TODAY

Britain’s King Charles III has used a speech in front of the United States Congress to pledge NATO unity and call for support for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

The address on Tuesday came during the royal’s four-day visit to the US, with the US-Israel war with Iran, US President Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO, and trade tensions between the longtime allies looming large.

But Charles avoided any reference to specific frictions during his speech at the US Capitol, instead striking a light tone in his joke-heavy opening.

He praised what he called the shared history and values of the two countries, quipping at one point that Washington, DC was “a tale of two Georges”, the first US President George Washington and his ancestor, the UK’s King George.

He assured lawmakers, to laughs, he was not in the US “as part of some cunning rearguard action” in a delayed continuation of the Revolutionary War.

“I am here on this great occasion in the life of our nations to express the highest regard and friendship of the British people to the people of the United States,” the sovereign said to repeated standing ovations.

But amid broad themes of unity, more pointed messages lurked.

Charles did not directly address the US-Israel war with Iran or Trump’s outspoken criticism of NATO allies who have rejected joining Washington’s war efforts.

Instead, he praised support for NATO and the alliance’s invocation of its Article 5 collective defence treaty in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“We answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan and moments that have defined our shared security,” he said.

He then turned to funding for Ukraine, an increasingly pointed issue in the Republican-controlled US Congress.

“Today, Mr Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people,” he said, referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In one instance, Charles hailed the “$430 billion in annual trade that continues to grow, the $1.7 trillion in mutual investment that fuels that innovation”.

Last week, Trump threatened to impose a “big tariff” on the UK if it did not drop a digital services tax on US tech companies.

At another point, Charles pointed to global environmental concerns.

“We ignore, at our peril, the fact that these natural systems, in other words, nature’s own economy, provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security,” he said.

Trump has called climate change a “con job” and withdrew from the landmark Paris Agreement climate accords during his first and second terms. His administration has since pursued deregulation of fossil fuels and pivoted away from green energy, an approach embraced by many members of the president’s Republican party.

Other messages appeared to gently reference political trends in the US, where critics have accused Trump of using the Department of Justice for political retribution and of overturning long-standing norms of presidential authority.

Charles described the “common ideals” of the US and UK: “The rule of law, the certainty of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary, resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice”.

He also drew a throughline between the Magna Carta, the 13th-century document that established that the British king was subject to law, and constitutional and legal precedent in the US, calling it “the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances”.

The address came shortly before Trump was set to host Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, for an official state dinner.

The pair were then set to visit New York and Virginia, before an official farewell ceremony at the White House on Thursday.

Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden says she is confident in her company’s ability to deliver next-generation carrier-based fighters to the U.S. Navy if it is picked as the winner of the F/A-XX competition. The U.S. Navy’s top officer said yesterday that the goal was to award the F/A-XX contract by August of this year, but also that one unnamed contractor in the running “really can’t deliver in the timeframe we need it.”

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Daryl Caudle offered his latest comments on F/A-XX yesterday in response to a direct question from TWZ at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition. The Pentagon had tried to put the Navy’s future fighter ambitions on hold last year, arguing that the U.S. industrial base did not have sufficient capacity to support work on two sixth-generation combat jets simultaneously. Boeing won the contract to build what is now called the F-47 for the U.S. Air Force in March 2025. Boeing is the only other company known to be in the running now for F/A-XX. Last year, it was reported that Lockheed Martin had been eliminated from the competition.

Late yesterday, Northrop Grumman also released a new computer-generated F/A-XX promotional video, seen below. You can read our analysis of what is seen therein here.

“We do expect the Department [of the Navy] to make an award selection in the third quarter,” Northrop Grumman’s Warden said during a routine earning call today in response to a direct question about Adm. Caudle’s remarks. “We are confident in our ability to deliver our solution to the Navy.”

She did not explicitly confirm or deny that the CNO had been referring to Northrop Grumman when he mentioned a contractor’s inability to meet the Navy’s schedule needs on F/A-XX.

