TODAY

Ukraine replaced its top military and political defence personnel in the past week even as its armed forces arguably achieved their best performance in three years.

Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s ouster on July 15 was followed six days later by the replacement of Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii. Both men were followed out the door by some of their most capable lieutenants.

Ukraine seemed to have found a winning formula, making 2026 Russia’s worst year of the war for manpower losses, territory and economic performance at home.

Some 193,500 Russian troops have been killed or seriously wounded so far this year, said Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence – averaging losses of 32,000 a month for the first time, according to Syrskii – and Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service estimates Moscow is unable to reach recruitment targets.

This pain has produced a net gain of just 81.1sq km for Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that assesses territorial movements using geolocated open sources, and the trend of gains to losses is improving in Ukraine’s favour.

If June was a disastrous month for the Russian operation, netting it just 30sq km, July has so far been worse, with Russian forces making net losses of 1.6sq km a day, according to the ISW.

Meanwhile, Russia’s war economy, which boomed in 2022-24, has seen growth this year flatten at just 0.2 percent, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted.

Ukraine has replaced defence ministers and commanders-in-chief before, but this was the first simultaneous shake-up of the war and seems to have come amid an internal debate about strategy.

On the day after Fedorov’s ouster, which produced street protests against the move, Syrskii spoke of “an effective strategy that is currently demonstrating concrete results”.

A day after his own sacking, Syrskii wrote a column on the Militarnyi news website saying, “The Minister should not … be a war strategist. This is not his task and not his responsibility.”

“War strategy, planning of operations, the situation on the front — by law, I am responsible to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” he said.

The nub of disagreement seems to have been unmanned warfare.

Syrskii created the world’s first Unmanned Systems Forces, the SBS, and fought the world’s first war in which First Person View (FPV) drones caused an estimated 95 percent of enemy casualties.

Ukraine’s middle and long-distance drones have devastated Russian logistics and oil supply, slackening the force it can deliver to the front.

Fedorov pressed hard in this direction during his six months on the job, buying more drones in four months than the Defence Ministry had bought in all of 2025, and even spending soldiers’ payroll money to swell orders.

Syrskii disagreed. “Against us is an enemy that is superior in everything, who fights, in particular, with artillery, aviation, and infantry. I cannot transfer a million-strong army ‘to drones’ in two months and say: now we are fighting like this,” he wrote on Militarnyi.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who recently told The Financial Times that “the sky will be decisive in this war,” said on July 20 he was “continuing to determine what adjustments should be made to Ukraine’s defence strategy and what priorities in production and supply to the military must be implemented as quickly as possible”.

What is Ukraine doing that is working?

Ukraine developed the use of short-range drones on the battlefield to reduce its own exposure and lower casualties. That strategy has yielded results, effectively halting Russia’s advance this year.

Syrskii said Ukraine gained more territory than it lost in May, the month in which it began to strike Russian logistics using the overland route from Russia into its southern regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson.

By the end of May, Ukraine was also disrupting logistics in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, forcing Russia to float fuel and materiel across the Sea of Azov to Crimea. Ukraine then targeted those ships.

Since June 6, Ukraine’s commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces Robert Brovdi said, Ukraine had disabled 196 fuel tankers and destroyed three-quarters of Russia’s ferry capacity across the Kerch Strait, the closest crossing from Russia’s Krasnodar Krai to Crimea.

As an added benefit, Brovdi said, Russia had been forced to redeploy 200 units of its own unmanned forces command, called Rubicon, to protect an equal number of ships, weakening its frontline.

“That’s how many vessels will be destroyed by SBS “Birds” in the Black and Azov Seas during the remainder of July and the first half of August – it’s a matter of honor,” he wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

The SBS has also struck 117 electrical substations and power stations this month, Brovdi said, most of them in Crimea, plunging much of the peninsula into darkness.

Apart from hampering the armed forces and the economy, that has been a drain on Moscow, which was earmarking five billion rubles ($64mn) in compensation for darkened homes and furloughed employees, in addition to measures announced the week before.

Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said Russian shipping had been paralysed in the Sea of Azov, and that the Kerch Bridge was being allowed to stand “so that the Russians can leave the Ukrainian Crimea,” because “it will reduce our losses during possible future actions directly in Crimea.”

Ukraine’s long-range strikes this week destroyed a Tupolev-95 strategic bomber at the Engels airfield 800km from Ukraine, and a MiG-29 fighter plane at the Khalino airfield in Kursk, in addition to numerous air defence radars and launchers.

Ukraine also struck the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in Yaroslavl, which it described as the largest “in the central part of the country”.

In a shift from its usual military and energy targets, Ukraine struck four warehouses of the Wildberries online retail group, which it suspects Russian recruits use to order much of their protective gear and weapons.

Russia has retaliated this month by targeting Ukraine’s port infrastructure on the Black Sea, to prevent it from exporting the grain harvest.

Container shipper Maersk said on July 22 it was diverting container traffic originally intended to be offloaded at Odesa or Chornomorsk to Romania’s Constanta. This also meant that Ukrainian outbound container traffic waiting in Chornomorsk could not be loaded unless moved to Constanta.

Ukraine has retaliated in turn, claiming to have bottled up Russia’s grain exports coming down the Don river to the Sea of Azov, via which Russia exports 30 percent of its grain.

Russia is also retaliating by increasing the number of ballistic missiles in its nightly strikes on Ukraine’s cities.

Since June 26, Russia has included missiles in almost every strike, contrary to past practice, when it held back its missiles for one massive combined missile and drone strike a week.

Ukraine says it has learned how to intercept 95 percent of drones and 87 percent of cruise missiles, but fewer than half of Russia’s ballistics.

“You hope that ballistics will do for you what everything else has failed to do,” Zelenskyy wrote to Putin in June.

An analysis by Militarnyi suggested Russia was dipping into its missile reserves to achieve this, using more than its monthly production capacity in the first two weeks of July.

This is concerning, Jess Phillips told us: “Not even training your moderators on your website. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Unlike some other swinging sites, FabSwingers does not require identity verification, which can make it harder for police to identify suspects when allegations are reported. It also means a banned user can create a new account – although FabSwingers says it can detect this, without explaining how it does so.

FabSwingers told the BBC its moderation processes involve up to five site administrators, who moderators report to, alongside AI and “automated controls”.

Since 2023, the website has been mentioned in at least 329 police reports across the UK – according to Freedom of Information requests submitted by the BBC – including in allegations of rape, sexual offences, coercive control, harassment, blackmail, stalking, assault and possession of extreme pornography. Although, it does not mean FabSwingers was responsible for what was alleged in the reports.

Jess Phillips said she believes the site “falls foul” of the Online Safety Act, adding she would encourage the regulator Ofcom “to look into it very, very seriously right now and shut it down”.

Ofcom says it is “extremely concerned” to hear of the BBC’s findings and is speaking to the site’s provider, but it has not so far launched an investigation.

The vast majority of those contacting the BBC were women who wanted to thank Ruth O’Grady, the subject of the Swingers podcast, for sharing her story.

“I’m still not in a place where I want anyone I love to know some of these things about my past,” one woman told us. “But I feel a little less alone now.”

If you would like to contact BBC Journalist Catrin Nye and the Swingers investigation team about this story you can email on swingersinvestigation@bbc.co.uk, external

Additional research by Emily Parsons

EDITOR’S ANALYSIS

Houthi blockade for now is shaping who moves Saudi crude, not whether it moves, analysts say, even as oil prices soar.

As oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday, experts say they are watching to see which vessels Yemen’s Houthis allow to pass through in the Red Sea as that will indicate how the crude market trends.

Brent futures rose $6.58 or 6.96 percent, to $100.65 a barrel, exceeding $100 for the first time since late May.

That was on the back of the Iran-aligned Houthis saying they were cutting off the passage Riyadh had been using to ship parts of its crude oil once Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to retaliate against United States and Israel attacks.

On Monday, the Yemeni group declared a naval blockade on shipments from Saudi Arabia and said they would target Saudi, Israeli, and United States-linked tankers in the Bab el-Mandeb, which links the Red sea to the Indian Ocean.

On Thursday, the Houthis attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, the group said, with a Saudi news agency later confirming that one of the two vessels was set ablaze.

It is not clear if the second one was also hit, according to marine analysis firm, Windward.

“The Houthis are quite mercurial and there is no complete clarity on what the blockade means,” said Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward.

“We’re watching now the ability of Chinese-owned tankers at [Saudi port] Yanbu if they are allowed to go through Bab el-Mandeb. Two have gone through but those had been loaded before the blockade was announced.”

The Houthis have previously relied on China for help, including for drone components, and “the Chinese have previously had a free pass”, said Bockmann, including between 2023 and 2025 when the Houthis attacked cargo ships aligned with Israel and the US in the Red Sea in the wake of the war on Gaza.

Windward tracking shows the cargo that moved through the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint on July 20 was Saudi in origin but Chinese in crew and destination, and it drew no interdiction. The two vessels passed through the same corridor that Western- and Saudi-linked operators were being warned to avoid.

The enforcement is calibrated to affiliation rather than cargo and the blockade is shaping who moves Saudi crude, not whether it moves, Windward said.

“No one has ever been able to predict their actions… but they know you don’t have to do a lot to get the oil markets to react,” said Bockmann referring to the rise in benchmark oil prices on Thursday.

Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, underscored that the standoff in Bab el-Mandeb is happening while crude buffers have nor been replenished after the peak of the Hormuz crisis earlier this year.

“The multiple chokepoints are new and an example of littoral states looking to use their leverage,” Ziemba said.

