TODAY

Major routes between Manchester and Birmingham, which passes through Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry and Wolverhampton, along with routes from Leeds to York, Cheltenham to Cardiff and Glasgow to Edinburgh, are all affected.

Services to Plymouth and Penzance are also disrupted with customers relying on Great Western Railway operators as a replacement.

“We are working closely with relevant partners and will provide further updates as soon as possible,” a CrossCountry spokesperson said.

While the operator usually calls at more than 100 stations, it said that the only route expecting a “near-normal” service was between Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport.

The company apologised to passengers affected and said tickets were being accepted by other operators.

Customers are entitled to Delay Repay compensation if their train is delayed by 30 minutes or more, while those who choose not to travel can claim a refund for their journey.

Only state-approved parties loyal to President Tokayev permitted to take part amid a sweeping constitutional overhaul.

Voters are heading to the polls in Kazakhstan’s snap parliamentary election, which critics say will strengthen the power of the president.

Polling stations opened at 7am local time (02:00 GMT) and are scheduled to close at 8pm (15:00 GMT). More than 12 million of Kazakhstan’s 20 million people are eligible to vote.

The election will usher in a new 145-member unicameral legislature that is expected to be dominated by supporters of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who has led the Central Asian country since 2019.

Constitutional overhauls earlier this year abolished Kazakhstan’s upper house in favour of a one-body parliament. Officials claim the change will give parliament more weight in political decision-making, having previously been confined to a mostly auxiliary role.

However, only seven state-approved parties, all loyal to Tokayev, have been allowed to put forth candidates.

The constitutional changes also reset term limits to allow Tokayev to run again in 2029.

The 73-year-old was the chosen successor of longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled for almost 30 years from the 1990s. But he broke with his predecessor amid cost-of-living protests in 2022 that led to the deaths of 238 people, and has since touted a reform agenda called “Just Kazakhstan”.

A former Soviet state, Kazakhstan balances relations with China, Europe and Russia, with Tokayev navigating recent tensions over Moscow’s war with Ukraine.

Kazakhstan is oil-rich and makes up about 2 percent of daily world supply, mostly exporting to European countries through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to Russia’s port of Novorossiysk.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion will not be playing singles, but could team up with her older sister Venus for doubles.

Serena Williams will team up with Carlos Alcaraz to create a powerhouse mixed doubles pair on her return to the US Open.

The US Tennis Association announced on Saturday that Williams and Alcaraz had been given a wild card into the tournament. The mixed doubles main draw begins on Tuesday, with the winning team sharing $1 million.

It will be Williams’s first time playing at the US Open since 2022. The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returned to tennis this summer.

“Let’s gooooo!” Alcaraz posted on X, with a fire emoji and tagging Williams.

Williams is not planning to play singles in New York. The USTA had been holding one women’s wild card, presumably in case Williams wanted it. However, the tournament announced on Saturday that it had been given to American Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion.

Williams played singles at Wimbledon but sustained a knee injury in her first-round loss. She played doubles with older sister Venus at the Cincinnati Open, and they could still opt to play together at the US Open.

Alcaraz announced this week he would return to defend his US Open singles title after being sidelined since April with a right wrist injury.

Serena Williams won a mixed doubles title at the US Open even before winning any of her six singles titles there. She teamed for the 1998 championship with Max Mirnyi, who now works with top-ranked woman Aryna Sabalenka.

The mixed doubles tournament is far different now, as the USTA revamped it last year to make it a two-day, 16-team event it hoped would draw top singles players.

Few are bigger than Williams and Alcaraz, the two-time US Open men’s champion who is ranked number two.

The USTA also announced a number of updates to the field after some players withdrew from the competition.

Americans Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz will team up, after their previous partners, Jack Draper and Elena Rybakina, pulled out with injuries. The teams of Emma Navarro and Tommy Paul, along with Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik, were given the remaining two wild cards into the main draw.

Diana Shnaider remains in the field and will be given a chance to find a new partner after Daniil Medvedev withdrew.

US Open mixed doubles teams: Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic, Pegula and Fritz, Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud, Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, Amanda Anisimova and Learner Tien, two-time defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, Alex Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime, Leylah Fernandez and Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Townsend and Alexander Zverev, Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils, Williams and Alcaraz, Muchova and Mensik, and Navarro and Paul.

The remaining two spots will be determined through an eight-team qualifying tournament on Monday.

The USTA gave wild cards to the teams of Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, and Peyton Stearns and Christian Harrison, to be part of that field.

It is otherwise largely made up of the traditional doubles specialists who lost out on the chance to play in the US Open last year, with direct entry based on the players’ combined singles ranking.

Caracas, August 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan National Assembly unanimously approved on Friday the Law on the Promotion and Protection of Housing Construction, a reform establishing updated rules for the construction and commercialization of residential properties.

The legislation, which replaces the Law Against Real Estate Fraud from April 2012, consists of four chapters and 40 articles establishing rules for purchase and sale contracts, construction company responsibilities, and oversight mechanisms under the Ministry of Housing and Habitat.

“This is a law that protects real estate developers and companies dedicated to housing construction while also protecting homebuyers so they can gain access to housing quickly and preventing any situation that undermines their right to acquire a home,” National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said on social media.

The initiative was backed by opposition parties alongside the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV). COPEI deputy Miguel Salazar stated that the legislation creates “great expectations” and “strengthens the legislative ecosystem that protects the real estate sector.”

The law has been sent to Acting President Delcy Rodríguez for final approval before being published in the National Gazette.

The newly endorsed legislation establishes a series of conditions for real estate developers to meet before beginning to pre-sell housing units, including proof of land ownership, municipal approval of the preliminary project, and mechanisms to protect funds contributed by buyers.

The law also establishes a unified registry for real estate projects and provides a financial protection mechanism. Funds deposited through an escrow arrangement may only be released once the development has obtained the corresponding permits. Companies must also detail the characteristics of the homes and the construction schedule in each contract.

The law also establishes fines for delays in submitting documents, permit failures, non-compliance with regulations, and violations of preventive measures, among other offenses.

At the same time, the legislative project establishes incentives for private sector constructors such as greater flexibility to set prices, an end to a prior existing 24-month deadline for completing certain projects, and modified conditions benefiting sellers should buyers fail to make payments.

The bill also eliminated the lending banks’ liability in case the real estate project is not completed. For buyers, the change removes one of the parties they could potentially hold accountable in case the purchased home is not delivered.

Venezuelan authorities have moved to improve conditions for private real estate companies and landlords in the wake of the 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, leaving some 17,900 people homeless, particularly in La Guaira state. On July 14, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez estimated that 25,000 homes would be needed to accommodate those who lost their houses.

The government has assigned 335 apartments to displaced families since the earthquake. Acting President Rodríguez has pledged to deliver 4,000 homes before December and reach 10,000 by the end of 2027. Venezuelan authorities have likewise created a credit program for housing purchases and provided loans to condominium boards for repair works.

The legislative initiative favoring real estate developers came on the heels of the Residential Property Lease Law approved on July 31. Authorities presented the project’s goal as improving conditions for landlords to put their properties on the market.

The law allows landlords and tenants to freely and independently establish contractual terms and rental rates and sidelines the state’s housing superintendency SUNAVI. The bill allows rents to be paid in national or foreign currency and establishes a three-month rent limit for deposits.

In addition, landlords and tenants have access to multiple mediation mechanisms, including conciliation centers, arbitration, the intervention of local peace justices, or municipal court proceedings. Tenant organizations had recently denounced recurrent landlord practices of bringing trespassing criminal charges as a way to force evictions.

At the same time, the new law acceded to a long-time demand from real estate lobbies in fast-tracking evictions. Landlords can rescind the rental agreement if tenants are two months behind on rent, have illegally sublet the property, or have given it a different use than the one agreed to, among other conditions.

The 2011 law regulating housing leases, which was approved by former President Hugo Chávez and is highly protective of tenant rights, remains valid for existing contracts, while all rentals signed in the future will be governed by the new law. However, local media have reported on a spate of evictions after the new law was enacted.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Bitkine, Chad – For Ache Kodo, seeing a doctor once meant saving money for the journey.

Living in Bitkine, in central Chad, she said a medical visit could mean paying for transport, the consultation and other costs of travelling to a larger town.

Now, she can consult a doctor remotely through a Telemedan kiosk closer to home.

“Telemedan changed how my family accessed healthcare services,” Ache told Al Jazeera. “It was difficult before, as it involved me saving money to travel just to see a doctor. Now I’m able to do it on time with fewer costs from where I am. It has also enhanced my economic status.”

For people in rural Chad, distance can be as much of a barrier to healthcare as the shortage of doctors themselves. Medical facilities and specialists are concentrated in larger towns and cities, leaving many communities far from basic services.

Abakar Mahamat grew up with that reality.

“The problem wasn’t only the lack of doctors,” he said. “It was also the distance between those doctors and the communities that needed them.”

In 2021, he launched Telemedan, a telemedicine initiative designed to bring consultations closer to communities where electricity, internet access and medical infrastructure are limited.