“We and our suppliers are prepared to bring the workforce and infrastructure that’s needed to execute the program, and our track record on B-21 demonstrates that ability to deliver a complex aircraft on schedule,” Warden added. “Regarding the financials, we’d expect upside to the sales and earnings from our current guidance, if we are entrusted to build the F/A-XX, and it would be a top priority for our company to do so.”

Air Force officials, as well as members of Congress, regularly describe the B-21 Raider bomber as a model acquisition program that has been able to keep on schedule and budget despite at least some hurdles along the way. Earlier this year, Northrop Grumman reached an agreement with the Air Force to accelerate B-21 production.

It’s also worth remembering that Northrop Grumman withdrew in 2023 from the Air Force competition that would lead to the F-47. The company framed the decision at the time as a voluntary one.

“I’ll just say that, when I noted we have other opportunities we are pursuing, I won’t disclose at this point exactly what those are until a little more information comes out,” Warden, who was also CEO at that time, said when announcing the withdrawal, which was widely seen as a reference to F/A-XX. “You could assume that if we feel we’re well-positioned, and the government is appropriately balancing risk and reward, as I said that that would be a program we would pursue.”

Former top Air Force officials subsequently said that Northrop Grumman’s bid had been on the verge of getting cut.

As mentioned, industrial base capacity questions have swirled around F/A-XX. The Pentagon had tried to effectively shelve the Navy’s next-generation fighter program in its proposed budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year. At the time, a senior U.S. defense official explicitly said that the decision was “due to our belief that the industrial base can only handle going fast on one program at this time, and the presidential priority to go all in on F-47, and get that program right.”

Congress later intervened to appropriate some $1.69 billion in funding to keep F/A-XX moving ahead in the 2026 Fiscal Year.

“I will tell you, we, Northrop Grumman, are ready to execute F/A-XX,” Tom Jones, President of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems sector, had also told TWZ and other outlets in response to a question about industrial base capacity in relation to the program back in December. “We’re looking to try and make sure that the customer community knows that we believe that we’re ready to go and we can execute it.”

Boeing Defense and Space CEO Steve Parker had also pushed back on the assertion that the U.S. industrial base could not support F-47 and F/A-XX at the same time last year. The company’s pitch for the Navy’s program appears to be a navalized adaptation of the F-47.

“The Air Force has got a lot of demand on the system. The Navy’s got a lot of demand,” Adm. Caudle had also said yesterday. “So there was, you know, a check twice, cut once, kind of mentality here on this decision. And now there, I think we’re all on the same page on the reason why the hard look needed to be done. I’m good with it.”

Questions about the overall future of F/A-XX do remain, despite clear support from top Navy leaders like Caudle and Congress. The Navy looks set to request just over $140 million for the program in Fiscal Year 2027. This is a very meager sum, especially for a program of this magnitude. In contrast, the Air Force is seeking $5 billion in additional funding for F-47. Billions of dollars have already been appropriated for the Air Force’s next-generation fighter effort.

The Pentagon and the individual services are rolling out more details about their annual budget proposals today, which could offer more insights into the plans now for F/A-XX in the coming years. Securing the contract to build the Navy’s next-generation fighter is still likely to be an important win for whichever company the service selects in the end.

UPDATE: 4/22/2026 –

The U.S. Navy has issued a statement regarding Adm. Caudle’s comments earlier this week, which is as follows:

“During a question-and-answer session at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle was asked about the Navy’s sixth-generation strike fighter program (F/A-XX). Adm. Caudle emphasized that the Navy’s priority is ensuring through due diligence the selected vendor can deliver the required capability on the timeline needed by the fleet while also considering broader industrial base capacity. Any reference to ‘a specific offeror’ was intended as a general anecdotal comment and was not directed at any vendors currently under consideration.”

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The U.S. Marine Corps is set to test at least two new autonomous cargo helicopters, as it seeks to field platforms that can rapidly resupply Marines in contested environments. The service recently awarded contracts for two such platforms, one being the R66 Turbinetruck that inserts Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy system in the proven Robinson R66 airframe. The second is the Uncrewed 505, a development of the Bell 505 in a program led by Near Earth Autonomy, in collaboration with Bell Textron, Moog Inc., and XP Services.