Diesel also impacted

For now, both the Houthi threats and the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz through which nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil transited before the US-Israel war on Iran, has sent prices soaring, including at the pump in the US reaching the national average of $4.09 per gallon (3.4 liter).

“Today’s rise in oil prices could cause $0.10 to $0.20 rise over the next week or two per gallon average price in US,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

But De Haan is looking beyond the two straits and says he’s watching the availability of diesel as price per gallon averages $5.34.

“Diesel prices are being impacted more significantly,” he told Al Jazeera.

One reason behind that is that Ukrainian drone attacks have taken offline some of Russia’s oil refineries. The shortages are being felt domestically leading to Russia banning diesel exports, De Haan said.

“Oil exports are one story, but supplies of diesel gasoline, jet fuel is another story,” he said.

Another unknown in the mix is the role of China which, historically has been a major importer but slashed those imports in the past few months, helping stabilise global prices as some pressure on demand eased.

“It’s been one of the reasons that oil prices haven’t gone up dramatically – that china slashed its imports, and no one predicted that,” De Haan said. “For now, we don’t know if china is using its own strategic reserves or if it will start import again.”

Between those geopolitical plays and the upcoming hurricane season in the US, there is “another wildcard ahead for global refining capacity” and prices, De Haan said.

The White House has formally registered its opposition to a move by Congress to block work on the nuclear-powered Trump class battleship unless the U.S. Navy provides assurances that key weapon systems are “sufficiently mature.” The House Armed Services Committee has already demanded a report from the Secretary of the Navy outlining the steps the service is taking to ensure the battleship program won’t exacerbate existing construction delays on aircraft carriers and submarines.

Earlier this week, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Statement of Administration Policy regarding the latest draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027 that is now making its way through the House of Representatives. The document offers support for and opposition to various sections of the proposed legislation, which is also known as H.R. 8800.

“The Administration appreciates that H.R. 8800 would provide authorization of the 18 ships requested in the Budget. These ships are a direct commitment to restoring America’s maritime dominance and maritime industrial base,” OMB’s statement, which was published on July 21, declares. “In addition, the Administration appreciates the bill’s support of the Battleship program by fully authorizing the $1 billion in advance procurement necessary to accelerate the delivery to the Fleet.”

“However, the Administration opposes the bill’s excessive reporting requirements in section 131 regarding the Administration’s priority Battleship program,” it continues. “The Administration strongly opposes any reporting requirements that delay the Battleship program without supporting national security requirements.”

On July 21, USNI News also reported that OMB was pressing members of Congress to include funding to start work on the first Trump class battleship in a proposed temporary spending bill, or Continuing Resolution. A temporary funding package could be needed if legislators cannot pass a more formal budget by September 30, when the current fiscal year ends.

When it comes to Section 131 of H.R. 8800, the provision is brief, but pointed. At the time of writing, it reads, in full:

“The Secretary of the Navy may not enter into a contract or other agreement that includes a scope of work for the construction of the lead ship of the Battleship program until the date on which the Secretary certifies to the congressional defense committees that the weapon systems planned for inclusion in such lead ship are at a sufficiently mature technology readiness level.”

The section does not name any particular weapon systems or define what level of technological readiness would be deemed sufficient. To date, the Navy has described the planned Trump class battleship as a 35,000-ton-displacement warship with a diverse array of weapons. The ship is set to be able to fire nuclear and conventional missiles, including hypersonic types, from several very large Vertical Launch System (VLS) arrays. It will also have an electromagnetic railgun, a pair of traditional 5-inch naval guns, various laser directed energy weapons, and additional weapon systems for close-in defense.

TWZ previously reported on this provision, which has been in the proposed legislation since at least May. As we wrote in the past:

“In terms of technological maturity, the railgun presents particular questions. Between 2005 and 2021, the Navy had an active railgun program. Despite promising developments, plans for an at-sea test were repeatedly pushed back before the entire effort was shelved. Major technical hurdles were cited as a key factor in that decision. The railgun itself was effectively placed in storage at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico.“

“However, it emerged earlier this year that the Navy had conducted a new round of testing of the railgun at WSMR in February 2025. Whether the Navy has any plans to pick up where it left off with this prototype design, which was developed by BAE Systems, or pursue a new one remains unclear. General Atomics, which previously supported U.S. Army railgun efforts, has publicly expressed interest in being involved in arming the Trump class.”

“While the Navy has been very active in developing and fielding laser directed energy weapons, this is another area where the service has faced continued challenges in expanding their operational use. The plans for the Trump class specifically call for a 300-kilowatt-class laser, which is far more powerful than any of the designs the Navy has integrated on its warships to date. The service currently has eight Arleigh Burke class destroyers with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN), as well as another one of those warships with the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS). HELIOS is a 60-kilowatt-class design, though there has been talk about scaling up its power rating to 150 kilowatts. ODIN’s power rating does not appear to be officially confirmed, but it is understood to be significantly lower than that of HELIOS. You can read more about all of this here.”

“The Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missile, another key component of the future Trump class arsenal, is also still in development. The first test launch from a warship, the stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, is expected to come next year. IRCPS is the Navy half of a joint program with the U.S. Army, which is working to field a land-based version of the same missile. The Army refers to its complete weapon system as the Dark Eagle. The Army had suffered significant setbacks in the past with the Dark Eagle, but the service had blamed those issues on the launcher rather than the missile.”

For its part, OMB’s July 21 statement does not respond to any particular concerns that might be raised by Section 131, either.

Section 131 represents just one small portion of the questions, concerns, and criticism that members of Congress have leveled at the Trump class battleship program. The first one of these ships, currently set to be named the USS Defiant, has an estimated price tag of $17 billion. This would make the vessel more expensive than each of the next three Ford class aircraft carriers. The future USS Defiant is also not currently expected to enter service until 2036. The Navy has already outlined plans to order 14 more of these battleships between Fiscal Years 2029 and 2055, as well.

With this in mind, as noted, the House Armed Services Committee has separately asked for a report from the Secretary of the Navy, to be delivered no later than March 1, 2027, on the potential industrial impacts. A particular issue is the strain that work on the Trump class could have on America’s limited nuclear shipbuilding enterprise. Currently, there are only two U.S. shipyards qualified to build nuclear-powered vessels and only one supplier of naval reactors. Currently, the only nuclear-powered ships in the Navy are aircraft carriers and submarines. The service has not operated a nuclear-powered surface combatant in decades, and it has been even longer since one was built in the United States.

TWZ has repeatedly raised questions about the basic industrial capacity to support the battleship program since it was first rolled out to the public in December 2025. It is worth noting here that third, fourth, and fifth Ford class carriers now under construction – the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), and USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82) – have all suffered delays. Concerns are also regularly voiced about potential setbacks in the construction of new Virginia class and Columbia class submarines. Navy officials have been saying for years now that there is little, if any, margin left in the Columbia class delivery timeline, which is a critical matter of national security. It is essential for those boats to be delivered on a tight schedule to ensure there is no gap in the ability of the leg of America’s nuclear triad to meet operational requirements.

The battleship effort is of particular significance to President Donald Trump and has been presented as a signature program for his administration. At the same time, the schedule that has been laid out so far means that major decisions about how to proceed in acquiring these ships, if at all, will run into the next administration. Any delays will only push that timeline further to the right at a time when there are already major competing priorities for defense spending. Some members of Congress have openly questioned whether the battleship effort is the best use of available resources already.

The annual NDAA is still far from being finalized. The House’s version will need to be reconciled with the one being advanced in the Senate before the bill can be put to a vote, let alone sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law (or vetoed). This is a process typically marked by lengthy negotiations, and Section 131, as well as other provisions, could change in the future or be removed entirely.

Whether or not a larger political fight around the Trump class battleship emerges remains to be seen. However, OMB has now made clear publicly that the administration is against the inclusion of the guardrails around the program that the current version of H.R. 8800 proposes to establish.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

A US Democratic Congressman challenges UN Ambassador Mike Waltz during a congressional hearing, playing an Al Jazeera video to question troop safety in Jordan. Some lawmakers do not trust the Trump administration to be open about the danger posed by Iranian strikes on US bases.

The Question Islamabad Has Not Answered

On the night of 16 March 2026, Pakistani warplanes struck a walled compound in Kabul’s ninth police district. Afghan officials say more than four hundred people died. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has independently confirmed at least two hundred and sixty nine deaths and some one hundred and twenty injuries. Islamabad’s account was simple: the site held ammunition and military infrastructure, and any civilian harm followed from secondary explosions rather than the strike itself. Four months later, Amnesty International published an investigation reaching the opposite conclusion, built not on Taliban testimony but on satellite imagery spanning three years, verified video, and independent geolocation of the wreckage. On 9 July, Amnesty asked Pakistan’s foreign ministry for the evidence behind its military target claim. As of publication, no response has arrived. That silence, more than any single photograph, is now doing the analytical work in this dispute.

A Conflict Escalating Since October

The Omid strike did not occur in isolation. Cross border hostilities between Pakistan and the Taliban administration have intensified since October 2025, and the UN mission in Afghanistan has documented more than seven hundred and fifty civilian casualties in the first three months of 2026 alone, spread across a series of Pakistani air operations against targets it describes as militant infrastructure. The Omid center, a drug rehabilitation facility expanded after 2021 to house roughly two thousand patients, was neither obscure nor newly built. Its treatment programs featured in a 2023 Al Jazeera documentary, and signage identifying the site as a medical facility was visible above its main gate. This is the backdrop against which the competing claims about the March strike have to be weighed. It is a theatre where verification has become as contested as the fighting itself, and where each side’s evidentiary standard has become a proxy for its wider legitimacy claim.

