is something that we need to get into the design of the ship [FF(X)], [it] is something that we will go consider,” NAVSEA’s Miller did add yesterday. “We will figure out what has to be done, but we’ll do it in a smart, controlled way. I am trying to control the appetite.”

Integrating a VLS and other capabilities into the existing FF(X) design is certainly a possibility in the future, but it could be a complex and costly proposition if the design is not configured to accommodate those additional features to begin with. The Navy will likely look to build more substantially modified versions of the ship in future ‘flights’ down the line, as it has done with some other classes. Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which designed the NSC and is now working on FF(X), has done work in the past on other design concepts in this general family that have VLS arrays, as well as expanded suites of sensors and other systems, as seen in the video below.

Patrol Frigate Variants – Information Video

The Navy is also planning to further bolster the FF(X)’s built-in capabilities by deploying them as motherships for future fleets of uncrewed surface vessels, likely offering a distributed arsenal, as well as additional sensors. As TWZ previously wrote:

“In this way, an FF(X) could still call upon a deeper and more flexible array of weapon options without having to have a VLS integrated directly onto the ship. The uncrewed platforms would also be able to operate across a much broader area than any single crewed frigate and present a different risk calculus for operating in higher-risk environments. All of this would expand the overall reach of the combined force and present targeting challenges for opponents. But there are also substantial development and operational risks with this kind of arrangement. As it sits, this kind of autonomous vessel and manned vessel teaming is still in development. Operationally, leaving the ship without, or with very limited, area defense capability is at odds with many future threat scenarios.”

This last point underscores some of the biggest still unanswered questions about FF(X). There does not appear to be any explicit talk so far about options for expanding the frigate’s anti-air arsenal beyond its integrated point defense capabilities and add-on counter-drone interceptors. BAE Systems has been working on a Next Generation Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Launch System (NGELS) based on its modular Adaptable Deck Launching System (ADL) for the U.S. Navy and American allies. Around SNA, the company also put out a computer-generated video showing a containerized launcher firing a surface-to-air missile from an uncrewed surface vessel. There could be other options, but it is unclear how many Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles or other longer-range SAMs in total could be loaded on the FF(X)’s fantail. The ship’s sensor suite may limit just how many aerial targets can be engaged rapidly and what type, as well. A lack of radar illuminators would prevent the use of some legacy anti-air missiles.

The lack of any real anti-air warfare and area defense capability is one of the biggest criticisms leveled at the Navy’s existing LCS fleets, and that imposes limitations on their ability to conduct more independent operations. Anti-air and anti-submarine warfare capabilities would be very relevant, if not critical, for the kinds of missions one would expect to assign to a frigate in a future major conflict, such as convoy escort.

Overall, despite its clear hope that the FF(X)s will eventually take on many roles in a variety of operational contexts, there are signs already that the Navy is looking at a relatively limited mission set for these ships to start, and one that aligns more with how it is employing its LCSs today.

“In 1995, I did counter-drug ops in my first ship, [the Ticonderoga class cruiser] USS Philippine Sea. Using a guided missile cruiser, or nowadays a guided missile destroyer, for counter-narcotics ops is a choice I don’t want the fleet commander to have to go through,” Rear Adm. Trinque said during the panel at SNA. “So there are great photos of [the Arleigh Burke class destroyer] USS Sampson having successfully completed counter narcotics ops in the Eastern Pacific recently, and I think that puts Vice Adm. [John F. G.] Wade [commander of the Eastern Pacific-facing U.S. Third Fleet] in a bad position.”

Adding more blue water hulls to the Navy’s surface fleets would certainly be a boon and offer valuable capacity to help free up larger warships for missions that are more in need of their capabilities, but this will require ships that can perform useful missions. At the moment, the Navy is betting big on the ability to swap out containerized payloads to give FF(X) what it will need to have a meaningful impact.

Eric Tegler contributed to this story.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Remarkable videos have emerged showing the dramatic failure of an Israeli Air Force (IAF) helicopter sling-load operation, involving a CH-53 Sea Stallion carrying a UH-60 Black Hawk, resulting in the transported rotorcraft plummeting to the ground. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported among any of the crew or on the ground, but the incident does illustrate the fine margins involved during these kinds of missions.

WILD FOOTAGE ?