This is all part of ongoing efforts to develop uncrewed logistics platforms that the Marines can use in contested environments, something that is of particular relevance as the branch looks to the requirements for a future conflict with China in the Pacific.

Lockheed Martin announced yesterday that its Sikorsky subsidiary and Robinson Unmanned had received a contract for the Turbinetruck from the Marine Corps. This comes under the Marines’ new-look Autonomous Aerial Logistics Program Medium Aerial Resupply Vehicle — Expeditionary Logistics (MARV-EL). The contract is worth $15.5 million and covers Increment 2 of MARV-EL.

“As we expand the MATRIX family, we also extend the reach of uncrewed solutions for both civil and military customers,” said Rich Benton, vice president and general manager of Sikorsky. “The commercially developed R66 Turbinetruck is simple, economical, and re-configurable; ideal for high-risk, hard-to-reach environments, where keeping personnel out of harm’s way is essential.”

“Our partnership with Sikorsky brings the trusted performance and reliability of the R66 platform into the unmanned logistics arena,” added David Smith, president and CEO of Robinson Helicopter Company. “The R66 Turbinetruck represents a significant step forward in expanding proven rotorcraft into scalable, autonomous cargo solutions for demanding operational environments. Together, we are delivering a game‑changing capability that will enhance warfighter readiness and open new opportunities for safe, reliable, and affordable autonomous transport.”

Robinson Unmanned | The Future of Autonomous Rotorcraft is Here

The R66 Turbinetruck puts together the R66 airframe from the Robinson Helicopter Company, a single-turbine engine design that is best known as a five-seat light rotorcraft on the commercial market. The R66 was selected for the Turbinetruck application primarily on account of its reliability, low maintenance demands, and high level of versatility. The aircraft is currently in widespread civilian service as a trainer, passenger, and utility helicopter.

Combining the R66 airframe with Sikorsky’s MATRIX system provides the ability to perform autonomous uncrewed operations. MATRIX has previously been proven in a U.S. Army UH-60M helicopter, giving it a ‘robotic brain,’ and the culmination of a series of tests stretching back years now that have been steadily working on ever-greater pilot-optional capabilities for the Black Hawk family. As we have noted in the past, the same technology could easily find its way onto other aircraft, as evidenced by the Turbinetruck.

Sikorsky and DARPA Autonomous Black Hawk Flies Logistics and Rescue Missions Without Pilots on Board

Lockheed Martin says the Turbinetruck is intended to give the Marines “flexible, affordable and rapid combat sustainment,” with its primary roles including the delivery of ammunition, medical supplies, and other essential equipment directly to the troops that need it. These critical loads need to be supplied “regardless of terrain, weather, or enemy threat,” the company adds.

According to Robinson Helicopter, the Turbinetruck can carry a load of 1,300 pounds internally, or external loads supported via a cargo hook. The internal cargo compartment is accessed via front clamshell doors and a right-hand baggage door. A total useful load of 1,500 pounds can be transported, and the aircraft has a range of more than 325 nautical miles.

When it comes to MARV-EL, this now stipulates an uncrewed aircraft that can carry a logistic payload of between 1,300 and 2,500 pounds to a combat radius of 100 nautical miles, operating through a common digital handheld device.

In an operational scenario, the mission objectives would be entered into the Turbinetruck using a digital tablet. The system would then automatically create a flight plan, using sensors and algorithms to guide the helicopter safely to the target location.

The Turbinetruck would allow the Marines to conduct critical logistics missions without having to put any additional personnel at risk, as would be the case if crewed rotorcraft were employed at the tactical edge of the battlefield. Crewed rotorcraft also come with increased demands on maintenance and availability. Meanwhile, crew-rest cycles might mean that the aircraft have to stay on the ground during high-tempo operations, while these assets will inevitably be in heavy demand for all kinds of other missions in any kind of high-end fight.