How Open Source Evidence Reshaped the Dispute

The strongest version of Pakistan’s position would rest on operational intelligence unavailable to outside observers: a genuine military use of the site that satellite imagery and testimony could not capture, perhaps weapons storage concealed within a facility that also treated patients. That is a coherent claim in the abstract, and cross border conflicts involving non state or quasi state administrations often do see dual use of civilian infrastructure. The problem for Islamabad is not that this claim is inherently implausible. It is that four months of opportunity to substantiate it, including a direct written request from an investigating body, has produced silence rather than documentation.

Set against that silence is a body of evidence that does not depend on Taliban cooperation. Amnesty’s investigators analysed satellite imagery of the compound from April 2023 through 15 March 2026, tracking the site’s physical layout and, in imagery from just three days before the strike, the presence of large numbers of people in the patient and administrative areas. A video recorded in 2025 and verified by the organisation shows the interior housing arrangements for patients. Separately, and this is the detail that most changes the analytical picture, broadcast journalists reviewing Pakistan’s own released strike footage identified at least four buildings struck with guided munitions, while a conflict researcher affiliated with the open source investigation group Bellingcat independently geolocated the strikes to the rehabilitation center’s buildings using imagery unconnected to either Amnesty or the Taliban administration.

This matters because it breaks the framing in which the dispute is simply Pakistan’s word against an adversary regime’s word. Geolocation from Pakistan’s own footage and independent satellite analysis are not Taliban sources, and they are not filtered through UNAMA’s access constraints in Afghanistan, real as those constraints are. A rigorous critique of Amnesty’s methodology would need to engage with this layer of evidence directly rather than treating the investigation as resting solely on interviews inside Afghanistan. It does not.

None of this settles the question of what Pakistani planners believed they were targeting at the moment of the strike, which is a distinct question from what the site actually was. Precision guided strikes can be aimed at accurate coordinates built on flawed intelligence, and an honest accounting of the incident would distinguish between deliberate targeting of a known medical facility and a targeting failure rooted in faulty threat assessment. Pakistan’s silence forecloses that distinction rather than resolving it in its own favour. A government confident in a genuine intelligence failure, as opposed to a deliberate strike, has strong incentive to say so, since the reputational and legal exposure of the two scenarios differs sharply. The absence of any account, four months on, is itself informative.

There is a genuine access problem in Afghanistan that deserves acknowledgment rather than dismissal. Restrictions on UN personnel operating inside the country, including limits on female staff, have long constrained what any investigating body can independently confirm through interviews on the ground. That constraint is real and worth stating plainly. But it is analytically distinct from the evidentiary chain that actually carries this case, since satellite archives, geolocation of released military footage, and broadcast forensic review do not depend on access to Afghan territory at all. Conflating the two, treating a legitimate critique of ground level access with a wholesale dismissal of imagery based verification, is where the strongest version of Pakistan’s defence collapses into a weaker one. Under international humanitarian law, the burden of demonstrating that a strike met the tests of distinction, precaution and proportionality sits with the party that carried it out, not with the investigating organisation. Silence does not discharge that burden. It simply leaves the imagery based record as the only account on file.

The Stakes Beyond One Strike

This dispute reaches well past the fate of one investigation into one strike. Pakistan is not a party to the Rome Statute, and the UN Security Council has shown no appetite for a binding inquiry into cross border strikes in Afghanistan, leaving no institution with the authority to compel either side toward resolution. Into that vacuum, open source verification, satellite archives, independent geolocation, forensic review of released military footage, has effectively become the closest available substitute for enforcement, even though it carries no legal power to compel compliance or impose consequences. How this case resolves, or fails to resolve, will help set the operating norm for a growing number of asymmetric conflicts in which a state conducts cross border strikes against a non state or quasi state administration controlling the affected population. If credible, independently corroborated evidence of civilian harm at a protected medical site produces no formal accountability, the lesson other militaries draw from this dispute will be that silence is a survivable strategy, and that the proportionality and precaution requirements of international humanitarian law can be managed through delay rather than compliance. That is the systemic risk this case actually tests, well beyond the question of what happened at one rehabilitation centre in March.

Three Paths From Here

Three trajectories are plausible over the coming months, none of them mutually exclusive in sequence.

The likeliest path, on available evidence, is continued silence accompanied by informal briefings to allied capitals disputing Amnesty’s methodology without engaging its strongest evidentiary points, particularly the independent geolocation. This preserves ambiguity domestically while avoiding a formal admission that could carry legal exposure under international humanitarian law. It is a moderately likely outcome, on the order of an even chance or somewhat better given precedent in comparable disputes involving other militaries.

A less likely but plausible path is a formal Pakistani rebuttal that engages directly with the satellite and geolocation evidence, offering an alternative account of what the imagery shows or asserting an intelligence failure rather than deliberate targeting. This would be the more legally cautious route and would represent a meaningful shift from the current posture. Call this a modest possibility, distinctly less likely than continued silence but not remote.

The least likely path in the near term is a referral to an international investigative mechanism with independent access, given both Pakistan’s incentive to avoid binding scrutiny and the Taliban administration’s own resistance to international access inside Afghanistan, which cuts against any process requiring cooperation from both sides. This remains a low probability outcome absent significant diplomatic pressure from third parties with leverage over Islamabad.

The clearest near term indicator to watch is whether Pakistan’s foreign ministry issues any substantive written response to Amnesty’s evidentiary request before the anniversary of the strike in March 2027. A specific, documented reply, even one contesting the findings, would mark a break from the pattern observed since March. Continued non response through that date would itself be a data point confirming the first scenario.

The Precedent Being Set

What is being tested in Kabul is not only one contested strike but the durability of official denial once satellite archives, geolocation researchers, and broadcast forensic review become standard evidentiary tools in conflicts fought behind restricted access. For Western policy planners, the operative signal is the widening gap between what open source verification can now establish and what official statements are willing to confirm, a gap increasingly shaping how allied governments calibrate cooperation. For investors reading South Asian risk, cross border escalation between Islamabad and Kabul remains an active, under priced variable, with legal exposure now harder for militaries to contain through silence alone. For rights and development organisations, the case is a template for how methodology itself becomes the battleground before accountability is even reached.

Silence was once a viable strategy for governments awaiting the news cycle to move on. Satellites do not move on.

Trump says he is considering a ‘massive attack’, as Iran’s Araghchi says ‘mindless aggression’ won’t help a deal.

Caracas, July 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan campesinos have urged authorities to halt efforts to evict them from productive lands in the northwestern state of Falcón.

The José Leonardo Chirino campesino council, which organizes around 120 families in the Barimisagua estate, located in the Iturriza municipality, has accused landowner Jacobo Salas Romer of  “intimidation” against campesinos.

Over the past two weeks, campesinos have denounced the use of heavy machinery to destroy their crops, while multiple families saw their houses set on fire.

“The Salas Romer family maintains a permanent harassment against more than 100 families in these lands,” campesino council spokesperson Gustavo Ladino told Venezuelanalysis. “They have bribed security forces, and some institutions have lent themselves to serve the interest of this fascist family.”

He added that the Barimisagua estate belongs to the Venezuelan state after it was abandoned by the former owners. Rural families began settling into the Barimisagua lands in 2000 and gradually expanded production in the estate. The campesinos have sown crops including corn, beans, and sweet potato, in addition to planting fruit trees and undertaking small-scale cattle rearing.

In a 2025 public statement, the rural collective criticized the National Land Institute (INTI) for not following the procedures established in the Venezuelan Land Law to assign idle estates to campesino organizations once they have developed productive activities for an extended period.

The campesino spokesman called on Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, Agriculture Minister Vladimir Padrino López, and Attorney General Larry Devoe to guarantee the rural families’ right to “contribute to the country’s food security.” 

“We are calling for support from the Venezuelan authorities,” Ladino said. “We urge the government to conduct an inspection and deliver the necessary title deeds so that we can produce while being free from intimidation.”

The local activist additionally condemned efforts to criminalize land struggles by charging local leaders with crimes such as trespassing and tying them down in legal proceedings.

In an assembly on July 18, the rural families ratified the campesino council’s spokespeople and issued a press statement vowing to “consolidate social justice in the countryside.”

Salas Romer belongs to a powerful Venezuelan oligarchic family. His brother, Henrique, was governor of Carabobo state and lost to Hugo Chávez in the 1998 presidential election. The family business appeared in the Panama Papers investigation into offshore capital flight.

The 648-hectare Barimisagua estate has been at the center of a protracted legal struggle for many years, with Salas Romer attempting to secure protection orders from local agrarian courts on environmental grounds as a means to evict the rural families. The campesino council has rejected offers to relocate to a different plot in Falcón state, arguing that the land is insufficient for the number of people involved.

In recent years, rural grassroots organizations have raised the alarm regarding the resurgence of landowner violence in the countryside as well as an expanding influence of agribusiness oligopolies. Rice producers have staged multiple protests demanding that authorities regulate imports during harvest season and bind agroindustrial corporations to established crop prices.

With the economy heavily constrained by US sanctions, the Nicolás Maduro government moved to liberalize agricultural policies, transferring state competencies to the private sector, including provisioning of seed and fertilizer inputs and access to tractors. Fuel subsidies were likewise phased out, with small-scale producers highlighting it as a major factor driving up production costs.

Campesino organizations have warned against efforts led by agribusiness and cattle rancher associations to reform or sideline the 2001 Land Law, which heavily favored access to land for small-scale producers. In June, the Venezuelan National Assembly preliminarily approved a new Law to Protect Cattle Rearing.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Cali, Colombia.