“Instead of asking people to travel hundreds of kilometres to find a doctor, I wanted to use technology to bring the doctor closer to them,” Abakar told Al Jazeera.

A clinic powered by the sun

The kiosks run on solar panels and batteries, allowing them to operate without reliable grid electricity.

A local operator registers the patient and takes basic measurements using equipment including blood-pressure monitors, glucometers, thermometers, pulse oximeters and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines.

The doctor joins remotely, appearing on a screen as the operator assists with the examination.

Telemedan says its kiosks can also be equipped with diagnostic tools including stethoscopes, temperature sensors and, in some cases, ultrasound equipment. A trained local operator helps patients use them.

The system is designed for places where internet access may be unreliable. Patient information can be stored locally and synchronised when connectivity returns. An Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service allows people without internet access to book appointments and access health information.

Depending on the location, the kiosks can connect through mobile networks or satellite links.

“We want to see that the absence of reliable electricity or the internet should not mean the absence of healthcare,” Abakar said.

The cost of getting to a doctor

Abakar said some journeys for medical care can cost $200 or more once transport, accommodation, logistics and medical consultations are included.

Telemedan consultations cost between $2 and $15, depending on the service.

For Abakar, the issue is also about what families can afford to give up to obtain care.

“A patient should not have to choose between seeking medical care and being able to feed their family,” he said.

From pilot to wider network

Telemedan began as a pilot and has expanded with support from grants and institutional partnerships, including Chad’s Ministry of Public Health and Prevention.

Abakar said the initiative now has 37 kiosks across 11 provinces and has reached an estimated 143,000 people.

Telemedan has also begun using artificial intelligence to help screen for diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that can damage vision. The initiative says the technology is intended to assist healthcare professionals rather than replace them.

But a remote consultation has limits.

A kiosk cannot provide emergency treatment or perform every examination. Patients who need specialist care, laboratory tests, medicines or hospital treatment still have to reach the next level of the health system.

Can the kiosks last?

Telemedan’s expansion comes as Chad develops its wider digital health system.

Youssouf Silay, an assistant to the coordinator of Chad’s National Digital Health Programme, told Al Jazeera that the country’s National Health Development Plan for 2022–2030 identifies digital health as a way to expand access to care.

Chad established the National Telemedicine Programme in 2021 and launched its National Digital Health Programme in 2023, Youssouf said. The Ministry of Health is also developing a legal and regulatory framework for digital health services.

“The objective is to promote innovative solutions that can improve access to healthcare, particularly in areas with limited medical and energy infrastructure,” Youssouf told Al Jazeera. “Solutions such as solar-powered telemedicine kiosks can contribute to this effort by bringing healthcare services closer to underserved populations.”

But putting a kiosk in a village is only the beginning.

The equipment has to keep working. Connectivity has to be available. Local operators need training. Doctors need to be there when patients call. And people who need care beyond the kiosk need a way to reach it.

Each kiosk costs about $10,000, according to Abakar. Telemedan sells the units to governments, public health programmes and partner organisations, which then operate them. The model means patients are not paying for the infrastructure itself.

Telemedan says it wants to reach one million people in rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa.

A solar-powered kiosk cannot replace a hospital. It cannot replace a doctor in every circumstance.

But it can shorten the distance between a patient and the health system.

“We want Telemedan to become a sustainable layer of healthcare infrastructure, not simply a collection of technology projects,” Abakar told Al Jazeera.

Mayors across England will be given new powers to overrule local councils on some planning decisions.

The change would apply to proposals with more than 150 homes, more than 15,000 square metres of commercial space or buildings over 30 metres.

Mayors in 13 areas including Manchester, Liverpool, the West of England and the West Midlands will gain similar powers to Sir Sadiq Khan in London, who is already able to “call in” planning decisions.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said the powers were an “essential part of the toolkit that mayors need to effectively deliver new homes and regeneration”.

The Conservatives questioned whether it was right for councils to lose the “ability to make planning decisions in their own communities”.

The powers will also be available to mayors in the Combined Authorities in North East England, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, York and North Yorkshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, Greater Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, and Tees Valley.

Housebuilding has fallen in London in recent years, but Pennycook insisted the “call in” powers had helped the mayor “unblock strategic growth sites” in the capital.

In the 2024 general election, the Labour government promised to build 1.5 million homes in England by the end of the decade but housebuilders have warned the target could be missed.

Pennycook said the government was “absolutely determined to stick with that ambition”.

He acknowledged the target was “really stretching” but said nearly 180,000 children were in temporary accommodation and “any smaller target wouldn’t be commensurate with the scale of the challenge”.

In addition to gaining the new “call-in” powers, mayors are set to be able to grant “up-front permission”, which the government says will allow building to begin “without a developer having to apply”.

A consultation on how the powers will work is due to be published next week.

The government has sought to stress that local councils will continue to decide the majority of applications and that all decisions must still follow planning rules.

It has also said mayors will get a “bigger say” over how housing funding is spent in their area, with the government directing national agency Homes England to focus on local mayors’ priorities.

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who served as mayor for Greater Manchester for nearly a decade, has repeatedly expressed his desire to transfer more powers to local mayors.

“Challenge does need to be made to local decision-making and actually it cuts both ways,” he told the Sunday Times.

“Sometimes it’s the other way round. It’s the local authority putting forward something that’s unacceptable in terms of the impact on the community. It’s a two-way street.”

Last month, Burnham promised to give all mayors a share of income tax revenue, saying he wanted to “bring power home” to “every postcode”.

Earlier this week, he announced a secondment programme to send high-performing civil servants to work in mayoral offices.

The approach has faced criticism from some in his own party and the Liberal Democrats, who fear it could create a “two-tier system” that discriminates against those areas that do not have an elected mayor.

General Atomics (GA) has unveiled plans for what it calls the Wildfire Unmanned Aerial System, a next generation medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) drone. The move comes as the Pentagon is seeking an updated, modular, cheaper successor for the MQ-9 Reaper – one that is easier to produce and can be more freely sent into higher-risk environments where losses are likely to occur. 

The Reaper, a workhorse for U.S. uncrewed strike and ISR missions for decades, suffered heavy losses during the war with Iran and against the Houthis in Yemen. This has added a new level to already existing concerns about how they would perform against a peer threat like China. It also has decreased the MQ-9 fleet so dramatically that there are real concerns above operational impacts and the force size going forward overall. The MQ-9 is now out of production and cannot be directly replaced.

Aviation Week was the first to report about the Wildfire.

GA spokesman C. Mark Brinkley offered limited details about the Wildfire system, which he claimed is a leap beyond what the Pentagon is currently seeking in a new MALE combat drone. The company, he added, is not yet providing any images.

“General Atomics is looking at it and asking ourselves, ‘What can we really do? No kidding, no BS, actually do,’” Brinkley told us. “Let’s be honest with ourselves first. How do we come out of the box, day one, with a 10,000-nautical-mile ferry range? Can we carry four LRASMs [AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles]? Can we swarm 100 aircraft under semi-autonomous control? Can we fuse all of that data into a highly effective common operating picture? Can we do that at scalable, affordable mass?”

“So that was the assignment, and our engineers sharpened their pencils and got to work,” he added. “What came out the other side was our new Wildfire UAS. That thing is a beast, and no one who actually does this for a living and is honestly concerned about America’s warfighting edge can look at it and not want 100 of them as fast as we can make them.”

Last month, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced its plans for what it has dubbed the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) program to replace the Reaper. The objective is to bring several companies together to help determine the way forward.

“The math of modern warfare is changing, and our force design must change with it,” DIU stated. “For decades, the Joint Force has relied on low-density, high-value, ‘exquisite’ (>$30M) manned and unmanned aircraft. In a high-end fight, this model is simply unsustainable. To win, we must design for, and accept, inevitable attrition while retaining the advantage.”

“The Joint Force seeks a cost-effective, theater-range, massed, and modular Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to provide a flexible, operationally-responsive, risk-tolerant option in the air domain,” the DIU explained. “The ability to employ many aircraft at once ensures a persistent overwhelming credible threat despite inevitable attrition.”

Massed Modular Aircraft “are envisioned as in-theater reconfigurable platforms capable of long-range payload delivery,” DIU added. “Crucially, MMA must retain the ability to be outfitted with a variety of payloads, including Full Motion Video (FMV) sensors, to execute missions that the MQ-9A performs today.”

Primarily, DIU wants an aircraft with a munition and sensor payload capacity of at least 2,800 pounds, an unrefueled combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles with payload, and able to self-deploy one-way at least 8,000 nautical miles. It must also have a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) to rapidly swap in different payloads and system upgrades.

As for secondary attributes, DIU wants autonomy for control, allowing one pilot to operate several aircraft. In addition, it is seeking “resilient and integrated communications – hybrid SATCOM/mesh network connection” and to be able to conduct “local airfield operations under highly degraded or denied primary C2/SATCOM conditions.”

In addition, the aircraft would have “at least 200 knots true airspeed” and operate from runways with a maximum length of 6,000 feet.

The MQ-9A Reaper has a 3,850-pound payload capacity and can fly for more than 20 hours unarmed, or more than 12 hours with weapons. In the case of the latest MQ-9B version, with an extended wingspan, flight endurance can be increased to more than 40 hours.”