Fresh video shows a damaged Israeli Air Force UH 60 Black Hawk going down during transport near Gush Etzion (close to Jerusalem) pic.twitter.com/abJ4L3M398

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 16, 2026

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the sling-load operation was originally launched to recover an IAF Yanshuf medium-lift helicopter — the local name for the S-70/UH-60 Black Hawk. The Yanshuf had made an emergency landing earlier this week when it encountered bad weather in the Gush Etzion area, directly south of Jerusalem, in the West Bank.

Earlier today, a Yasur (S-65/CH-53 Sea Stallion) heavy-lift helicopter was sent to recover the Yanshuf, using the sling-load method. It’s unclear what exactly went wrong at this point, but the IDF confirmed that the damaged aircraft became detached while being airlifted.

Subsequent images reveal the Yanshuf lying on its side in rocky terrain, with the tail boom broken off, but otherwise largely intact. Nearby is another Yanshuf, which had landed at the crash site, having also been involved in the recovery effort.

The chief of the IAF, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, has ordered a military investigative committee to work out what happened.

The CH-53 has long been a go-to platform for sling-load operations, most prominently with the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marine Corps, in particular, is expected to undertake these types of recoveries both in peacetime and especially during a conflict. For a fight in the Pacific, being able to rapidly pluck stricken aircraft from remote locales is regarded as a critical capability, with the latest CH-53K King Stallion version bringing additional performance in this regard.

The CH-53K was originally cleared to conduct a 27,000-pound external lift, subsequently increased to 36,000 pounds. The CH-53K can also lift heavier objects for longer distances compared to its predecessor. Externally, it is designed to carry up to 27,000 pounds over a distance of 110 nautical miles in a high and hot environment. This is compared to the CH-53E’s ability to carry 9,654 pounds over the same distance.

CH-53K lifts F-35C

Sling-load operations involving aircraft are an especially delicate balance act. As well as the sling being strong enough for the load, the overall set-up of the rig, as well as the pitch and bank attitudes of the aircraft being transported, and its control surface states, where applicable, need to be worked out in advance. Should something go wrong during the flight, there remains the option of jettisoning the load, as in the video below. This could be required if the payload starts moving dangerously outside of parameters, or if there is any issue with the transporting aircraft, such as a loss of power. In this case, we don’t know if the crew deliberately jettisoned the load.

A CH-53E jettisons a CH-47 carried as a slung load during operations in Afghanistan, after it began to swing out of control:

CH-53e lost control over CH-47 Chinook

As to the aircraft involved in the mishap, the Yanshuf (Desert Owl in Hebrew) is the workhorse of the IAF’s rotary-wing fleet. First acquired in the mid-1990s, the fleet comprises ex-U.S. Army UH-60A/L aircraft as well as new-build UH-60Ls, the last of which arrived in 2002. More recently, Israel has ordered ex-U.S. Navy SH-60F Seahawks as its new naval helicopters, which will be used aboard the Israeli Navy’s Sa’ar 6 class missile corvettes.

The Yanshuf has been widely used in the IDF’s various campaigns and has undergone local modifications, including a new self-protection system and hoist. Some of the aircraft have been additionally configured with external fuel tanks and an in-flight refueling probe for longer-range missions. The Yanshuf fleet is split between two squadrons at Palmachim Air Base and Hatzerim Air Base.

As for the Yasur (Petrel in Hebrew), this is very much the veteran of the IAF’s helicopter fleet.

The first S-65s began to be supplied to Israel in 1969, during the War of Attrition. These aircraft were then supplemented by former U.S. Marine Corps CH-53As, delivered in two batches in 1974 and in 1991. In the 1990s, survivors were upgraded to the Yasur 2000 standard and, with no replacement in sight, they were then brought up to the Yasur 2025 standard in the 2000s.

Between them, the Yasur 2000/2025 upgrades brought modernized avionics, structural improvements, new self-protection equipment, communication systems, and terrain-avoidance systems.

Two IAF squadrons were equipped with Yasur helicopters, both operating from Tel Nof Air Base, but these have more recently been combined as a single super-squadron at the same location. Some aircraft have been converted for electronic warfare missions, as you can read about here.