Caracas, July 23, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores returned to court on Wednesday for a brief hearing in which Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein approved a schedule for proceedings that will see their trial begin on June 1, 2027.

The calendar was jointly proposed by US Justice Department prosecutors and the respective defense teams.

Under the agreed timetable, prosecutors are expected to complete the bulk of their disclosure of unclassified evidence by September 22, while classified evidence is scheduled to be turned over by November 15. A preliminary hearing to determine the admissibility of the evidence has been set for November 17.

Following this phase, and no later than March 11, 2027, Maduro’s legal team will formally file pretrial motions. Barry Pollack, one of Maduro’s attorneys, has disclosed plans to invoke immunity and seek a dismissal of charges against the Venezuelan leader. The approved procedural calendar also includes a second round of pretrial motions, which would address additional evidence.

The hearing marked the third court appearance since Maduro and Flores were kidnapped by US military forces in Caracas on January 3 and transferred to a federal detention center in Brooklyn.

During their arraignment on January 5, both pleaded not guilty to all charges, including narcoterrorism, drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons possession. At the time, Maduro stated in Spanish that he was Venezuela’s “constitutional president” and considered himself “a prisoner of war.”

The case was initially mired in controversy as Washington blocked Maduro and Flores from having their legal expenses covered by the Venezuelan government headed by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. In April, the US Treasury Department granted a waiver to allow Caracas to pay the legal fees of the attorneys representing Maduro and Flores.

The latest hearing had originally been scheduled for June 30, but prosecutors requested a postponement, citing security concerns related to transporting the defendants and coordinating police operations in New York, as law enforcement resources had been heavily committed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Wednesday’s hearing saw dozens of international solidarity activists gather outside the federal courthouse in New York to express solidarity with the Venezuelan president and first lady and demand their immediate release.

In Caracas, hundreds of supporters of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), along with members of grassroots and communal organizations, gathered at Plaza Caracas for a rally led by Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez and Maduro’s son, National Assembly Deputy Nicolás Maduro Guerra.

“In the face of this unjust trial, the people have raised their voices (…) Today has been an emotional day—200 days without hugging my father, without seeing Cilia in person (…). This kidnapping has been extremely difficult for my family,” Maduro Guerra said.

He added that “despite Venezuela having been subjected to a military aggression, the country’s political leadership made the courageous, wise, and intelligent decision to resolve any conflict and any differences through politics and diplomacy.”

The Venezuelan government, including Acting President Rodríguez, have offered no comment in recent weeks concerning the US prosecution of Maduro and Flores.

In a June interview with Spanish journalist Javier Negre, Rodríguez said that Maduro remains Venezuela’s legitimate president but stopped short of demanding his liberation, instead claiming that he has the right to “demonstrate the truth” before the US justice system.

Washington and Caracas restored diplomatic and consular relations on March 5, ending a seven-year hiatus. Shortly afterward, the White House formally recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole leader.” 

The Trump administration recently stepped in and requested that a Florida court grant Rodríguez immunity from a civil action brought by three US citizens who spent time in prison in Venezuela. Judge Darrin Gayles entered a default ruling against Maduro and several other high-ranking current and former Venezuelan officials who did not respond to a lawsuit. He also awarded US $314 million in damages to the plaintiffs over alleged “torture” claims.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Iran on Thursday threatened RAF Fairford in the U.K. after claims emerged that U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers launched from there attacked the Islamic Republic on Tuesday. RAF Fairford is a major hub for U.S. military aircraft, with strategic assets, like the B-1s, being forward deployed to the base and tactical and other assets often using it as a pit stop during flights ‘across the pond.’ As an example, Iran’s threat came hours after two EA-37B Compass Call electronic warfare jets arrived at the base from the United States.

“The American aggressor army, which used to launch cruise missiles from its vessels in the Indian Ocean in its aggression after the official resumption of the war, with the end of the missile reserves of the aforementioned vessels, yesterday switched to using B1 planes flying from Fairford Air Base, England,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-connected Tasnim news outlet claimed on Telegram. “As the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated, any base that is used to invade Iran’s territory is our legitimate goal.”

Asked about the threats, British officials told us that the country is prepared to defend itself.

 “Our Armed Forces are ready to keep the United Kingdom safe from any kind of attacks, whether it’s on our soil or from abroad,” a government official told TWZ. “The UK stands ready 24/7 to defend itself. This includes through operating a layered approach to air and missile defense, provided by Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force assets equipped with a range of advanced capabilities, working closely with our NATO allies.”

“In the Defense Investment Plan we have made air and missile defense a priority after years of underfunding, dedicating £790 million to enhance protection of the UK homeland and overseas bases from air, drone and missile threats,” the official added. “That is complemented by more than £2 billion of funding to deliver further air defense and counter-drone capabilities, and to upgrade and sustain our Typhoon fleet.”

Iranian officials did not specify how they would strike RAF Fairford, and it is unclear how they could. In March, Iran reportedly fired two missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. base on an island in the Indian Ocean. That’s about 2,400 miles away, or about the same distance as Fairford is from Iran. However, one missile was reportedly shot down by a U.S. warship while the other failed in flight. Given that, whether Iran could actually launch a successful attack on Fairford using those weapons is questionable at the least. Far more likely, if Iran would actually even try anything at all, would be a near-field attack like Operation Spider Web launched by Ukraine in June 2025 against Russian bombers using short-range drones hidden in trucks near airfields. One-way attack drones launched from vessels at sea is another very real attack vector Iran has trained for and equipped itself to execute, a threat you can read all about here.

You can see video of one of those strikes below.

The threats came after Axios reported that B-1B bombers from the base took part in Tuesday’s strikes on Iran. TWZ cannot independently confirm that and CENTCOM declined comment. However, open-source trackers made that claim early Wednesday morning before the Axios story was published.

Bomber Run 63 – Ops Beginning Again? #IranWar‌ #FreeIran‌

Overnight, B-1B “Lancer” bombers flying from RAF Fairford (EGVA) conducted strikes in Iran as the US ramps up operations again. Although 2 bombers launched, it appears it was pre-planned that only 1 of them would… pic.twitter.com/Q7Ic3Ahqk3

— DefenceGeek 🇬🇧 (@DefenceGeek) July 22, 2026

As we noted earlier and have discussed in the in the past, RAF Fairford has served as a major hub for aircraft heading to the region as well as long-range bomber missions on Iran.

“U.S. Air Forces in Europe operating locations, including the 501st Combat Support Wing at RAF Fairford, routinely host transient U.S. military aircraft in accordance with access, basing, and overflight agreements with Allies and partners,” an Air Force spokesperson told us in response to our questions about the Compass Calls.

The EC-37s landed shortly after 7 a.m. British Summer Time (BST), or about 2 a.m. EDT, according to local aviation photographer Matt Belcher, who was kind enough to share photos he took of the aircraft.

The Compass Calls are heavily modified Gulfstream G550 business jets. They leverage the Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW) configuration developed first for the Israel Defense Forces, which has large ‘cheek’ fairings on either side of the fuselage, among other distinctive features.

The Air Force is planning to procure 10 of these jets to replace the aging and decreasing fleet of turboprop EC-130H Compass Call planes, of which only four remain. The 43rd Electronic Combat Squadron flew the first training sortie for the EA-37B on May 2, 2025, and one made the type’s maiden voyage to Europe in January.

Many of the EA-37B’s mission systems are directly ported over from the EC-130H, which is why the two very different aircraft share the same nickname. Both aircraft are designed to provide critical stand-off jamming support, including against enemy radars and communications systems. They also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) function given their ability to spot, track, and geolocate various types of emitters.

The EA-37B also offers new capabilities that go beyond what is found on the EC-130H. The Air Force has said in the past that the aircraft’s designation reflects its ability to not only attack, but also destroy certain targets, as you can read more about here.

The Compass Calls had previously been deployed to RAF Mildenhall in the early days of Operation Epic Fury. On April 1, CENTCOM announced for the first time that they had been used in combat as part of Epic Fury. The possibility that they are returning to the region, or adding additional electronic warfare capabilities to the total force deployed there, can be considered a potential indicator of what’s to come. These are often the last assets we see move into place ahead of major combat operations.

All this comes as the U.S. is building up forces amid increasing intensity of attacks on and by Iran and President Trump’s statement to Axios today that “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

In addition, Houthi attacks on Saudi ships in the Red Sea raise the specter of a U.S. military response there. 

“I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it”, Trump told me https://t.co/AZnZNyEPrP

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) July 23, 2026

Last week, we reported that at least 12 F-16 Fighting Falcons were deployed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. Other aircraft have rotated into the CENTCOM area of operations as well.

Going for GOLD: 4 flts of 3x “SP” F-16CJ (TABOR11,21,31,41) are inbound to Muwaffaq Salti AB, Jordan (OJMS) from Spangdahlem AB, Germany (ETAD). 4x KC-135R/T “GOLD” team tankers are up to support the movement.

This #Coronet East (#CE097) returns the ftrs from the 480th Squadron… pic.twitter.com/IkL6HKkrOe

— Aux OSINT (@AUX_OSINT) July 17, 2026

In addition, “special-operations forces have deployed to the region from their U.S. bases,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing flight-tracking data and U.S. officials. “Squadrons of jet fighters have been staged across the Middle East, and bomber aircraft at bases in the U.S. and U.K. are on high alert to ramp up operations, according to one of the officials.”

Beyond aircraft, “more than 150 medics have arrived at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in recent days,” the Journal added. The hospital is the primary location for treating troops injured in combat in the Middle East.