The deadline for submissions on this program ended July 23, but it is unclear when contracts will be awarded. However, proposed solutions “must be capable of full-scale prototype flight testing within 21 months of award, with a targeted Initial Operating Capability in FY2031 (20 mission-ready aircraft delivered to an operational unit, able to be deployed),” DIU noted.

To put the DIU goal into perspective, official budget documents say the Air Force had 165 Reapers in inventory as of the start of Fiscal Year 2026, which began on October 1 of last year. This had already marked a significant year-over-year decrease, down from 231 MQ-9As at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025. These figures don’t include the Marine Corps and Central Intelligence Agency, which also fly Reapers.

General Atomics is turning the MQ-9 Reaper family of drones into cruise missile ‘trucks’

As noted earlier in this story, the DIU announcement of the MMA program came as Reaper losses in the war against Iran were mounting.

By May, the Air Force’s total MQ-9A fleet had shrunk to 135 aircraft, Air Force Lt. Gen. David Tabor, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, told members of Congress at a hearing.

There was enough concern that the service has scrambled to replace some of those airframes.

“So there’s a bit of a short-term effort to buy back things immediately, in this fiscal year,” Tabor testified.

The picture has only grown bleaker since then.

“The U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones during the war with Iran, or roughly 25 percent of its fleet,” The Washington Post reported last week, citing three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The newspaper, citing the Air Force, stated that Reapers can cost between $30 million and $50 million each, depending on the type of sensors and weapons they carry.

“The potential taxpayer cost of recent losses is over $1.3 billion for that weapon system alone,” the publication added.

TWZ cannot independently verify those figures.

The MQ-9 Reaper Keeps Getting Shot Down – And Still Gets Used

The MMA program is not the first effort to replace the MQ-9. The Air Force has tried multiple times to develop a Reaper replacement without success. While GA had long held essentially had a monopoly on the MALE combat drone market in the U.S., the DIU competition has a host of other companies competing. 

As we highlighted in a past report on this subject:

“…the U.S. drone landscape has changed considerably in terms of manufacturers. A few years ago, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics would have been seen as the front-runners for the MQ-9 replacement. Now, there are more contenders, often with a founding focus on rapidly scaling up production at low cost. Still, these firms have much to prove, especially considering the risk in replacing an aircraft as important as the MQ-9. At the same time, in the more advanced drone space, the legacy defense “prime” contractors are also making major progress in leveraging new technologies to reduce production costs and migrating away from exquisite, very expensive drones as their default offerings.”

As for General Atomics, Brinkley pushed back against the notion that the MMA program is actually a Reaper replacement.

“I think it’s really unfortunate that MMA has been branded as a ‘Reaper replacement’ because it misrepresents what America needs now and what we need later,” he suggested. “We need an immediate backfill solution to a critical shortage of unmanned MALE ISR/Strike. We need to get going on that now. MMA isn’t a backfill solution, or even a bridge to a backfill solution. This isn’t that.”

“Some say we need cheaper, disposable aircraft, so that we can use them and throw them away, or lose them and not feel bad about it. No one is talking about actual capability, ready today,” Brinkley told us previously. “No one is talking about all of the hard lessons, already learned, about icing and weather and weapons integration. No one is talking about the multiple survivability upgrades available for the existing platforms and the lack of investment in those.”

“These make-believe weapons that don’t exist have the luxury of being anything you imagine them to be,” Brinkely added. “Unscratched lottery tickets, promising all of the win and none of the lose [sic].

Still, the company did submit a proposal for MMA, Brinkley told us on Wednesday, “but the aircraft [Wildfire] is not dependent on that program.”

“We can deliver Wildfires years earlier than the current schedule, and absolutely no one on Earth wants to see them coming over their horizon,” he stated.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Iran security chief Rezaei says any state joining US would be considered an enemy and Tehran would target their interests in retaliation.

The warning comes as US President Donald Trump threatens to isolate Iran economically, to weaken its government.

Iran has threatened to treat nearby countries as enemies and target their interests if they join a United States campaign to cripple its economy.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued the warning in a Saturday interview with state broadcaster IRIB.

“We’re telling all nearby countries not to join the US economic war. Otherwise, we will consider them as enemies,” Rezaei told IRIB.

His remarks come on the heels of escalating economic threats from the administration of US President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Trump announced his government would undertake the “most crushing economic operation” yet against Iran, as part of ongoing hostilities between the two countries.

The US and Israel have been locked in a war with Iran since February 28, when the two allies launched an initial volley of attacks against Tehran.

In addition to threatening Iran’s economy this week, Trump pledged “tremendous economic consequences” for any country that gives Iran “any type of lifeline”.

His Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, echoed his threats the following day, saying, “You’re either with us or against us.”

In Saturday’s interview, Rezaei described Iran’s regional strategy as a three-stage sequence, which would start with efforts to de-escalate tensions with neighbouring countries.

“First we negotiate. Then, we try to separate them from America with pleasant language, because we are not really looking to expand the war,” he said.

Any countries that continue to side with the US would then be given time to reconsider, he said. “But in the third stage, we will definitely act.”

While the US has not stopped its military operations against Iran, Rezaei suggested that the Trump administration was betting that economic pressure would fracture Iranian society, forcing the war to come to an end.

“They hope that, if possible, they can break our unity with economic pressure and a group of protesters will take to the streets, and in a way, they will come to the aid of American F-35s,” he said, referring to a kind of military aircraft.

Negotiations to end the conflict have stalled in recent months, following the failure of a June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU) that called for an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations”.

Control over the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping lane off the coast of Iran, has become an enduring sticking point between the US and Iran.

Iran quickly moved to shut down traffic through the strait early in the war, sending the price of goods like oil and fertiliser skyrocketing.

Countries in the Middle East that were previously reliant on the strait for exports have started to pursue substitute trade routes.

But Rezaei warned that Iran would target those alternative oil-shipping routes out of the Gulf if regional states took part in the US’s plans of economic warfare.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday also decried the incoming US measures as an assertion of “extraterritorial sovereignty” over United Nations member states.

Tehran has also reportedly considered widening its target list beyond the Middle East, with media outlets reporting it could strike US allies in Europe who have supported Trump’s operations.

We now have our first look at the Ancillary Surface Craft (ASC), a new medium landing craft for the U.S. Marine Corps. Australia-headquartered firm Birdon announced last year that it would be supplying two of these vessels to the Marines to help the service further refine its concepts for future distributed island-hopping operations.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) released pictures yesterday of what appears to be the first ASC, based on the hull number (ASC-1), in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. The photographs of the vessel, also sometimes referred to as the Ancillary Surface Connector, were taken last week during a distinguished visitor day event. Marine Corps personnel, as well as representatives from the Australian Army and industry, were in attendance.

It is unclear whether or not the Marines have formally taken delivery of ASC-1 and when the second example might be set to arrive. TWZ has reached out to the Marines and Birdon for more information.

“The [distinguished visitor day] event provided an opportunity for senior leaders, Marines, allied partners and industry personnel to observe the ASC’s capabilities and discuss its potential to support distributed maritime operations and sustainment in contested littoral environments,” according to the caption accompanying one of the pictures. “The ASC is being developed through U.S.-Australian industry collaboration to support experimentation and inform future amphibious modernization.”

“The ASC is a significant step towards achieving a capability organic to the Marine Corps for maneuver in the littorals without reliance on large high value Naval assets,” it continues. “This craft, coupled with smaller landing craft, will demonstrate the capability needed by the Corps to maneuver medium, light, and ultra-light tactical vehicles from shore-to-shore and distribute all classes of supply to disbursed forces in archipelagic regions.”

The overall design of the vessel reflects what was seen in a rendering that Birdon released last year when it first announced that it would be supplying the two ASCs to the Marines. However, that rendering did show the vessel with at least two remote weapon stations armed with 30mm automatic cannons, at least one .50 caliber M2 machine gun on a traditional deck mount, and an angular mast structure on top of the pilot house, features that are not present in the images that have now been released of ASC-1.

There is a pole-like mast, as well as rotating maritime navigation radar and what looks to be a searchlight, on top of ASC-1’s pilot house. The actual vessel also has truncated catwalks around the pilot house, as well as an additional boxy structure with ventilation slats on top, compared to what is depicted in the rendering. It is very possible that Marine ASCs could gain additional features as time goes on.

Birdon has previously said that the ASC can carry up to 40 troops and 54 tons of cargo in its open main deck area. The vessel is also reportedly 150 feet long and 30 feet across, with a bow ramp that drops down for loading and unloading right onto a beach.

“To ensure safe landings on uncharted beaches, Birdon worked with a specialist sonar company to develop and integrate an advanced forward-looking sonar system, allowing operators to detect obstacles and assess beach gradients well ahead of the vessel,” the company also said of the ASC in a press release last year. “The vessel is designed to beach and de-beach in gradients significantly shallower than existing landing craft can support, providing enhanced, safe amphibious operations capability.”