For both the Yanshuf and Yasur, the primary role is troop transport, but they also regularly fly search and rescue and combat search and rescue (CSAR) missions. The latter usually involve carrying teams from the elite Unit 669.

Due to its age, the Yasur fleet is becoming more difficult to operate and maintain, something that has become increasingly apparent in recent years. In November 2019, a Yasur made an emergency landing after a fire broke out on board. Everyone on the helicopter escaped unscathed, but the CH-53 was destroyed. The incident led to the grounding of the entire fleet. In January 2020, two weeks after that grounding was lifted, another Yasur had to make an emergency landing due to a technical issue. Three months later, yet another one of the helicopters suffered a technical fault that forced it to land. More recently, the Yasur has suffered combat attrition, with one example being destroyed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, with no casualties reported among the dozens of troops (plus crew) on board.

The IAF is now looking forward to updating its helicopter fleet, while retaining and even enhancing its heavy-lift capabilities, through the acquisition of the CH-53K — which will be named Onager (a type of wild donkey).

In 2021, Israel officially selected the CH-53K, which was developed for the U.S. Marine Corps, and which was chosen in favor of a variant of Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook. An initial batch of 12 is on order at a cost of around $2 billion.

“It [the CH-53K] is essential to the IDF’s ability to carry out a wide range of operational activities,” the then Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz said at the time. “The new helicopter is adapted to the [IAF’s] operational requirements and to the challenges of the changing battlefield.”

Once the CH-53Ks arrive, the Israeli Air Force will be even better equipped to carry out heavy-lift rotary transport tasks, including sling-load operations. While we don’t yet know what went wrong in this morning’s sling-load sortie, the incident does underscore the inherent challenges in these kinds of movements. For now, we should be thankful that no one was injured as a result.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Doumbouya was declared victor in the West African country’s first election since he led the 2021 military takeover.

Mamady Doumbouya, a general who led a 2021 military takeover in Guinea, has been sworn in as the West African country’s president.

The Saturday event, which took place in front of tens of thousands of supporters and several heads of state, came after Doumbaya was declared the victor in last month’s election.

The vote was the first since Doumbouya toppled President Alpha Conde four years ago.

Although he initially pledged not to run for president after seizing power, Doumbouya ultimately stood for election against eight other candidates. However, his most prominent opponents remained in exile, with the opposition calling for a boycott of the poll.

The West African country’s Supreme Court later said Doumbouya received 86.7 percent of the vote.

Dressed in a traditional gown, Doumbouya swore an oath to uphold the constitution – which had recently been altered to allow him to stand – during an hours-long ceremony at the General Lansana Conte Stadium on the outskirts of the capital, Conakry.

“I swear before God and before the people of Guinea, on my honour, to respect and faithfully enforce the Constitution, the laws, regulations and judicial decisions,” he said.

Heads of state from Rwanda, The Gambia, Senegal and other African countries joined the event, as did the vice presidents of China, Nigeria, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, as well as officials from France and the United States.

Assimi Goita, a general who has led neighbouring Mali since a military takeover in 2020, was also in attendance.

The election came after Guineans approved a new constitution in September that permitted members of the military leadership to run for office. It also lengthened presidential terms from five to seven years, setting a two-term limit.

Doumbouya has said the military takeover was justified due to alleged corruption and economic mismanagement under Conde, who in 2010 became the country’s first freely elected president since its 1958 independence.

During four years in power, the military dissolved state institutions and suspended the constitution, as it negotiated with regional bodies, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), over a return to democratic civilian government.

Doumbouya has cracked down on civil liberties, banned protests and targeted political opponents during his time as leader.

With about 52 percent of the population living in poverty, he has promised to tap the country’s vast natural resources, which include untapped iron ore deposits, as well as the world’s largest bauxite reserves.