The U.S. has been surging forces toward the Middle East, giving Trump options to expand the Iran war

Among the things moving/on alert:
-fighter squadrons
-special operations forces
-medics
-long-range bombers https://t.co/peSx70S85v w/ @laraseligman

— Shelby Holliday (@shelbyholliday) July 22, 2026

Other assets have been rotated out, like the B-52 Stratofortress bombers that departed from Fairford earlier this month. The U.S. also returned F-22 Raptors that were flying out of Ovda Air Base in Israel back to the United States. Other aircraft, such as A-10s and F-15Es, have also returned home from or have been replaced in the CENTCOM region. So clearly there is a lot of shifting of aviation assets taking place even amid current operations.

While adding new forces to Europe and the Middle East does not necessarily mean that Trump will dramatically escalate the conflict, it gives him options to do so. In addition, the public nature of some of these movements also has a messaging effect, letting Tehran and the Houthis know that Trump is ordering more assets to the region.

Regardless, the direct threat against RAF Fairford, no matter how nebulous, is new and will certainly be taken seriously by security officials at the installations and others in region.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Mexican journalist Alejandro Leyva Aguilar was shot dead while eating at a street food stall in Oaxaca. He had spent years reporting on alleged corruption and criminal violence. His murder marks the fourth journalist killing in Mexico since June.

Ali al-Zaidi will hold talks with senior Iranian officials on bilateral cooperation, shared interests and security.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is in Iran on his first official visit since assuming office in May.

The Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Thursday said al-Zaidi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian oversaw the signing of several agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) pertaining to foreign affairs, finance, the economy and energy in Tehran.

Speaking at a joint meeting of senior Iranian and Iraqi delegations in Tehran, al-Zaidi thanked Iran for helping Iraq in its fight against the ISIL (ISIS) group, and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to security cooperation with Tehran, saying that Iraq would not accept hostile action against Iran by any party.

“Iraq will never forget Iran’s support in the fight against the [ISIL/ISIL] terrorist group,” he said, according to Pezeshkian’s office.

Pezeshkian said a comprehensive strategic cooperation plan would serve as a roadmap for expanding relations between Tehran and Baghdad, stressing that the security of the two neighbouring countries was closely linked.

Over the course of the two-day visit, al-Zaidi will hold talks with other senior Iranian officials on bilateral cooperation, shared interests and regional security, he said on X.

“We will meet with senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to discuss issues of mutual interest, bilateral cooperation, regional developments, and ongoing efforts to consolidate security and stability across the region,” he said.

“Iraq and Iran are bound by historic and civilizational ties, shared borders, and common interests. These enduring bonds call for continued engagement in a spirit of dialogue, cooperation, and mutual respect in a manner that promotes sustainable development and prosperity for the peoples of both countries, while contributing to security and stability at the regional and international levels.”

Iraq remains heavily reliant on Iranian natural gas and electricity, while bilateral trade exceeds $12bn annually, making it one of Iran’s largest trading partners.

A deep religious bond also exists between the two countries, as millions of Iranian Shia pilgrims cross the border to visit Iraq’s holy sites every year. During the week-long funeral held for Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this month, the procession travelled through the Iraqi Shia pilgrimage cities of Najaf and Karbala.

The Iranian government has also cultivated close ties with influential Shia parties and armed groups in Iraq that form the backbone of Iraq’s security forces.

Political analyst Ghaleb Al-Daami told Al Jazeera that al-Zaidi’s visit came as Baghdad tries the difficult task of maintaining relations with both the warring parties, the United States and Iran.

Al-Daami said the main objectives of al-Zaidi’s visit were to tell Iran to stop its support for armed groups in Iraq and to deliver a message from the US, which has expressed support for Iraq acting as a mediator amid the US war on Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told CBS News in 2018 that his own nation was not planning to acquire a nuclear weapon, but that “without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible”.

Earlier US media reports suggested the deal could allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium in the future – which can be used as fuel for power plants, but also potentially to make nuclear bombs. However, Trump’s remarks appear to deny this.

Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East programme at the US-based Defense Priorities think tank, said it would be “quite shocking” if the US were to allow Saudi Arabia uranium enrichment facilities.

“The US has never done that before. We have never helped another country enrich on their own soil,” she said, adding that this was because “if you can produce your own nuclear fuel, you become a much bigger risk” for building nuclear weapons.

The agreement will now be sent to the US Congress for review.

Some lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are expected to oppose the deal, though Trump’s Republican Party controls both the upper and lower chambers and opponents of the deal do not appear to have the votes needed to block it.

The conflict in Yemen has entered a new chapter with a declaration by the Houthis that they are imposing a maritime siege on all shipping to Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah (or supporters of God), has attacked a number of Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.

This development has placed the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the strategic waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean, at the heart of the war between the United States and Iran, and amplifies pressure on global trade routes.

The Iranian-backed Houthis, who seized Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, have threatened to close the strait, the route through which much of Europe’s energy supplies pass. It is also a key passage for imports to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis’ decision to announce a maritime blockade cannot be separated from the turmoil created by the ongoing war between Washington and Tehran, which erupted on February 28 when the US and Israel attacked Iran.

Houthis raise stakes for Saudi’s support

On Monday, Yemen’s internationally recognised government claimed responsibility for an air strike on Sanaa airport, saying that it was a measure to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital. But the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for it.

The Houthis responded by firing missiles into Saudi Arabia – a key backer of the Aden-based Yemeni government – and later upped the stakes by announcing a naval blockade on the kingdom.

These developments mark a major escalation in Yemen’s civil war. Saudi Arabia, which has sought in recent years to avoid a new war on its southern borders, is facing a more complex equation with the threat shifting from land to sea, and the targeting of one of the most important alternative routes for its oil exports.

All of this raises the question: will this escalation cause a new confrontation between the Yemeni government and the Houthis? And if so, what does the balance of power look like between the Houthi and government sides after more than a decade of war? Has the balance changed enough to increase the odds of a military resolution to the conflict?

There has been talk of potential escalations in recent years, but this now seems more likely, especially since it intersects with local, regional and international events and the return of the US-Iran war.

The Yemeni government has restructured its military with a single decision-making centre, and regional messages suggest the military option has not been shelved, as was once thought.

So, will retaking Sanaa return to the table as a military objective to be thought of seriously, and what does that mean practically? And how ready are the parties, especially the Yemeni government, for battle?

The structure of government-affiliated forces

The anti-Houthi camp today comprises the National Army as the official framework of the Ministry of Defence, in addition to new formations with independent commands, such as the Giants Brigades, and the Guardians of the Republic forces in al-Makha, or Mocha, in the west.

These different groupings – all on the anti-Houthi side in the conflict – have emerged over the years due to the weakening power of the central government, the growth of independent figures, and the backing of regional countries.

The number of National Army personnel in the field is estimated at about 400,000, according to recent statements by the Defence Ministry. Its organisational structure includes Yemen’s seven military regions, but troop deployment is concentrated in Marib, Taiz and the country’s southern and eastern governorates, as a result of Houthi control over vast parts of the country’s northwest, including Sanaa.

Also backing the army are the Emergency Forces, comprising between 30,000 to 40,000 personnel, and the Homeland Shield Forces, created in 2022 with between 30,000 and 40,000 recruits, and tasked with taking over camps in Hadramout and the southern governorates in December 2025, following the defeat of separatist forces who previously controlled those areas.

Fighting late last year between the Yemeni government and affiliated forces on one side, and United Arab Emirates-backed separatists on the other, has led to changes in Yemen’s south and west.

After the defeat of the 75,000-strong separatist Southern Transitional Council, following a Saudi intervention on the side of the government and the withdrawal of the UAE from Yemen, the group’s organisational cohesion has been impacted. But they have not been disarmed, and remain in many locations in the south, with some elements absorbed – even if nominally – into government structures.

Another formerly-UAE backed force, the Tariq Saleh-led Guardians of the Republic, is estimated to number about 20,000 fighters. They are stationed primarily on the Red Sea coast and are considered among the most heavily armed formations, due to the past Emirati support.

The Giants Brigades are among the most prominent combat formations in the anti-Houthi camp, with an estimated 20,000 fighters and a presence on the Red Sea coast, in Aden, and in some southern areas.

Consequently, the total size of the forces affiliated with the government and the anti-Houthi camp is estimated at more than 500,000 personnel, albeit with a clear disparity in levels of training, discipline and institutional integration.

Quality of armament and military equipment

The types of weapons held by these forces do not differ as significantly as the level of their operation and management. The National Army relies on conventional weapons inherited from the Yemeni army pre-war, including light and medium weapons, armoured vehicles, tanks and field artillery, alongside various communication and transport capabilities.

The Homeland Shield Forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, are considered among the most relatively well-equipped modern formations. They rely on tactical vehicles, light armoured vehicles, and superior communication systems suited for rapid deployment missions and the protection of institutions.

The Emergency Forces rely on light to medium armament focused on urban operations and rapid deployment missions, more akin to a field military force with rapid intervention duties, combining a security character with combat capability.

The Giants Brigades rely on medium and heavy armament, armoured vehicles and fire support units, and they are recognised for their capability to conduct offensive ground operations compared with other forces.

As for the formations affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, they rely on diverse weaponry, though readiness varies as a result of the organisational changes they have undergone.

In recent years, the majority of government forces have also developed their drone capabilities, both within regular units and some irregular formations. These assets are now used for reconnaissance and surveillance missions, and occasionally for limited tactical support.

Balance of power with the Houthis

Official military records in Sanaa indicate that Houthi-affiliated army units comprise more than 200,000 fighters and can also mobilise tens of thousands of members from their volunteer Popular Committees for rapid intervention and support.

However, these figures, much like the military rosters in the government camp, may not accurately reflect the actual combat strength on the ground due to the inclusion of reserve or inactive names in registries.