“Birdon’s ASC design also features a cutting-edge fuel delivery and transfer system that allows for efficient vessel-to-vessel or vessel-to-land fuel transfer, supporting extended operational range and flexibility in challenging environments,” the release added.

The ASC is broadly in line, at least in terms of general dimensions, with other existing medium landing craft designs on the market globally. As a point of comparison, the new Landing Craft Utility (LCU) 1700s that the Navy is in the process of acquiring from Austal are around 139 feet long and 31 feet wide, but have a higher stated payload capacity (350 combat-equipped troops or 170 tons of cargo). Birdon itself is also developing a new Landing Craft Medium (LC-M) for the Australian armed forces, renderings of which show a similar, but larger design compared to the ASC.

As noted, the Marines’ stated plan is to use the two ASCs to help with the development of its still-evolving expeditionary and distributed concepts of operations, collectively referred to as Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO). A central aspect of EABO is to rapidly position and reposition relatively small units between what could easily be far-flung forward locations, especially small islands dotted across parts of the Pacific. These so-called ‘stand-in forces’ would be readily deployable as a deterrent ahead of a potential conflict, and then be better placed to act if needed. The distributed nature of the EABO concept would also create targeting challenges for opponents and, by extension, reduce the vulnerability of friendly forces.

As TWZ wrote after Birdon’s initial announcement about the ASC in May 2025:

“Not having to rely on large traditional Navy amphibious warfare ships to conduct these maneuvers in littoral environments, where established port facilities are also likely to be absent, is essential to the EABO concept. Depending on the exact distribution of Marine forces and the distance between operating locations in a particular area, vessels like the ASC-M could be used to move personnel and materiel between sites and/or act as ‘connectors’ between larger ships and the shore.”

“For years now, the Marines have also been working with the Navy on plans for the latter service to acquire a fleet of at least 18 and up to 35 Medium Landing Ships, or LSMs, to support the EABO construct. However, concerns about the costs of prospective designs and other issues have continually pushed back the LSM program schedule, with the first of those vessels now not set to arrive until the end of the decade at the earliest.”

In December 2025, the Navy did announce that it had selected Dutch shipbuilder Damen’s LST-100 design to be the basis of a new class of LSMs, and that it was hoping to accelerate the delivery schedule for those ships. However, the first LSM is still only now scheduled to arrive in 2029. At that time, the Navy also told us it was planning to buy at least one LSM of a separate design from Bollinger Shipyards, which could be based on the Israeli Logistics Support Vessel (ILSV) developed for Israel. The ISLV is itself a derivative of the open-ocean-optimized subclass of the General Frank S. Besson class Logistics Support Vessel (LSV) now in service with the U.S. Army as part of its obscure watercraft fleet, which you can learn more about here.

There may be a possibility for the Marine Corps to acquire more ASCs, or a further evolution of the design, depending on how experimentation with the initial examples proceeds. The partnership with Australia on this effort also underscores the potential for that country, as well as other U.S. allies and partners, to further leverage this work.

In 2024, Birdon announced another deal to provide a heavy landing craft, called the H260, based on a design the company had already been working on for the Australian military, to the Marines, at least for testing and evaluation. The current status of that effort is unclear. The Marines have already been using chartered stern-landing ships for years now to inform the LSM program and otherwise help refine littoral logistics requirements in support of EABO.

Vessels like the ASC and the LSM are just some of the components the Marines envision as supporting the logistics ecosystem necessary to enable its future distributed operations. The service is also acquiring a new family of cargo-carrying uncrewed aerial vehicles, as well as small uncrewed surface vessels, as part of those plans.

The first new ASC for the Marines has now been built, if not formally delivered, and will only help the surface further prove out its expeditionary and distributed operations vision.

Update: 1:02 PM ET –

The U.S. Marine Corps has confirmed the “technical acceptance” of the first ASC.

“Technical specifications validated during the acceptance process highlight the craft’s exceptional ruggedness and operational utility. Engineered for demanding ocean transits, the ASC is fully operational in Sea State 5 and designed to survive extreme conditions up to Sea State 7,” according to a release from the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. “To ensure safe navigation through uncharted, very shallow littoral waters, the craft is equipped with advanced forward-looking sonar that enables maneuverability across the battlespace. Furthermore, it can transport up to 46 tons of cargo and 40 combat-loaded Marines while executing vital shore-to-shore maneuver, mobility, and sustainment.”

The release also reiterates that the ASC represents a capability that would be complementary to the future LSMs, using its “very shallow draft to deliver logistical support to the ‘last tactical mile’ into landing sites beyond the reach of larger vessels, including shallow-gradient, unimproved, and unsurveyed shorelines where standoff would otherwise leave cargo stranded offshore.” ASC-type vessels and LSMs together will “give a Stand-in Force a route from an intermediate staging base to the beach without dependence on a port, a pier, or a causeway.”

“To support Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), our forces must remain highly mobile and sustained without relying on fixed, vulnerable ports,” Col. Kenny Jones, Science and Technology Division Director at the MCWL, said in a statement. “This prototype allows MCWL to immediately execute hands-on experimentation, test tactical concepts, and put real hardware in the hands of Marines. By exploring the ASC’s traditional bow-first beaching physics alongside other experimental platforms, we are actively reducing programmatic risk and perfecting the requirements for the future naval fleet.”

“Following the technical acceptance of the ASC, the craft now moves into limited technical assessments (LTA) with Birdon America craft masters and engineers partnered with Australian Army crewing support and Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory oversight and assessments,” the MCWL release adds. “Initially, the craft will be operated by a hybrid crew pairing Marines with seasoned contracted mariners. This approach ensures that American service members are thoroughly trained as the Marine Corps prepares for an expanded role in the independent operation of small surface craft.”

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

In another effort to advance robotic warfare, Ukraine is working to turn Soviet-era BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance vehicles into remotely controlled systems. The move comes as uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) are playing an increasing role on both sides of the conflict as movement along the front lines has been highly contested by the ubiquity of aerial drones.

This is one of the latest efforts by the Central Innovation Activities Directorate of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to help provide weaponry that will keep troops out of harm’s way, the head of that unit told the Ukrainian Ukrinform news outlet on Friday. Ukraine is using UGVs mainly for logistics and casualty evacuation, but they are also increasingly engaging in ground combat as well air defense.

Col. Vladyslav Voloshyn said work is currently underway “to enable remote control of the vehicle from a distance of up to 1,000 km. In addition, the BRDM-2 is planned to be fitted with a powerful foreign-made diesel engine, with General Motors and Mercedes engines among those being considered, replacing the Soviet-made GAZ gasoline engine. An automatic transmission is also planned.”

“The platform will have expanded capabilities for integrating a remotely controlled combat module equipped with an automatic weapon of at least 12.7 mm caliber,” Voloshyn explained. “This is expected to enhance the capabilities of Ukrainian units and their effectiveness in carrying out combat missions while helping preserve the lives of service members.”

The directorate is also installing additional mine protection for the vehicle’s hull bottom, tubeless high-mobility tires, a backup remote-control system inside the hull, and anti-fragmentation protection, the colonel added. Equipped this way, the vehicles would likely be used to assault front line Russian positions where troops can’t go on foot or as a remote option to provide fire control and support Ukraine’s often porous front line defenses. Uncrewed ground vehicles have also been used heavily in medical evacuations and general logistics to the front lines.

Unlike having to build a totally new vehicle, this project aims to take advantage of the large supply of BRDM-2s Ukraine has in storage, Voloshyn added.

Ukrainian BRDM-2 Armored Vehicle Conducts Indirect Fire #warinukraine

The vehicles will be equipped with day/night cameras to assist with guidance and will be remotely controlled from beyond line-of-sight. A vehicle this size would be able to more easily accommodate robust satellite links for that kind of operation. Beyond these features, the colonel provided few details about how the vehicles would be operated.

The head of Ukraine’s Brave1 defense technology hub previously provided some insights about how this works for purpose-built UGVs.

“I can tell you that combat UGVs without artificial intelligence do not work at appropriate effectiveness,” Brave1 CEO Andrii Hrytseniuk told us in May in a discussion about Ukraine’s burgeoning UGV industry. “All combat turrets that we are using have elements of artificial intelligence, and it allows them to be as effective as they are.”

The UGVs use machine vision for “object recognition, identification, classification, tracking and providing recommendations for the operator on what to do,” he added.

These systems communicate through Ukraine’s Delta command and control system, the Brave1 CEO noted.

Without the Delta system, “all these advanced technologies on the battlefield will not be working,” Hrytseniuk suggested. “The Delta command and control system, which is number one in the world, is absolutely crucial. And this is for all our drones, multi-domain operations, everything.”

War in Ukraine: An advanced digital map. The Delta system #shorts #warinukraine #united24media

The Ukrainian company ArmSpetsTekhnolohiya unveiled the BRDM-2M in June during the Defense Builder Accelerator Demo Day. Now the directorate is preparing this system for deployment to the front lines, Voloshyn stated without providing timelines. If it does turn out to be a viable option, it will join tens of thousands of other Ukrainian UGVs on the battlefield.

The Latest

On the battlefield, both sides are making small advances, however, the front lines are largely static. Here are some key takeaways from the latest Institute for the Study of War analysis. 