A video outlining the Robinson R66 Army Trainer, a crewed version of the helicopter offered to the U.S. Army schoolhouse:

Robinson R66 Army Trainer Helicopter | Press Conference & Official Reveal | AAAA in Nashville

At the same time, the MARV-EL concept is especially tailored for the Indo-Pacific theater, in which Marines and other U.S. military forces would be expected to fight from and around austere forward operating bases — a concept known as Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations — as well as unimproved landing zones, and from the decks of ships.

In this context, the Turbinetruck, and the MARV-EL program, more generally, hope to fill a notable capability gap between small tactical drones and larger crewed airlifters. This is something that Lockheed Martin describes as a “middleweight” uncrewed logistics platform capable.

Robinson Unmanned will deliver the first R66 Turbinetruck to Sikorsky for integration, test and evaluation, and demonstration. At that point, the aircraft will undertake capability demonstrations to prove out the MATRIX system in the R66 airframe.

Since MATRIX is platform-agnostic and has an open architecture design, it is intended to be easily integrated into various airframes.

As for the rival Uncrewed 505, this takes the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X helicopter and combines it with Near Earth’s Captain autonomous system, and Moog’s Genesys avionics. The 505 is also a single-turbine helicopter that is in use in similar training, passenger, and utility roles as the R66.

The MARV-EL Increment 2 program will also see the Uncrewed 505 prototype developed for the Marine Corps. Near Earth says it will spend the next 36 months integrating and flight-testing the autonomous flight system in the Uncrewed 505, before progressing from early demonstrations to full mission capability.

“The program is to develop an uncrewed aerial logistics aircraft for where the risk and need are highest,” said Lyle Chamberlain, CTO of Near Earth. “We are combining our Captain autonomy architecture with a proven Bell 505 platform to move cargo without putting Marines in harm’s way. To be as intuitive as possible, we are designing the aircraft around existing Marine Corps workflows. Operators will be able to request, dispatch, and manage missions through familiar command-and-control pathways, including MAGTAB and MANGL integration. At the same time, cargo can be loaded with standard pallet jacks and forklifts. This approach reduces infrastructure burden and helps make autonomous resupply practical for expeditionary operations.”

Near Earth says the Uncrewed 505 is optimized for efficient transportability, with two aircraft fitting inside a C-130 cargo aircraft with minimal disassembly.

Other aircraft have previously emerged out of the MARV-EL program.

These included the Kargo UAV, a rotary-wing drone from the Kaman Corporation, which previously developed an optionally crewed version of its K-Max helicopter.

KARGO UAV | Transforming Expeditionary Logistics

Notably, Kaman partnered with Near Earth Autonomy for the autonomy system for both the Kargo UAV and the optionally crewed K-Max.

Another competitor for MARV-EL was the SeaOnyx from Leidos. In 2023, it was announced that Leidos had won a Marine Corps contract to develop a prototype of this autonomous resupply vehicle under the Medium Unmanned Logistics Systems — Air (MULS-A) program, which later became MARV-EL.

However, neither of these platforms met Marine Corps requirements, leading to MARV-EL being recompeted. At the same time, the previous requirements (including delivering a logistics payload of 300-600 pounds within a radius of 25 to 100 nautical miles to a combat area) were made more ambitious, increasing cargo payload and range.

Overall, MARV-EL again highlights the Marines’ growing focus on expeditionary warfare in contested environments, in the Pacific theater especially. With their versatile airframes, the R66 Turbinetruck and the Uncrewed 505 could be adapted for other missions, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), electronic warfare (EW), communications relay, and search and rescue. All of these are growth areas for the Marines specifically and the U.S. military more generally.

A video outlining the Bell 505, as offered for the U.S. Army Flight School Next requirement:

Bell 505: Ideal Trainer

At the same time, the R66 already has a foothold with the U.S. military, with TH-66 Sage used to train U.S. Army and Navy helicopter operators, under contract. The Army is also now looking at both the R66 and the Bell 505 for its Flight School Next training helicopter program.