Although government-affiliated forces may possess more manpower, the balance of power in Yemen is not determined solely by numbers.

Despite sustaining significant damage to its forces and assets from US and Israeli strikes over the past few years, the Houthi side benefits from a more centralised command structure and possesses experience in managing asymmetric warfare.

This is in addition to possessing missile, drone and maritime threat capabilities that have proven their impact in the Red Sea and the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait. It appears that the military balance in Yemen is more a balance of organisational and war management rather than a balance of weaponry and numbers.

Readiness of government forces for a major battle

Indicators suggest government forces are capable of engaging in defensive battles, holding territory or managing extensive security deployments. However, they face significant challenges should they consider launching a large-scale offensive.

The most prominent of these challenges was the multiplicity of military decision-making centres – before Saudi Arabia assumed control of this decision-making following the UAE’s withdrawal – and the varying levels of training and discipline, compounded by the difficulty of operational coordination.

Geography is also a factor, as the Houthis’ control over the mountainous northwest grants them a defensive advantage, whereas government forces are dispersed across multiple fronts, limiting their ability to mobilise at a decisive point.

The scenario of entering Sanaa

So far, there are no clear public indications that any international power, including the US, has adopted a declared plan to support a large-scale military operation to take Sanaa.

Although Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have elevated the level of international interest in the Yemeni file, the international strategy has been focused on degrading Houthi capabilities related to the sea and smuggling, rather than on a ground offensive. However, reports have emerged from sources within the Yemeni state regarding a possibility of waging a war against the Houthis with US support.

If an operation towards Sanaa is considered, its success would require complex conditions, most notably unifying the government’s military command, providing broad domestic and regional political cover, and ensuring the ability to manage the city after seizing control of it. Some of these conditions may have already been met.

Has Saudi Arabia provided cover to confront the Houthis?

The Yemeni government’s military decision-making is largely tied to Saudi political and military support, and any broad move against the Houthis remains contingent upon Riyadh. But Riyadh has preferred to focus on protecting the kingdom’s southern borders, securing shipping lanes and preventing the expansion of the Houthi threat deep into Saudi territory.

It seems that Saudi strategy has previously leaned towards managing the conflict rather than resolving it, by combining limited military pressure, diplomatic moves and de-escalation tracks to reduce the security and economic costs of the war.

The Saudi position may have shifted recently in light of international and regional events, particularly concerning the security of navigation in the Red Sea. Riyadh may be pushed to re-evaluate its options regarding the Yemeni file, and the one currently on the table may be a military one.

Inflation has fallen both in the UK – down to 2.6% in the year to June helped by slowing diesel and petrol prices – and in the US to 3.5%.

But questions remain whether the slow down will prove short-lived due to the renewed conflict in the Middle East.

New data released on Thursday showed that UK petrol prices have risen by 5p a litre since the beginning of July, hitting reaching almost £1.56.

Diesel is at £1.72 a litre, on average, according to the RAC.

Average gasoline prices in the US have surpassed $4 a gallon once more, up from $3.92 a month ago, according to motorist advocacy group AAA.

“More expensive fuel and energy can ripple through the wider economy, increasing costs for businesses and ultimately feeding through into the price of food and other goods,” said Jonathan Raymond, investment manager at Quilter Cheviot.

“This creates another headache for central banks as they continue their battle against inflation.

“If energy prices remain elevated, policymakers may come under pressure to keep interest rates higher for longer or even raise them. This would come as a blow to mortgage holders and borrowers already feeling the strain.”

The Bank of England, which sets UK interest rates, has held them at 3.75% in its last four meetings.

Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said he believed the Bank will “almost certainly” hold them again. But he said analysts still expected that interest rates could be cut next year if energy price rises ease.

Kevin Warsh, the newly-appointed chair of the US Federal Reserve, last week told Congress that the central bank had “no tolerance to persistently elevated inflation”.

US President Donald Trump had pushed Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, to cut interest rates.

Trump has made it clear he expects Warsh to fulfil his demand for reductions in borrowing costs for Americans.

But the Fed held US interest rates between 3.5% and 3.75% at Warsh’s first meeting last month. He also told Congress that he was committed to “restoring price stability” in the wake of the Middle East conflict impacting prices.

Fatima ‘Teema’ Mahmud uploaded a short clip on her Telegram Status that morning; it showed a leaked intimate video involving individuals in northern Nigeria. The time was 8:13 a.m.; minutes later, she uploaded another one and another. By midday, she had uploaded dozens of similar pieces of content. By evening, there were hundreds.

Some of the updates advertised leaked, non-consensual intimate videos that had circulated across social media timelines in the region days earlier. Others promoted sex work services, paid erotic video calls, and private VIP groups featuring explicit videos of women, particularly northern actresses. Among them, and pinned prominently at the top of Fatima’s Telegram profile, were screen records of what she claimed were sexual and nude videos of children, advertised under paid access tiers.

The next morning, the cycle began again.

This reporting was never supposed to become an investigation into child sexual abuse material. It began with a simpler question: where do the leaked intimate videos that circulate on northern Nigerian social media end up?

Every few weeks, another such video appears. The names change, but the outrage follows a familiar script: WhatsApp groups begin asking for links, X users post screenshots before directing followers to Telegram, and Facebook pages recycle the same clips. For a day or two, timelines become courtrooms. Then attention shifts elsewhere, and the people at the centre of those scandals disappear from public conversation, but the links do not.

One such link appeared in May. An X account, now suspended, promoting what it described as a leaked intimate video involving a woman, instructed followers to continue on Telegram. Instead of downloading the material, HumAngle followed the trail, using a pseudonymous account to trace the same path thousands of other users take whenever another intimate video erupts across northern Nigerian social media.

For three months, HumAngle watched what that trail led to: an ecosystem that had evolved to survive platform bans, rebuild audiences almost overnight, and transform some of women’s most private moments into commercial products. Within that ecosystem, children appeared to have become one of its most valuable commodities.

Following the trail

It started with “Teematv” on X. HumAngle stumbled on the account promoting a teaser video following a scandal involving a Kaduna-based woman, whom HumAngle will not name to avoid re-victimising her. The X account claimed to have the “full video” and encouraged followers to access it on Telegram.

We created a pseudonymous account and followed the trail.

The first Telegram channel, “Teematv” (@teematv9), which is the main feeder channel and had over 40,000 subscribers before it got suspended in June, looked much as expected: pornography, leaked videos, and VIP subscriptions. But the longer the investigation continued, the less it resembled another anonymous pornography page. The channel did not exist in isolation. Every video and image posted linked to something else, and subscribers were encouraged to save the phone numbers provided by the administrators. “Add my contact,” she often tells subscribers. 

Once saved, these numbers unlocked Telegram Status updates, which promoted private VIP groups, which led to new administrators, who promoted replacement channels. When one account disappeared, another had already taken its place.

It felt less like browsing social media and more like walking through a marketplace where every stall owner knew the next. The journey was remarkably consistent, and the pattern held across every operator HumAngle traced; the public channels attracted attention, Telegram Status sustained it, and private conversations completed the sale. Each platform served a different purpose within the same business. X functioned as a storefront, where explicit clips and provocative teasers attracted attention and encouraged users to click through. Telegram became the marketplace itself, while WhatsApp and private Telegram conversations handled the transactions.

Looking closer, the structure reflected an operation built specifically to survive the content moderation it was navigating.

The pattern started with what appeared, and what did not appear, on X. Operators such as Teema used their X accounts to post pornographic clips into X’s video feed, content that the platform’s moderation has grown relatively permissive toward, and whose recommendation algorithm readily surfaces more of it once a user engages with it repeatedly. At no point during our three months of monitoring did HumAngle observe child sexual abuse material posted directly on X. 

Whether by experience or deliberate caution, the operators appeared to understand the distinction: ordinary pornography might slip through a platform that has relaxed many of its guardrails around adult content, but material involving children almost certainly would not survive there. The Telegram link attached to those X posts was, in turn, rarely the final destination. It served as an additional layer of security, requiring users to either save a phone number or send a private inquiry before anything further was revealed.

Only after that number was saved did the next stage begin, through Telegram Status. There, too, the same caution applied. Rather than posting material involving children directly, operators uploaded blurred collages or screenshots, with titles and scenes presented as proof that a fuller collection existed, along with a caption advertising group access and a price, directing interested buyers into a private conversation. Nothing that could be mistaken for the material itself appeared in a space Telegram or outside observers could easily flag; the proof of possession and the point of sale were kept one careful step apart. HumAngle observed screenshots of children naked and being abused.

The advertisements rarely remained online for long. Telegram Status updates disappear automatically after 24 hours, and the administrators appeared to exploit that feature deliberately, because the posts remain accessible on the profile itself to anyone who has saved their contact. On some days, one operator uploaded close to 200 Status updates, rotating through advertisements, teaser clips, and promotional graphics before repeating the process the following morning.

The result was a constantly changing catalogue. One day, the focus might be leaked intimate videos. The next, sex work services. Then paid video calls. Then another newly emerging leaked-video scandal that had just begun trending elsewhere on social media. The operators appeared to respond quickly to public attention: whenever an intimate video began circulating widely online, it often appeared inside the network within hours, repackaged as a commercial product, a short preview posted publicly with the full video available, administrators claimed, after payment. The scandals that dominated social media for a day or two became inventory.

Identifying the operators

There was one problem with Telegram usernames: they rarely lasted. By the time HumAngle finished documenting one account, another had often appeared. The usernames, invitations, and even profile photographs changed. But the people behind them did not.