• Sumy: Russian forces recently advanced in northern Sumy Oblast. 

• Kharkiv: Russian forces continued offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast on August 19 and 20 but did not advance as Ukrainian forces counterattacked. However, Russian forces are reportedly intensifying strikes in the Kupyansk direction, likely in preparation for future ground attacks.

• Donetsk: Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area on August 19 and 20 but did not make confirmed advances. Ukrainian forces recently advanced south of Dobropillya while Russian forces recently advanced southwest of Pokrovsk.

• Zaporizhzhia: Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Hulyaipole direction and western Zaporizhzhia Oblast on August 19 and 20 but did not advance.

• Kherson: Neither Russian nor Ukrainian sources reported ground activity in the Kherson direction on August 20.

In an update to a story we reported earlier this month, North Korea is reportedly sending KN-30 missiles, also known as the Hwasong-11C, to Russia.

“Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) confirmed on August 20 that North Korea transferred around 50 KN-23, KN-24, and KN-30 (Hwasong-11C) ballistic missiles to Russia as of July 2026,” the Institute for the Study of War reported on Thursday, citing Ukrainian media.

The KN-30 is an enlarged derivative of the original Hwasong-11 and designed to carry larger warheads. North Korea has previously said it has tested subvariants of the Da/C type with 2.5-ton and 4.5-ton conventional high-explosive warheads, and that it can also be fitted with a nuclear warhead.

ISW says Russia deployed six KN-30 heavy North Korean missile launchers near Ukraine’s border, enough for up to 120 launches. From Voronezh region, they could potentially reach Kyiv and the Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.… pic.twitter.com/im4b3bRWPn

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) August 21, 2026

North Korea has also sent a new wave of about 8,500 North Korean troops to Russia, CNN reported. This includes “a drone unit that could attack targets inside Ukraine,” the network stated, citing Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, Deputy Head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR).

Thousands of North Korean engineers and bomb disposal experts are mostly dispersed across Kursk Oblast, Skibitskyi stated. The North Korean forces deployed in Russia also include 400 drone operators. Many gained previous experience fighting against Ukraine. Their drones are likely to be used both for reconnaissance and attacks on Ukraine, CNN noted.

Around 25,000 North Koreans have so far either been part of the forces deployed in Russia or passed through the Russian armed forces, the GUR leader added. He said that Russia could request up to 50,000 more troops during a meeting between Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in September.

BREAKING:

North Korea has deployed 8,500 more troops to Russia, including 400 drone operators, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

The drone unit is expected to conduct reconnaissance and strikes against targets in Ukraine, while 1,000 engineers and sappers will reinforce… pic.twitter.com/qr2qlsvLlc

— Current Report (@Currentreport1) August 21, 2026

Ukrainian officials have made it clear that they cannot defend against Russian ballistic missiles because they are out of Patriot missile interceptors. In the latest bid to offset that and hit missiles before they can be launched, Ukraine is seeking help from Elon Musk, the Financial Times reported.

“Ukraine is seeking approval to use Starlink-equipped drones against ballistic missile launchers up to 200km inside Russia,” the publication reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Such a move, if approved, would provide Ukrainian drones with beyond line-of-sight connectivity and resistance to jamming, increasing their ability to strike deeper into Russia against dynamic targets, giving them the ability to hunt for missiles deep inside Russia and strike them when they are found. This use of Starlink helped Ukraine with its mid-range strikes against Russian logistics.

The introduction of Starlink to the battlefield in Ukraine has revolutionized how war is waged, giving users high bandwidth, relatively secure communications basically anywhere, all in a small, off-the-shelf package. This has impacted everything from high-level command and control, to basic communications and data exchange between troops across the entire battlespace. The antennas have also been reduced in size enough so that they can now fit onto relatively small one way-attack drones.

There is a major catch, however, in any bid to use Starlink in offensive weapons beyond how it is currently employed. While he wouldn’t sign off on similar requests in the past, Musk is now allowing Ukraine to use Starlink to hit targets deep behind enemy lines and, apparently, ships in the the Sea of Azov as well, though we don’t know for sure.

Musk would need to sign off on the kinds of strikes deep into Russia that Ukraine is currently seeking. While his Starlink service is helping Ukraine now, he also shut it off earlier in the war during Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, fearing there could be a nuclear response from Moscow.

Complicating matters, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently fired defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was Ukraine’s most direct connection to Musk.

TWZ cannot independently confirm FT’s reporting. We’ve reached out to SpaceX, Musk’s company providing Starlink service, for clarification.

Russia attacked a shopping mall in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih. The attack killed at least 14 and wounded more than 100 others, the Ukrainian president stated on X.

A rescue operation is currently underway in Kryvyi Rih following a strike on a shopping mall. There are many casualties. As of now, 14 people have been reported killed. My condolences to their families and loved ones. More than 100 people have been injured, among them 11… pic.twitter.com/gX2kL1LZnd

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 21, 2026

“The attack drones struck in two waves – half an hour after the first hit and the fire, there was a second strike targeting the emergency responders,” Zelensky stated on earlier on X. “Attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts. And the world must respond to them accordingly – with real pressure on the aggressor. For peace to be possible, Russia must face real accountability.”

This Friday afternoon, Russian forces bombed a busy shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

The initial drone strike and a follow-up double tap targeting first responders killed at least 14 Ukrainians and wounded over 100, including 11 children. pic.twitter.com/apT6hFHMUV

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 21, 2026

Russia also struck the Tabaky crossing at the Ukraine-Moldova border.

“The attack damaged buildings and structures at the crossing, and fires broke out at the site,” according to Ukrainian border guards. “Traffic through the Tabaky crossing is currently suspended. Vehicles are being redirected to other border crossing points.”

Last night, Russian forces carried out drone strikes on the “Tabaky” international border crossing linking Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast with Moldova.

As a result of the attack, the buildings and structures of the checkpoint were damaged. The traffic through the checkpoint has been… pic.twitter.com/BBBMO6HFBG

— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) August 21, 2026

For its part, Ukraine is continuing its long-range strike campaign against Russian energy and military targets. This campaign has severely crippled Russia’s oil infrastructure in particular, causing widespread domestic gasoline shortages and a drastic reduction in oil exports.

“Last night, our deep strikes hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometers from the border, and the Marinovka military air base in the Volgograd region,” Zelensky claimed. “There are also results in the Black Sea.”

“We also have confirmed results from previous strikes: a Russian Su-34 aircraft was damaged at the Akhtubinsk air base, about 600 kilometers from the front line,” the Ukrainian leader added. “And in Primorsko-Akhtarsk, nearly 180 kilometers away, a facility used for storing, preparing, and launching attack drones that the Russians use to strike our people was hit.”

TWZ cannot independently verify these claims.

We continue, through our long-range sanctions, to bring the consequences of the war back to where it came from.

Last night, our deep strikes hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometers from the border, and the Marinovka military air base in the Volgograd region.… pic.twitter.com/EhQ518kUZp

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 21, 2026

Ukraine’s campaign against Russian air defenses continues as well.

A Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system (SAM) was located and destroyed, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry (MoD) claimed on X.

Russian air defense keeps going up in flames.

The 15th Brigade “Black Forest” found and destroyed an S-300 transporter-loader loaded with missiles. The missiles detonated, completely burning out the launcher. pic.twitter.com/TQl3t8BsYl

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 21, 2026

Video emerged on social media showing a Ukrainian MiG-29 chasing a Russian Shahed drone, which eventually crashed apparently without being fired on. Based on the quality of the video and the distance from which it was shot, it is hard to say exactly what caused the drone to crash.

Russia has introduced a new method of attack. It involves using a drone that lies in wait until a microphone picks up the sound of a passing vehicle and activates the weapon.

Ukraine’s mid-range strike drone campaign against Russian logistics, especially fuel trucks, has relied heavily on AI for terminal guidance and target recognition. Now Russia is supposedly testing a new method of trying to defend against those strikes.

Russian forces have reportedly fitted a UAZ-452 “Bukhanka” vehicle with mirrored panels as a potential countermeasure against drones using optical or AI-assisted guidance.

The improvised modification, which makes the van look like a rolling disco, appears intended to interfere with the drone’s ability to visually identify and track the vehicle by altering its appearance and creating reflections. However, whether this works is not known.

Russian forces have reportedly fitted a UAZ-452 “Bukhanka” vehicle with mirrored panels as a potential countermeasure against drones using optical or AI-assisted guidance.

The improvised modification appears intended to interfere with the drone’s ability to visually identify and… pic.twitter.com/hbAafR5ZJb

— Drone Wars (@Drone_Wars_) August 14, 2026

Earlier in this piece, we touched on Ukraine’s Delta battle management system. It turns out the country’s SBU state security service arrested a commander of a National Guard special purpose group for giving Russia access to his Delta account in return for $1,000 in cryptocurrency, a serious security breach.