Whichever design or designs are ultimately selected for the MARV-EL requirement, the Marines can expect a new medium-weight logistics platform that bridges the gap between smaller drones and larger crewed aircraft currently in use. At the same time, it will help reduce risk by keeping more fixed-wing and helicopter crews out of harm’s way.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

On March 13, 2013, Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan, a judge at Idlib’s Civil Court of Appeal, publicly defected from the Syrian regime – an act that led him to be sentenced to death in absentia.

In December 2024, more than a decade later, Bashar al-Assad’s regime – the very one he had defected from – was overthrown, and al-Aryan was able to finally return to Syria’s judiciary.

In the latest step on al-Aryan’s journey from defection to exile to return, he was the presiding judge on Sunday at the opening of the trial of Atef Najib, a cousin of former President al-Assad and the former head of political security in the southern province of Deraa who faces charges of premeditated murder, torture leading to death and crimes against humanity.

Al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad, a former top military commander, are also being tried in absentia. Both men fled to Russia after their 2024 overthrow.

Fadel Abdulghany, the founder of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), told Al Jazeera that the moment carries deep symbolic weight.

“A judge once sentenced to death by the Assad regime for defending the rule of law has returned to the bench to apply that same law to one of the regime’s most extensively documented perpetrators of violations,” Abdulghany explained. “This reversal of power dynamics reflects the promise of the rule of law so rarely fulfilled in post-authoritarian transitions. The significance of this moment lies not in spectacle but in its adherence to due process.”

Defection and return

Al-Aryan was a judicial adviser during the early years of Syria’s uprising, which began in March 2011, as protests intensified and the state increasingly relied on security-based rule.

By 2013, he decided that he had to break from the Syrian state and defected in a recorded statement that framed his decision as a matter of legal and moral responsibility.

“In light of the responsibility placed on the shoulders of judges, who are the guardians of justice and truth, and as a result of the massacres committed by the regime against civilians, children and women, … I announce my defection from the Ministry of Justice and my joining the Independent Syrian Judicial Council … to be a strong shield for justice and equality,” he said in the video.

After his defection, al-Aryan joined the judicial bodies of the then-Syrian Interim Government and became involved in building what was described as a parallel judicial track in opposition-held areas.

As part of that, he worked on establishing alternative courts, handling legal cases and documenting alleged crimes committed by the now former regime.

In response, the authorities sentenced al-Aryan to death in absentia and confiscated his property, including assets later sold at public auction.

After the fall of al-Assad’s regime, al-Aryan’s name re-emerged in June after a presidential decree reinstating dismissed judges. That process culminated in his appointment as head of the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus, positioning him at the centre of the country’s first transitional judicial proceedings.

Najib’s links to repression of Syrian revolution

The transformation in al-Aryan’s life mirrors that of the man on trial in his courtroom on Sunday.

The position of the al-Assad family member as a top security official in Deraa in 2011 placed Najib at the centre of some of the first major confrontations between civilians and state security officers. Deraa is called the “cradle of the revolution” after government repression of protesters there inspired al-Assad’s opponents in other areas of the country to rise up.

One specific incident – the arrest and torture of schoolchildren detained after scrawling, “The people want the fall of the regime,” and the killing of one of them, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb – is widely regarded as the spark for the country’s revolution.

Najib’s connection to that incident and the death of Hamza is one of the reasons why his trial is so significant in Syria.

The former official was arrested in January 2025 in the Latakia region, where some former regime loyalists had taken refuge.

Transitional justice

For the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the trial is significant because of how it is being conducted and not just who is being tried.

Abdulghany stressed that “this is neither a revolutionary court nor a victors’ court” but a case that has moved through formal legal stages, including arrest by the Ministry of Interior, investigation, prosecution and referral to a criminal court in Damascus.

The charges include premeditated murder and torture leading to death, classified as crimes against humanity under international law. This framing, Abdulghany said, is deliberate: It places domestic proceedings within the framework of international criminal standards, which is essential for the credibility of any verdict.

Abdulghany also highlighted the institutional message of the trial and in particular the inclusion of the former president and his brother as defendants despite their absence from the proceedings and from Syria.

“Physical absence does not amount to legal immunity,” he said.