To understand who was operating the network, our investigation moved beyond monitoring channels and focused instead on the digital traces the administrators had left behind, rather than the material they were advertising. The approach was deliberate: HumAngle had already decided it would not purchase access to private VIP groups or attempt to obtain any material advertised as involving children. 

Beyond the obvious ethical concerns, doing so could expose journalists to illegal content and compromise the investigation itself. Instead, we focused on the operators’ own mistakes, and the first was surprisingly ordinary: money.

Like any online business, the administrators eventually needed customers to pay. Across multiple Telegram channels and Status updates, Teema repeatedly instructed interested buyers to save a phone number before making enquiries or completing payments. Unlike her usernames, the number rarely changed. It became the first real-world lead.

A search through Truecaller, a popular caller identification service, returned the name “Fatima Mahmud”. One result was not enough, so the same number was cross-checked against Nigerian online banking applications, including OPay and PalmPay, both of which use registered phone numbers as account identifiers and display the associated account name before a transfer is completed. Both returned the same name. For the first time, the investigation had connected one of the network’s most active operators to a real-world name, confirmed through two independent verification methods.

Finding the person behind that name proved harder. Searching “Fatima Mahmud” and “Teema” on social media produced dozens of unrelated results, and many of the accounts connected to the investigation had already been suspended or had disappeared before they could be examined. So HumAngle changed direction, following relationships rather than names: Telegram usernames led to older accounts, older accounts led to replacement accounts, and replacement accounts led to suspended X profiles, each revealing another fragment of the same digital footprint.

The same process and the same dual verification through Truecaller and banking app records identified a second recurring figure in the network who used several online identities: Deejah, Nanadady, and Deharjah. Once again, the payment trail pointed to one name: Khadija Adamu.

Despite the frequent account suspensions and identity changes, traces of her activity remained visible. As recently as July 17, Khadija remained active. In a Telegram Status update, she told followers her phone had been damaged and appealed for financial support to replace it, posting her Union Bank account details. The account name she provided, Khadija Adamu Abubakar, was confirmed through a mobile banking application search, adding a third independent verification to the identity already established through Truecaller and her OPay and PalmPay records. Fatima’s administrator account was also active at the time of publication.

Khadija’s operation mirrored Teema’s in structure, but she operated across a considerably wider segment of the online sex trade, advertising leaked intimate videos, homosexual pornography, sex work, paid sexual video chats, sex toys, sexual stimulants, and VIP groups promoted as containing child sexual abuse material. Of that range, child sexual abuse material appeared to be one of her primary products, and her pricing across the board was consistently higher than Teema’s, with VIP access advertised at between ₦50,000 and ₦100,000. From what HumAngle observed, she made no attempt to obscure or apologise for any of it.

A further question remained: were the photographs attached to their profiles genuine? At first glance, they appeared convincing: young Hausa women in casual portraits and self-portraits, but reverse-image searches using Google Lens and facial-recognition software found that several did not belong to the account holders at all. Instead, they matched publicly available photographs of Hausa actresses and other individuals whose images had been lifted from elsewhere online. The people running the accounts had carefully concealed their own identities behind someone else’s faces.

Fatima addressed this directly in the description of her main feeder channel, Teematv (@teematv9), which had more than 40,000 subscribers before it was suspended on June 12. “I post pretty Hausa girls on my page. If you see your picture here, then know [that] you are pretty,” she wrote. “Some of you are complaining. I just leave compliments as the caption. I mean no harm. [It] is just for fun.”

A final search, this time relying on Facebook’s “People You May Know” recommendation feature after the administrators’ phone numbers were saved as contacts, surfaced a profile that strongly matched the identity already established for Khadija. Fatima’s case proved less conclusive; several profiles appeared, but none could be verified with sufficient confidence. The search stopped there. We do not possess the legal powers available to law enforcement agencies, but what the reporting established was enough: two operators had been identified through the payment infrastructure they themselves had created, and neither appeared to be working alone.

The product

The advertisements followed a consistent commercial logic, and the same pricing structure recurred across all operators and channels documented in this investigation.

Individual leaked Hausa intimate videos, after a short teaser had been posted publicly, typically sold for between ₦2,000 and ₦5,000. Buyers seeking larger collections were encouraged to pay for VIP memberships instead, which administrators claimed offered hundreds of additional videos. The advertisements suggested a tiered business: casual customers bought individual videos, regular customers subscribed, and those willing to spend more were offered access to increasingly exclusive groups.

At the top of the pricing structure were advertisements for group access explicitly involving children. Unlike the adult-content advertisements, which typically promoted individual clips, these posts promised something larger: a collection, membership, exclusivity. They were usually brief: a blurred collage or screen record, a short caption, sometimes only a few words, followed by a price. Most commonly, that price was ₦50,000, though some operators, like Khadija, advertised memberships as high as ₦100,000. The wording varied slightly from one administrator to another, but the sales strategy did not, and the same pattern appeared consistently across multiple Status updates, different administrators, and different channels over the three months of monitoring.

At first, HumAngle questioned whether the advertisements were genuine; exaggerated claims to lure paying customers are common online. But the consistency, repeated across unrelated administrators using nearly identical language, made coincidence difficult to sustain as an explanation.

Teema’s advertisements illustrated how the claims were built up over time. In a sequence of Status updates viewed chronologically, she claimed her VIP collection had grown from around 600 videos to more than 800, and eventually to over 1,200. HumAngle could not independently verify those figures, but documented them as part of the marketing strategy: growth itself had become a product, with a larger claimed catalogue used to strengthen the sales pitch.

The operators appeared to understand a basic principle of online commerce: that people rarely arrive intending to make their largest purchase but are guided towards it. Every stage encouraged the next. The channels resembled a subscription business more than an ordinary social media page. Only the product was different, and its advertisements did not appear hidden in obscure corners of the internet. They appeared alongside the same promotional posts advertising leaked intimate videos, prostitution, and paid video calls. Children were not presented as something separate. They were presented as another product category, another premium tier.

HumAngle also decided not to attempt to identify the children referenced in the advertisements. INTERPOL’s International Child Sexual Exploitation database, the tool specialist law enforcement units use to identify victims and offenders worldwide, treats abusive images and videos as evidence tied to real children, real locations, and real offenders, material to be handled by trained victim-identification specialists rather than pursued independently. Attempting to trace the children through the material risked compounding the harm the investigation was seeking to expose.

The network

For much of the investigation, Teema and Khadija appeared to be running separate operations: different Telegram channels, different X usernames, different pricing. It was easy to assume they were competitors. Then one Status update changed that.

While reviewing Teema’s Telegram Status one afternoon, HumAngle noticed she was no longer advertising her own channel, but Khadija’s. Only days earlier, one of Khadija’s Telegram accounts had disappeared or been removed before we could complete the documentation of its activity. The replacement account appeared almost immediately, and Teema introduced it to thousands of followers. Over the following days, the same promotion resurfaced repeatedly across dozens of Status updates before disappearing after 24 hours, only to return.

Tracing the followers who interacted with those promotions on X uncovered dozens of accounts exhibiting remarkably similar behaviour. When one profile disappeared, another announced its replacement. When Telegram removed a channel, fresh invitation links circulated through WhatsApp Status updates and newer Telegram accounts. The audience rarely needed to search; the network guided them. Investigators documented several accounts operating under different versions of Teema’s identity, including @teematv2 and @teematv3, with Khadija running parallel replacements under her own aliases.

Around them was a wider ecosystem. Channels such as AREWA GIDAN DADI, Arewagidanharkazallah, and Sadearharka surfaced repeatedly throughout the investigation.

HumAngle found no evidence that these accounts were all controlled by the same individual, nor could we establish that every operator knew every other one personally. What our investigation does establish is narrower but significant: the accounts consistently promoted one another, shared audiences, and directed followers towards replacement channels, forming a distribution network that platform bans repeatedly failed to disrupt.

The blind spot

The most surprising thing about the network was not that it existed, but that it appeared to operate in plain sight. The operators behaved less like people trying to disappear than people confident they would not be noticed. That raises a broader question: why did a network operating so openly prove so resilient?

Part of the answer may lie in language. Almost every account documented in this investigation communicated primarily in Hausa, and the cities referenced in conversations, such as Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri, Katsina, Sokoto, and Abuja, pointed overwhelmingly to audiences in northern Nigeria. This was not simply a Nigerian online marketplace; it was a Hausa-speaking one. 

Researchers have increasingly warned that many widely spoken African languages remain “low-resource” from the perspective of artificial intelligence and automated content moderation. While Hausa is spoken by tens of millions of people across West Africa, there are comparatively fewer linguistic datasets and moderation tools to help technology companies automatically identify harmful content in the language, meaning abusive or exploitative content can be harder to detect at scale than equivalent content in English. 

Nothing in HumAngle’s investigation suggests the operators tried to hide the language they used; on the contrary, their marketing relied on local expressions and reflected the culture of Arewa social media. The same characteristics that made the network accessible to its intended audience may also have made it less visible to moderation systems built primarily around better-resourced languages.

This is not a uniquely Nigerian, or even uniquely Hausa-language, problem. Investigations in other parts of the world have documented strikingly similar patterns, in which mainstream platforms funnel users toward Telegram-based child sexual abuse material (CSAM) marketplaces that survive enforcement through rapid replacement. 

A BBC Eye investigation published in July found that Instagram’s advertising system in India was itself directing a test account toward paid child sexual abuse material sold through Telegram channels, with material advertised for as little as the naira equivalent of one US dollar; Meta’s own moderation team initially cleared one flagged advertisement as compliant with its policies, and only acted once BBC journalists sought formal comment. 