The SBU arrested an officer who was serving as a commander of a special purpose group in Ukraine’s National Guard for serving as an agent of Russia’s GRU since July. According to law enforcement, for $1,000 in cryptocurrency, he gave the GRU access to his personal account on… pic.twitter.com/YJkhykn234

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) August 21, 2026

That’s it for now. We’ll update this again at a later date.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

This time last year, Antelope Reef was mostly submerged underwater and barely visible unless you were steaming past at low tide. New satellite imagery, provided to TWZ by Vantor, showcases what the People’s Republic of China (PRC) can construct after 10 months of nonstop dredging: a nearly 1,500-acre artificial island with a deep-water port, 2,000-plus-foot quay capable of berthing warships, and the beginnings of a 10,000-foot-long military-grade runway. Hardly recognizable today, Antelope Reef has become the latest, and one of the largest, man-made outposts in Beijing’s aggressive campaign to militarize and dominate the South China Sea.

The “first phase” of construction is now complete, according to a report from Reuters, following the departure of a fleet of dredgers that have been on station for months. Vantor, a spatial intelligence company, shared the images, dated August 11, with TWZ that show the results of the rapid transformation in detail, which you can view in high resolution below.

Reports surfaced in early 2026 about unusual PRC activity around the reef, which is located in the northwest part of the South China Sea, approximately 160 nautical miles (nm) south of Hainan, China, and 200 nm east of Da Nang, Vietnam. The fleet of PRC cutter-suction dredgers appeared late last year, assembling at the Zhujiang River Estuary and transiting with their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders dark to avoid unwanted attention. Once on the scene, they began working around the clock to move sand from the seabed to create ground above.

The pace of construction and rate of change have been staggering, and show how much progress the PRC has made in its reclamation and land-building capabilities. In less than a year, the PRC dredged more than a million tons of sand to reclaim approximately 1,500 acres of land. The teardrop-shaped island is now 3.7 miles long, surrounded by seawalls and internal roads, with ongoing construction underway at three primary locations around the lagoon – which you can see marked on the graphic above. For comparison, construction of the artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, more than a decade ago, took several years.

Antelope Reef, or Lingyang Jiao to the Chinese and Đá Hải Sâm to the Vietnamese, is part of the Crescent archipelago in the Paracel Island chain. China has occupied the Paracels since 1974, but the territory is still disputed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

In the latest satellite imagery from Vantor, several notable features are discernible and were first identified by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI). On the northwest side, preparations are being made for what will likely eventually be a 10,000-foot-long, 180-foot-wide runway, similar to those built at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, Mischief Reef, and Woody Island. The northwest edge of the island is the only area long enough to accommodate a runway capable of landing large military and commercial aircraft, and grading appears to be about halfway complete – but no concrete has been poured yet. AMTI also identified excavation for a 200-by-200-foot structure nearby, which mirrors the footprint of the large aircraft hangars at China’s other island-airfields.

On the southern part of the island, a 680-meter – roughly 2,200 feet – quay where both military and civilian ships can dock inside the lagoon is clearly visible. Reuters noted that a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel was spotted dockside at the quay recently. The east side of the island, just below the channel entrance, hosts the only part of the base in active use, with green space areas, a helicopter pad, and parking lots, as well as buildings for administrative spaces and housing. Temporary piers are visible at each of the major points. Two concrete plants, located along the northwestern and southern edges of the lagoon, are supporting construction efforts. TWZ has not independently confirmed AMTI’s assessments.

According to PRC state media, Antelope will be used for commercial and civilian purposes – a similar tale told during construction of the other military outposts while they were being developed. It’s worth noting that in 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping stood in the Rose Garden next to then-President Barack Obama and said, “China does not intend to pursue militarization” in the South China Sea. “Relevant construction activity that China is undertaking in the Nansha Islands does not target or impact any country and there is no intention to militarize,” he claimed, using the Chinese name for the disputed Spratly Islands. Since Xi’s head fake, which epitomizes the notorious PRC “say-do” gap, Beijing has built up multiple artificial islands as military bases, and has used them to press its territorial claims and confront its neighbors across the nine-dash line, in strict defiance of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Antelope Reef sits in a key strategic location south of Sanya Port and Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island, home to two of the three People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) aircraft carriers, CNS Shandong and CNS Fujian, as well as a significant submarine force at Longpo Naval Base. A military base there could extend PLA radar and electronic surveillance coverage, add another dispersed airfield to the PLA’s rolodex to launch sorties from and an additional port to dock ships at, and further expand China’s sweeping air defense umbrella.

The constellation of artificial islands would be instrumental in enforcing total control over the South China Sea, serving as key anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) nodes. They act as logistical and persistent surveillance nodes, among other uses, today, and the more that China has dispersed throughout the South China Sea, the greater its options are as well as the credibility of its anti-access capabilities.

“I have no doubt that this marginally benefits China in that it’ll be able to forward deploy more Coast Guard and more militia in the Paracels persistently. It will, I’m sure, facilitate more persistent aerial patrols,” Greg Poling, the senior fellow who oversees AMTI, said on the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast earlier this year. “But the main benefit is probably the ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance] component; the ground-based sensing you get just building stuff.”

Beijing’s land grab in the South China Sea shows no signs of slowing down, and Antelope Reef marks the latest in a decades-long string of island seizures that it can leverage during a potential dustup in the future. But whether it will eventually run out of islands to claim remains unclear. “China doesn’t have a lot left to dig,” according to Poling, “so unless China plans to seize another island, I don’t see it building anything, at least anything substantial.”

Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@recurrent.io

Illegal under international law, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank have been expanding for decades.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fast-tracked the establishment of new ones.

The policy aims to tighten Israel’s hold on the occupied West Bank and block the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

With just months to go until the elections, the government has opened bids for the construction of 1,200 illegal housing units. It has also ignored international criticism of the planned illegal settlement, known as E1.

Some Western countries are threatening sanctions if Israel goes ahead. But would that make a difference?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Ammar Hijazi – Ambassador and head of the Palestinian Mission to the Netherlands

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York

On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets attacked Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria, drawing condemnations from the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, as well as regional countries. The Israeli government claimed that it had intelligence of Turkish military movement to the site.

In a subsequent interview, US Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said the US had received this intelligence from the Israelis six days before the attack. However, US intelligence conducted its own due diligence and found no basis for the claim.

The incident not only reflects a shift in the dynamics between Turkiye and Israel, but also signals a regional reordering that the latter is no longer at the centre of.

The Turkish response

Seeing the Israeli attack on the Syrian base as a provocation, Ankara refrained from escalating and instead provided an off-ramp out of the crisis. It framed the issue not in bilateral terms but as one between Israel and the US, and between Israel and the regional and international consensus.

Normally, there is a deconfliction mechanism between Turkiye and Israel. However, as Barrack indicated in the interview, Israel did not warn Turkiye about the attack, which could have triggered a military response.

The US envoy called for a deconfliction mechanism, but such an initiative can be effective only if the sides involved want it to be. In this case, there is no evidence that Israel sought de-escalation. In fact, it appears escalation was the intended outcome, as Israel notified neither Turkiye nor the US about the attack and acted on a pretext that the US intelligence found no basis for – a ploy to boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral campaign.

After the US-imposed lull on the Iran front, Netanyahu is likely seeking escalation on other fronts, be it Syria, Lebanon or Gaza, in the run-up to the Israeli election. The challenge for Turkiye would be to avoid taking Netanyahu’s bait while also preventing the normalisation of such aggression.

That would require direct intervention by US President Donald Trump to rein in Netanyahu. Indeed, a trilateral deconfliction mechanism can work and be credible only if the US throws real weight behind it.

But even if a mechanism is in place, it would not change the fact that Syria has altered the lens through which Turkiye and Israel view each other. For a long time, the core of Turkiye’s discontent with Israel was the Palestinian issue. Hence, it was more humanitarian-, identity- and solidarity-based in nature.

Today, Ankara views Israeli attempts to undermine the Syrian transition as having direct repercussions for its national security. Therefore, Turkiye is no longer seeing Israel solely through the prism of the Palestinian question. Rather, it increasingly sees it as a national security challenge, with Israeli regional revisionism threatening its interests.

The international consensus on Syria

From the Eastern Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa and the wider Middle East, Turkiye and Israel have conflicting policies, priorities and threat perceptions. Despite this, Syria serves as a microcosm of Turkiye and Israel’s visions of the regional order.

Ankara wants its southern neighbour to be centralised, stable and capable militarily. In contrast, Israel wants a Syria that is weak, fragmented and bereft of serious military might.

Yet this is not merely a conflict between Turkish and Israeli visions. Israel is at odds with the regional and international consensus on Syria. The US, the UK, Europe and regional states have all supported a centralised and stable government in Damascus. In an ironic way, the only other regional state that probably wants a weak or failed Syria is Iran.

Like any other sovereign state, Syria will have an army. If Israel believes that the only way to ensure its own security is by keeping its neighbouring or regional states weak, fragmented and bereft of military capability, this is a recipe for perpetual wars and for regional and international isolation.

The undermining of the Syrian state and the failure of its transition would pave the way for non-state actors and radicalism, which would bode ill for the entire region, including Israel. Indeed, neighbouring Lebanon should serve as a cautionary tale. The Israeli occupation and the weakness of the Lebanese state gave birth to and empowered Hezbollah.