Despite this, Abdulghany stressed that the trial was not the end of the transitional justice process in a country where hundreds of thousands of people died and disappeared during the war and the five-decade rule of al-Assad and his father, Hafez. There is still little information in many of the cases of the disappeared and imprisoned. The SNHR has documented at least 177,000 cases of enforced disappearances since 2011 with the vast majority attributed to the former government.

Abdulghany explained that accountability in Syria cannot be reduced to criminal trials alone and instead must include four interconnected pillars: criminal accountability, truth-seeking, reparations and institutional reform.

These, he argued, must function together under a unified structure rather than as separate or sequential processes.

Abdulghany placed particular emphasis on institutional reform, noting that Syria’s judiciary was previously used as a tool of repression rather than justice.

“Without these reforms, transitional justice trials risk being conducted through judicial institutions that have not themselves been transformed,” he said, pointing to the need to dismantle exceptional courts and rebuild judicial independence.

Truth-seeking, he added, is equally essential.

Families of victims have a right to know what happened to their relatives, and this right exists independently of criminal prosecutions, Abdulghany said.

“They deserve answers,” he said, adding that recognition of truth, justice and reparations must be unconditional if any durable reconciliation is to be achieved.

The U.S. Navy says it is still aiming to see the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER) enter operational service this year. This is despite the announcement of a planned “strategic pause” in purchases of the missiles in the 2027 Fiscal Year. AARGM-ER is set to give Navy carrier air wings a critical boost in their ability to neutralize ever-more capable hostile integrated defense networks.

AARGM-ER has been in the works since the late 2010s. Northrop Grumman is the current prime contractor, through its previous acquisition of Orbital ATK. The Navy has ordered dozens of the missiles already. Hence, it was very surprising when the service’s latest proposed budget for the 2027 Fiscal Year, rolled out in full last week, included no request for funding to buy more AGM-88Gs due to the aforementioned pause. All of this, coupled with previous delays and technical issues encountered in testing, had prompted new questions about the future of the program.

“U.S. procurements for the AARGM-ER program are planned to resume once the system has successfully completed all necessary testing and software updates. Our immediate priority is ensuring the weapon passes these rigorous testing milestones to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in September 2026,” a Navy spokesperson told TWZ. “After validating the software and testing, the plan would be to ramp up production to clear a backlog of over 150 missiles, with U.S. procurements officially restarting in FY28 [Fiscal year 2028]. In the interim, FY27 production will be allocated to Foreign Military Sales to fulfill our commitments to five signed international cases.”

The spokesperson did not name the foreign customers in question. However, Italy is a full partner in the development of the AGM-88G. The U.S. government has also previously approved sales of the missiles to Australia, Finland, and the Netherlands. Norway has publicly announced its intention to purchase AARGM-ERs, as well. The U.S. Air Force is also set to acquire these missiles. We will come back to this later on.

The AGM-88 family, also known as the High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), traces its roots back to the 1970s. The AARGM-ER is a major redesign of the preceding AARGM variant, also designated the AGM-88E. The AGM-88G features a completely redesigned body optimized for high speed and range, as well as a new, more powerful rocket motor and control actuation system.

Inside, the AGM-88G reuses the guidance and control systems from the AGM-88E. By extension, this means the AGM-88G retains the same multi-mode guidance capability of its predecessor, which includes a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system and a millimeter-wave radar seeker. The AARGM-ER’s primary target set is hostile emitters, especially air defense radars, but the guidance package is designed to allow it to find its mark even if they shut down and stop sending out signals to home in on. The AGM-88E also has a more general, secondary ability to strike targets on land or at sea, including by just being directed to hit a specified set of coordinates.

AARGM F-18

The Navy sees the AGM-88G entering service first integrated with its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets, both of which can already employ the AGM-88E. AARGM-ER’s boosts in speed and range are seen as critical to ensuring the survivability and effectiveness of those non-stealthy aircraft in the face of an ever more capable air defense threat ecosystem.