A separate investigation by Sudan’s Ayin Network documented Telegram channels operating an almost identical structure to the one described here: administrators charging roughly $30 for VIP access to material described as exclusive, channels going dark after reports only to be quickly recreated with subscribers migrated across, and content sourced from economically vulnerable communities with little legal recourse. 

Malaysiakini’s Kini News Lab has separately described Telegram as functioning as a “dark mall” for this kind of material, in which promotional content on more visible platforms consistently routes interested users toward Telegram, where moderation is comparatively lighter. 

Another investigation, conducted by the Brazilian outlet Núcleo with the Pulitzer Centre’s AI Accountability Network, found dozens of Telegram bots capable of generating AI-manipulated child sexual abuse imagery, most operating despite Telegram’s own public commitments on child safety.

These investigations point to a recurring global pattern. Broader research suggests the problem extends far beyond the networks examined in any single investigation. Research conducted by UNICEF Innocenti, ECPAT International, and INTERPOL across 13 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia found that, depending on the country, up to one in five internet-using children aged 12 to 17 had experienced online sexual abuse within a single year. Social media platforms were among the environments where children most frequently encountered the abuse. 

Nigeria was not included among the countries studied, leaving no comparable national estimate of how many Nigerian children may be affected. UNICEF and the WeProtect Global Alliance have warned that online child sexual exploitation is becoming increasingly complex as offenders adapt quickly to new technologies, encrypted platforms, and gaps in national responses, arguing that effective responses require cooperation between technology companies, law enforcement, child-protection organisations, and governments, rather than isolated moderation decisions by individual platforms. UNICEF Nigeria has separately noted that violence against children increasingly occurs in both physical and digital spaces, while support for victims remains limited.

As we identified the operators of these accounts, an obvious question emerged: if journalists could trace those digital footprints using publicly available tools, what prevented authorities from doing the same?

Nigeria does not lack the relevant laws. The Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act criminalises the production, distribution, and possession of child sexual abuse material, alongside offences relating to the use of digital platforms to facilitate unlawful activities, including the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act recognises image-based sexual abuse, and children receive further protection under the Child Rights Act and the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act. 

The activity documented in this investigation appears to fall squarely within conduct already prohibited under Nigerian law. Over three months of monitoring, HumAngle found no public record of investigations or prosecutions specifically targeting the Hausa-language Telegram ecosystem documented in this reporting, even as channels disappeared, replacement channels emerged, subscribers migrated, and the marketplace continued operating.

The threat was not entirely new to Nigerian authorities. In 2023, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) said it had observed increasing cases involving child sexual abuse material, sextortion, and revenge pornography, and had established a Cybersecurity Response Team, in partnership with organisations including Meta and the United States National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). That year, the agency said it was investigating six cyber-tip reports involving online child exploitation and sextortion, drawing on NCMEC’s CyberTipline, the centralised reporting system through which tech companies and the public flag suspected child exploitation to law enforcement worldwide. What remains unclear is whether the Hausa-language network HumAngle documented had ever entered that reporting system.

The network appeared to exploit precisely the jurisdictional and institutional gaps that researchers have long warned about: Telegram channels directed users toward WhatsApp, WhatsApp conversations led back to Telegram, and X attracted new audiences, with each platform seeing only one part of the picture while the operators appeared to see the whole. Platform enforcement removed accounts. Law enforcement, at least publicly, appeared largely absent, aside from the small number of cases NAPTIP said it was already investigating. 

What follows

Before publication, HumAngle shared its findings with Telegram and NAPTIP, seeking answers about the network, its operators, and the apparent gaps that allowed it to persist. The advertisements, the Telegram links, the payment instructions, and the phone numbers had all been public. The operators had made no effort to hide them.

Indian authorities release the two men after years in prison although both remain under tight court-imposed restrictions.

Indian authorities have released prominent Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez and journalist Irfan Mehraj on bail after years in prison on “terrorism” financing charges although both remain under tight court-imposed restrictions.

The two men walked free from a New Delhi jail late on Wednesday, their relatives said, as India’s National Investigation Agency seeks to overturn their bail – the latest chapter in what rights groups call New Delhi’s sweeping crackdown on activists, journalists and dissidents in India-administered Kashmir since 2019 when it scrapped the region’s autonomy, granted under the Indian Constitution.

Parvez, programme coordinator for the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), was arrested in 2021 by the National Investigation Agency at his home in Srinagar.

Mehraj, a freelance journalist who worked with the same rights group as a researcher, was arrested in 2023.

Both face charges of “funding terrorism” and “propagation of secessionist agenda” under India’s stringent “antiterrorism” laws, which in effect allow authorities to hold people without trial indefinitely.

The National Investigation Agency accuses the two of using the JKCCS to fund militant-linked activities and promote a separatist agenda. Both men deny the allegations.

A lower court granted them bail last week, but the agency appealed. The Delhi High Court refused on Tuesday to suspend the release order although it imposed tougher restrictions on the men’s movements and activities while it hears the appeal.

Under their bail conditions, the two must arrange their own stay in the capital, where they are facing trial, and cannot travel to Kashmir, according to a court document seen by the news agency AFP. Proceedings in the case will continue in the coming weeks.

Human rights violations

The JKCCS has for decades documented alleged rights violations by Indian government forces in Kashmir, including torture and unlawful killings, and has drawn attention to thousands of unmarked graves in border areas suspected of holding victims of “enforced disappearances”.

International rights groups, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have consistently called for the men’s release, saying they were jailed for their work.

In 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Parvez’s arrest was an “act of reprisal for his human rights work, and an attempt to silence him and Kashmiri civil society as a whole”.

After their release, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation Against Torture said the two were arrested on “trumped-up charges” and called on Indian authorities to drop the case, describing the proceedings as politically motivated.

Journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir say they have faced harassment and arrests since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government annulled the region’s partial autonomy.

From 2019 to 2023, more than 3,600 people were arrested there under “antiterrorism” laws, more than half of whom remain in prison, according to government figures.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim the territory in full.

Rebel groups have fought the Indian government since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.

England and Australia will not play Tests in the north of England after Old Trafford and Headingley not chosen to host.

There will be no Ashes matches in the north of England next year, when Australia arrive for Test cricket’s oldest rivalry.

Headingley in Leeds and Manchester’s Old Trafford have both staged some of the most dramatic clashes in the long history of Ashes cricket.

Don Bradman, arguably cricket’s greatest batsman, scored two triple centuries at Headingley in the 1930s.

Both grounds played host to remarkable individual feats by England hero Ian Botham during the 1981 Ashes series.

Headingley was also the venue for a remarkable unbeaten century by England’s Ben Stokes in a one-wicket win during the 2019 series.

But both venues have been left off the schedule for the 2027 Ashes – a decision criticised by new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, then the mayor of Greater Manchester – when it was announced in 2023.

The England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed on Thursday the exact fixture list for next year’s Ashes, with all five matches limited to the Midlands and south of England.

Hampshire’s Rose Bowl, near Southampton, will stage its first Ashes Test from July 21 – the fourth of the series.

It will become the 10th ground in the United Kingdom to stage a men’s Ashes Test.

The series will start at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on June 18, with Lord’s – as is traditional – staging the second Test on June 30 and Edgbaston in Birmingham the third on July 8.

The Ashes will conclude at the Oval in south London with the July 29-August 2 Test.

Old Trafford and Headingley are both set to stage Ashes Tests in 2031.

Australia triumphed 4-1 on home soil during the 2025-26 Ashes. The last Ashes series in England ended in a 2-2 draw in 2023.

England’s last Ashes series success was a 3-2 home victory in 2015.

They are also due to play a one-off Test against Bangladesh at Lord’s from May 28.

The 2027 World Test Championship final will be held at the Oval starting on June 9, the second time the venue has hosted the title match.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran will continue to ‘pay the price’ for what he said was the failure to stick to agreements, telling reporters that President Trump’s policy is ‘a head for an eye’.

Sailors on board a Thai cargo ship that was hit by a deadly attack in the Strait of Hormuz are suing the ship’s owners, claiming they ignored warnings issued by Iran. Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng has the story.

Millionaires including former footballer Gary Lineker and music producer Brian Eno have written to new prime minister Andy Burnham asking to be taxed more.

In an open letter, 120 well-off Britons told Burnham: “We can afford it. We’re not talking about higher taxes on those who get up and go to work for their income every day, but on the very richest whose income is derived from the wealth they hold.”

Organised by Patriotic Millionaires, the letter said it would lead to a more equal society, and urged a “devolution of wealth and power from the very richest”.

People can already quietly give money or stocks voluntarily to the Treasury using its donation facility.

The group supports a 2% tax on wealth over £10m.

“Millionaires are a patriotic bunch,” the letter states. “We love this country and we want it to succeed.

“But success requires investment and a primary source of untouched capital investment is sitting with us, in untaxed potential.”

The renewed call for higher tax on the wealthy follows a similar campaigns in previous years.

Burnham did not rule out a wealth tax when asked about it by Lineker a few days before he became prime minister.

He suggested he may have “to ask for a little more” tax at some point.

The latest call from Patriotic Millionaires said there is a “need to embrace a new kind of devolution of wealth and power, from the very richest in order to reinvest back into our greatest asset in every region”.

It added that in its own poll, the majority of millionaires wanted a higher tax on themselves.

“There are a few people left with outdated economic thinking and few others desperate to hold onto every penny they can… Those that can’t see past the end of their own self interest have no place in designing a Britain for the future,” the letter said.

Other signatories include film director Richard Curtis who directed Notting Hill and Ian Gregg, the former managing director of bakery chain Greggs, who is the son of the firm’s founder.