Post-Abrahamic Middle East

Israel and Turkiye’s ideas of regional order are also at odds. The recent Mecca Pact, which brought together Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, is not inherently anti-Israel. However, it represents a regional shift that signals the failure of the order envisioned by the Abraham Accords, or similar initiatives such as India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) or the strategic partnership between India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the US known as I2U2.

The Abrahamic vision of the regional order was premised on Arab-Israeli normalisation and cooperation under the US security umbrella. Hard containment of Iran, soft containment of Turkiye, and de-emphasising the Palestinian issue were also part of the same vision.

Inherently, this Abrahamic vision had more to do with Israel and its regional normalisation than the Arab states and their needs and priorities.

However, with its aggressive and revisionist policies, Israel has deepened the prospect of its regional isolation, increased the cost of any normalisation, and doomed this Abrahamic – or Israeli-centric – vision of regional order.

Israeli revisionism is not only driving a wedge between Israel and other major regional states, but it is also revealing the gap between Israel and the US on the question of regional reordering.

While Israel opposes the Mecca Pact, Trump has hailed it, likely seeing it as aligned with his strategy of burden-sharing and burden-shifting with regional allies, and as enjoying more regional legitimacy and acceptance. The US position might also reflect a recalibration of Washington’s regional vision.

Over the last decade, the US invested heavily in creating a regional order premised on Israel and the Arab-Gulf states. But this was essentially an Israeli-centric project for the regional order.

This vision is no longer tenable, and no one is more responsible for its demise than Israel itself.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A new Chinese aircraft carrier, commonly referred to as the Type 004, is continuing to take shape, notably now featuring a more complete bow. This is set to be China’s fourth carrier, and there is strong evidence it will be its first nuclear-powered type, bringing an even more significant boost to the country’s naval power projection capabilities.

The ongoing progress on the carrier is plainly visible in satellite imagery taken just yesterday, seen at the top of this story and below, which TWZ obtained from Vantor. The ship has been under construction at Dalian Shipyard, in the city of the same name in China’s northeastern Liaoning province, since at least 2024.

The Type 004 is being constructed in the same dry dock where China’s first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, was completed, and where its second carrier, Shandong, was built. Liaoning was originally laid down as a Kuznetsov class carrier in the Soviet Union (first named Riga and then Varyag). Authorities in post-Soviet Ukraine sold the unfinished vessel to ostensible Chinese businessmen in 1998. It was subsequently brought to Dalian in 2002 and then commissioned into operational service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) a decade later. China’s third carrier, the Fujian, the country’s first catapult takeoff but assisted recovery (CATOBAR) configured type, was built at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai. Liaoning and Shandong are short takeoff but assisted recovery (STOBAR) carriers with ski jump bows and arresting gear at the stern.

Based on additional satellite imagery from Planet Labs that TWZ reviewed, the current length of the Type 004’s hull now appears to be around 1,050 feet (320 meters). Its maximum width, or beam, is some 151 feet (46 meters). Carriers are typically built with hulls that get progressively longer and wider as they rise from the waterline, meaning these dimensions are all but certain to grow further as the ship gets closer to completion and gains its flight deck.

The Type 004, which is also expected to be a CATOBAR type, is already shaping up to be significantly larger than any of the PLAN’s three existing carriers. Fujian, also known as the Type 003, is currently the largest. It is approximately 994 feet (303 meters) long at the waterline and 1036.75 feet (316 meters) in total length, according to previous analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank. Its beam at the flight deck level is assessed to be just over 249 feet (76 meters). As another point of comparison, the U.S. Navy’s new operational supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is 1,106 feet (337 meters) long overall and has a beam of 256 feet (78 meters) at the flight deck.

As noted, there is already strong evidence that the Type 004’s will be nuclear-powered. This is based on what looks to be two distinct reactor containment structures that are visible in previous satellite imagery and pictures taken closer to the ground. The designs of these structures are very broadly consistent with what is found on U.S. nuclear-powered carriers. Other, more general evidence of Chinese work in support of future naval nuclear propulsion capabilities has also emerged. There have been various media reports over the years about work on nuclear powerplants for future warships and commercial vessels, as well. However, it has still not been definitively confirmed that the Type 004 will be nuclear-powered.

In general, naval nuclear propulsion does offer important advantages, including functionally unlimited range. It can also provide a valuable boost in onboard power generation for more modern designs packed with advanced weapons, sensors, and other systems. The Fujian already features electromagnetic catapults for launching aircraft, also commonly referred to as an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). This is a feature that seems likely to carry over to the Type 004, and that would benefit from nuclear power. Any windfalls from nuclear power do come at the price of cost and complexity.

China’s Fujian Aircraft Carrier Showcases Advanced Electromagnetic Catapult System

As an aside, what may turn out to be the world’s largest dedicated naval replenishment vessel is also currently being built in China. As TWZ has previously noted, that ship will be especially important for supporting conventionally-powered PLAN aircraft carriers, their air wings, and their escorts, during long-duration blue water operations far from Chinese shores and friendly ports. A nuclear-powered carrier does also still require a regular flow of conventional fuel and other resupply for its air wing and crew, as well as its conventionally-powered escorts.

Much still remains unknown about the Type 004’s overall design and expected capabilities. What appear to be official renderings and models of next-generation Chinese carriers that have emerged in the past do point to a design broadly in line with the U.S. Ford class and other modern carriers in the works globally. This is also now reflected in the configuration of China’s full-size, land-based aircraft carrier test facility in Wuhan. Key aspects include a more truncated island structure positioned further to the rear of a flight deck optimized for maximum open space. Just this week, TWZ explored the general benefits of this flight deck arrangement in the context of the Ford class design. This followed reports this past weekend that President Donald Trump is now pushing the Navy to move the island on future carriers in that class for aesthetic reasons. Trump is also notably a long-time critic of the EMALS catapults and electromagnetic Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE) on the Ford. Last week, he publicly ordered the U.S. Navy and the Pentagon to draw up a plan for going back to using steam catapults and hydraulic elevators starting with the fourth ship in the class, currently set to be named USS Doris Miller.

There are also questions still to be answered about the composition of the Type 004’s air wing. The PLAN is already working to significantly expand and improve its fleet of carrier-based aircraft with the addition of the stealthy J-35 fighter and the KJ-600 airborne early warning and control plane. This is on top of the growing J-15 family of multirole combat jets, which now includes an electronic warfare version. Various new drones, including navalized versions of the GJ-11 uncrewed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), and helicopters, are also likely to be embarked on the Type 004. It is worth noting here that China has also built a huge new big-deck amphibious assault ship, the Sichuan, which features a single electromagnetic catapult and is expected to have a drone-heavy air component.

Chinese PLA Navy’s First Type 076 Amphibious Assault Ship “Sichuan” Conducts First Sea Trial

The relative speed with which the Type 004 continues to come together is also reflective of the broader capabilities and capacity of the Chinese naval shipbuilding enterprise. China currently produces a multitude of increasingly modern warships and submarines at an ever-quickening pace. There were reports last year that construction of another conventionally powered carrier might also be underway in China. The Pentagon has previously assessed that the PLAN is aiming for a fleet of nine carriers in total by 2035.

This has all, in turn, created a more and more worrisome disparity with naval shipbuilding in the United States, or lack thereof. The U.S. Navy has continued to face delays and other setbacks with major shipbuilding programs in recent years despite efforts to reverse these trends, including by leveraging foreign shipbuilders.

When the Type 004 will be launched, let alone commissioned into service, remains to be seen. What is clear from the latest satellite imagery of Dalian is that China’s next carrier is increasingly taking shape.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Syria condemns attack in southwest as a ‘flagrant violation of sovereignty’ and a ‘blatant breach of international law’.

An Israeli drone strike in southwestern Syria has injured several people, the country’s foreign ministry says, in the latest of near-daily Israeli incursions and attacks in the area.

Syria’s official Alikhbariya channel reported on Saturday that a man was wounded when an Israeli drone hit his truck near the town of Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying in a statement that it had targeted “a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in their final stages of preparation” in southern Syria. The activity “posed an immediate threat to our forces”, the military added.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that Saturday’s strike resulted in several civilian injuries.

It said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the targeting of a “civilian vehicle” by an Israeli drone.

“This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and the integrity of its territory, and a blatant breach of international law, and comes in the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory,” it added.

Israel sees southern Syria ‘as a security zone’

Saturday’s strike hit a small delivery truck on the main road between the Beit Jinn farmland and the town itself, said Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Adham Abu al-Hussam, reporting from the area.

“Residents say [one of the victims is] a civilian who works as a driver, delivering goods and orders on this truck,” Abu al-Hussam said, adding that neighbours rushed a wounded man to hospital after hearing the explosion. He is in stable condition with an injury to his right hand, according to a medical source.

Abu al-Hussam said residents had reported Israeli reconnaissance drones flying over the area for four days. Beit Jinn, which lies near Jabal al-Sheikh and roughly 55km from Damascus, has been repeatedly targeted in the past year, including in a late November raid that killed 13 civilians, he said.