These are the key developments from day 1,424 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Sunday, January 18:

Fighting

• The General Staff of the Ukrainian military has estimated that Russian forces have lost about 1,225,590 personnel since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
• The office also reported that Russia has lost an estimated 11,569 tanks, 23,914 armoured fighting vehicles, 74,601 vehicles and fuel tanks, 36,261 artillery systems, 1,615 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,278 air defence systems, 434 aeroplanes, 347 helicopters, 108,605 drones, 28 ships and boats, and two submarines. Casualty figures for both sides since the beginning of the war have been difficult to independently verify.
• The Russian TASS news agency reported that Russian forces have captured the settlement of Pryvillya in the Donetsk region and Pryluky
  in the Zaporizhia region, citing the Ministry of Defence in Moscow.
• The ministry said that Ukrainian forces lost about 1,305 personnel in the last 24 hours, and that Russian air defences shot down 214 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones and two long-range Neptune missiles.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry also said that it carried out attacks on Ukrainian energy and transportation infrastructure across 167 locations over the past 24 hours, along with deployment areas for Ukrainian forces and “ammunition depots, assembly workshops, storage sites, pre-flight preparation and launch sites for long-range unmanned aerial vehicles”.

Energy strikes

• Russian forces continued their campaign of strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over Saturday night, carrying out attacks in the Kyiv and Odesa regions, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy. Ukrainian authorities have characterised the Russian attacks as an effort to weaponise the current cold weather, degrading the country’s energy system.
• Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a post on the messaging app Telegram that more than 20 settlements in the Kyiv area were left without power as a result of the strikes.
• The mayor of the city of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said that constant Russian attacks were straining the energy system of Ukraine’s second-largest city, stating the system that provides residents with essentials, such as heating and electricity, was “constantly operating at its limits”. He said that three people were injured in overnight strikes.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an energy coordination meeting that the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia are facing the most acute energy challenges. He added that the country must increase energy imports and seek additional equipment from allies.
• The Ukrainian news outlet Kyiv Independent reported that foreign embassies plan to stay in Kyiv despite the power outages, infrastructure issues, and predictions of extreme cold, with weather forecasts predicting temperatures as low as –20 degrees Celsius (–4 degrees Fahrenheit) later this month. The outlet reported that about 80 foreign diplomatic missions are based in Kyiv.
• Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence body has said that Moscow is planning attacks meant to disconnect Ukraine from three nuclear power plants in the coming days. The intelligence agency said those efforts seek to degrade the country’s energy infrastructure and “force Ukraine to accept unacceptable capitulation demands to end the war”.

Peace talks

• A Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for peace talks, with Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, saying he was set to meet with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Secretary of the US Army Dan Driscoll.
• Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Davyd Arakhamia will also take part in the talks in Miami, Florida, on Sunday.
• Zelenskyy said on Friday that the weekend talks would focus on finalising proposals for a future peace agreement on issues such as post-war security guarantees and economic rebuilding.
• Zelenskyy said the delegation would also emphasise the destructive role of continued Russian strikes on Ukraine, adding that the attacks are “constantly worsening” the already strained possibilities of reaching a peaceful settlement to end the war.
• If the Trump administration reaches an agreement with Ukraine on a proposal, the two countries could sign a document at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. Any such proposal would also have to gain Russian support.

Diplomacy

• The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the Trump administration’s threats to seize control of Greenland and slap tariffs on European allies that defy him should not be allowed to undermine the focus on bringing an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which she called the bloc’s “core task”.
• Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev ridiculed European leaders for deploying military members to Greenland as Trump continues to threaten the self-governing Danish territory and NATO member, saying in a social media post targeted at EU chief Ursula von der Leyen that European countries should not “provoke the daddy”.
• French President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for Denmark and Greenland, saying that the concept of sovereignty motivates France’s support for Ukraine and that Europe must take steps to ensure that the continent’s “sovereignty is upheld”.
• Zelenskyy announced Ukrainian sanctions targeting individuals and organisations tied to Russian athletics ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, saying that Moscow uses “sports venues to spread anti-Ukrainian narratives and Russian propaganda”. The Russian national team is banned from competing, but Russian athletes may participate as “neutral athletes”.

Zach Sutton, a mechanical engineer from Detroit, calls his car Bak2Bak. It is built from the front ends of two old Chrysler vehicles, one made in Canada, the other in the United States.

Sutton says he didn’t know the origins of the parts when he bought them, but later found the pairing felt serendipitous. He describes the two countries as close “sister countries” making the hybrid design feel fitting.

The quirky vehicle turns heads on the streets of Detroit. Sutton says the project was never meant to be serious, but fun and accessible, a light-hearted symbol that delivers, as he puts it, “a lot of smiles per gallon.”

Video by Eloise Alanna