Muhsen al-Mustafa, a security and strategic researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus, told Al Jazeera that the attack could be Israel sending Syria’s government a message. “Israel currently treats Syria, particularly the south, as a security zone it is trying to fill any vacuum in.”

He said Israel had used a similar rationale days earlier when it struck Abu al-Duhur military airport in Idlib province, in northern Syria, saying the aim was to prevent a Turkish military presence there. That strike, he said, signalled that Israel’s declared security zone “isn’t limited to the south” but “extends even to Abu al-Duhur airport”, roughly in the middle of the country. “Israel’s security zone, it’s saying, extends further than that.”

Al-Mustafa suggested that Israel opted for a drone strike rather than sending in ground forces partly because of the November raid, when Israeli troops came under direct fire during the incursion into Beit Jinn, wounding six soldiers, three of them seriously. “Israel is always trying to apply pressure and ask for more in every round of negotiation,” he said.

A Syrian diplomatic source told Al Jazeera that Damascus remains committed to de-escalation and is pursuing a security arrangement with Israel through United States mediation, based on the 1974 disengagement agreement.

Saab has unveiled its roadmap for its Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) program, a stealthy, supersonic ‘fighter drone,’ which could enter service in the 2030s with the Swedish Air Force and potentially other customers. The aerospace and defense company is already working on two uncrewed technology demonstrators and today presented a full-scale mock-up of an operational drone that those two aircraft could inform. This drone, compared to the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), for example, is a higher-end proposition, more advanced, larger, and with superior performance than those being test flown in the United States.

TWZ was among other members of the media who were briefed on the ACP program by Peter Nilsson, the head of Saab’s Advanced Programs business unit. He was talking at Malmen Air Base in Sweden, during an event to celebrate the Swedish Air Force’s 100th anniversary.

As for the name, Nilsson confirmed that, before settling on ACP, Saab had used the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) nomenclature. Meanwhile, the ACP falls under Sweden’s overarching KFS project, which stands for Koncept för Framtida Stridsflygplan, or Concept for Future Combat Aircraft.

The most significant element of the announcement was the full-scale mock-up of what Saab is calling aircraft A3. The idea of this is to show how a potential high-end ACP could look, and the kinds of capabilities it might bring, provided the company is awarded a development contract.

Broadly speaking, aircraft A3 has a lot in common with a previous concept that the company released back in 2024.

The concept retains the same tailless, stealthy configuration, with significant internal capacity for fuel and internal stores. The stealthy, chisel-type DSI air intakes remain on either side of the fuselage, but the prominent bulge roughly above where the engine nozzle would be is removed. The overall geometry remains similar: a sleek, blended wing/body configuration with cropped wings and a prominent chine running around the arrow-like forward edges, giving it something of a resemblance to the Cold War-era Saab Draken fighter, with its distinctive double-delta wing.

In the meantime, Saab is working on aircraft A1 and A2, uncrewed technology demonstrators that are being funded by the Swedish Ministry of Defense.

The first of these, A1, is expected to fly within the next 15 months,” according to Nilsson. The defense ministry called upon Saab to “go from concept to first flight within 36 months,” providing what Nilsson described as a “quite challenging” timeline.

Aircraft A1 uses the same GE Aerospace F414 engine that powers the Saab Gripen E/F crewed fighter. The turbofan produces around 22,000 pounds of thrust and will ensure A1 has supersonic performance.  However, for Saab, the main goal of A1 is to demonstrate that the company can build and fly a low-observable drone.

Saab provided imagery of wind-tunnel models of the A1. Overall, it appears loosely similar to the A3 mockup, with the exception of the twin, outward-canted tailfins. Aircraft A1 will have capacity for an internal weapons bay, although it will not be used for stores release tests. The next test article, aircraft A2 will have an internal weapons bay, and will presumably be used to test ordnance. Otherwise, A2 will be used for tests of other advanced technologies, including new materials and sensors.

No artwork of aircraft A2 was provided, but Nilsson said it will be “not quite” identical to A1, in terms of appearance. It will also be powered by the F414.

The F414 was selected due to its availability and the fact that the company has plenty of experience with the engine due to the Gripen E/F program. Saab is looking at other potential powerplants for the A3, but acknowledged that, should Sweden buy a productionized ACP, the engine commonality would be a big advantage, including, for example, when an engine needs to be changed at a remote airbase. This kind of maintenance is central to the Gripen concept of operation and would be retained for the ACP.

Saab is contracted until 2030 to develop the A1 and A2 demonstrators. What happens next will depend on the Swedish Ministry of Defense, and there is currently no agreement for a follow-on ACP contract, which would see the design advanced to a production-oriented prototype like the A3.

“We have floated the view that this would be a great asset to the Gripen E, but right now there is no commitment,” Nilsson remarked. Saab envisages the Gripen E serving as a tactical mission commander for one or more ACPs, working in conjunction with the company’s GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, a type also ordered by Sweden. Outside of Sweden, the drone could work with a wide variety of other crewed platforms, too.

Pending investment from the Swedish government, Saab may decide to use its own funds for early development of the A3. However, Nilsson noted that “if a customer does not come along I don’t know when my CEO will stop me spending — you need a customer to buy into this.”

Saab’s broader ACP vision is based on an advanced platform that offers both low-observable features and supersonic performance.

The resulting drone should be capable of undertaking “high-risk missions in heavily defended airspace.” As well as air-to-air combat, missions would include electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses, and deep precision strike.

If Sweden buys into the idea, a development contract could be expected around 2030. Thereafter Saab thinks it could have the A3 aircraft in the air sometime in the early 2030s, leading to initial operational capability from the mid-2030s.

With the ACP program, Saab hopes to stake its claim as the “first-mover in the segment” for high-end ‘loyal wingman’-type aircraft.

But even if the Swedish Air Force isn’t swayed by Saab’s ACP offer, the company is seeing the related spiral development as fundamental to its future as a builder of crewed combat aircraft, too.

The same basic architecture now being developed for the ACP could provide a technological and conceptual base for a future (crewed) Gripen successor. This would be required by the Swedish Air Force sometime after 2055. If there is demand, Saab says it could start development of such an aircraft in the mid-2030s.

A rendering of a potential future crewed combat aircraft that appeared in Saab’s presentation reveals a slightly more detailed version of a concept shown in the past. Namely, a design apparently tailored for high speed, as well as low observability. Some of the same features found in the A3 concept — notably the overall blended wing/body and cropped wings — appear in the crewed combat aircraft, although this adds outward-canted tail surfaces, mounted on booms that project relatively far beyond the engine nozzle. The nose and forward fuselage bear a resemblance to the F-35, and, overall, the aircraft seems to be around the same size as the U.S. design, perhaps a little larger.

For its part, the Swedish Air Force is still weighing up whether it wants to pursue a crewed successor to the Gripen, if it will abandon crewed fighters altogether, or if it will seek to join a foreign sixth-generation fighter program. A decision on this is likely sometime between 2028 and 2030.

Speaking to journalists at Malmen today, Brigadier-General Niclas Magnusson, the deputy commander of the Swedish Air Force, called for closer collaboration between the service and industry as Sweden seeks to define its future air combat requirements.

“We have to research and find the limits of what we are able to do,” Magnusson said, adding that he expected the future Swedish Air Force to field both crewed and uncrewed platforms.

That decision is still to come but will also be informed by the relative costs of the Gripen (more of which may still be acquired), higher-end drones, and potential future crewed platforms.

When it comes to the ACP, Nilsson suggested that the life-cycle cost will be around a third that of the Gripen, although acquisition cost won’t be as low as that.

“The problem is that this bloody aircraft is too low cost,” Nilsson added, pointing to the Gripen E.

Ultimately, the cost of the ACP will depend on the degree of capability that the customer demands.

Potentially, a single ACP could cost half as much as a Gripen. Open-source reports suggest that the Gripen E typically comes with a flyaway cost of roughly $70-80 million.

If the ACP is to offer “high-end survival,” Nilsson explained, then a customer would likely be able to field two to three ACPs for each Gripen. The ratio “is not one to 10.”

While Saab also wants to offer the ACP to other Gripen E/F operators as a priority, the fate of the program remains heavily dependent on larger questions about the future of the Swedish Air Force.

The program gives Saab a solid, and potentially unique, entrance into the CCA space. As we’ve said for years, fourth-generation fighters can remain highly relevant when paired with CCAs — and with a drone as advanced as this, potentially even more so.

The ACP will still come with a significant cost, but that could be offset by reducing or eliminating the need for a fifth- or sixth-generation crewed fighter for certain air forces.

For now, Saab’s high-end loyal wingman remains a proposal rather than a committed production program, but the company is clearly positioning it as more than another experimental drone. The A1 and A2 demonstrators are intended to prove the technologies needed for a survivable, supersonic, low-observable uncrewed aircraft, while the A3 concept unveiled today illustrates where Saab believes those technologies could ultimately lead.

Whether Stockholm opts for a new Saab-developed crewed fighter, joins an international sixth-generation program, or moves toward a force built around a greater mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, the ACP work gives the country a way to explore those possibilities without committing to one of them yet.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com