AARGM-ER is also sized to allow for internal carriage on F-35A and C variants. There are plans to eventually integrate it for external carriage on all three F-35 variants, as well as legacy F/A-18C/D Hornets, as well.

As noted, the development of the AARGM-ER has had to contend with technical issues and delays over the years. Originally, the goal was to reach IOC on F/A-18E/F and EA-18G in Fiscal Year 2023.

“The AARGM-ER experienced significant delays as a result of rocket motor, structural, and software problems discovered during testing,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report published in June 2025. “Contracting officials noted that the program worked with the prime contractor to investigate the root causes of the identified deficiencies and implement corrective actions, including changes in the production process.”

“The program is still experiencing production delays as well. Since our last assessment, program officials stated that testing issues, supply chain challenges, and construction delays for a new production facility slowed completion of the first two production contracts by 1 year,” GAO’s report added. “We have found that starting production before demonstrating a system will work as intended – which the Navy did – increases the risk of discovering deficiencies that require costly, time-intensive rework.”

“In FY25 [Fiscal Year 2025], the [AARGM-ER] program attempted three IT [integrated test] weapon employment tests using F/A-18F aircraft against a threat-representative integrated air defense land target at the China Lake Range in California,” according to a separate report from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), released in March of this year. “AARGM-ER successfully completed one of the three weapon events but exhibited performance discrepancies during the other two, to include one event during which range safety terminated the weapon after release. No further weapons employment testing was accomplished in FY25 pending implementation of updates required to address the problems that were identified.”

DOT&E warned in that report that the IOC schedule for AGM-88G could slip further to the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2027, which starts on October 1 of this year.

Earlier this year, the Navy somewhat urgently put out a contracting notice saying it was exploring options for a new long-range anti-radiation missile. The stated requirements for this Advanced Emission Suppression Missile (AESM) were very much in line with how the AARGM-ER has been discussed in the past, with one notable exception: a new demand for the ability to engage targets in the air, as well as on the surface. You can read more about why that is significant here. With the Navy confirming that it is still pushing ahead on AARGM-ER, it remains unclear how exactly the service sees ASEM fitting into its broader plans. There does not appear to be any explicit mention of ASEM in the Navy’s latest budget request.

As noted, the U.S. Air Force is also in line to acquire AGM-88Gs. An AARGM-ER subvariant with “improved warhead/fuze” is set to serve as a bridge to the Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW), as well. Reportedly now designated the AGM-88J, SiAW is a derivative of the AARGM-ER being developed to provide a broader high-speed strike capability. The Air Force expects to primarily employ SiAW against time-sensitive and/or high-value assets on the ground, especially ballistic and cruise missile launchers, air and missile defense nodes, electronic warfare systems, and even anti-satellite weapons.

Despite the Navy’s “strategic pause” with AARGM-ER, the Air Force is asking for more funds to purchase additional SiAWs in Fiscal Year 2027. The Air Force has said in the past that it has been targeting 2026 for reaching IOC with SiAW on the F-35A. SiAW flight testing to date, at least that has been disclosed, has involved carriage by F-16 fighters, and it is possible the missile could be integrated operationally onto that aircraft and others, as well. As an aside, Northrop Grumman has also been pitching a ground-launched member of the AARGM-ER/SiAW family, called the Advanced Reactive Strike Missile (AReS).

As mentioned, the Navy has made clear that procurement of AARGM-ERs for foreign customers through the FMS program is also continuing.

Time will tell whether or not the Navy can meet its IOC target for AARGM-ER by September, or the timeline slips into the next fiscal year. Still, the service looks to remain committed to the program, at least for the time being, regardless of its intent to put a year-long pause on buying more AGM-88G.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Follow the build-up, analysis and live text commentary of the semifinal first-leg from Parc des Princes in Paris.

President Alexandr Lukashenko is hoping to improve relations with the West once more.

Belarus has released Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut from jail as part of a prisoner exchange.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed the release on Tuesday, noting that Warsaw had been helped in a joint diplomatic push on Minsk by the United States, Romania and Moldova.

The prisoner swap with Poland saw 10 prisoners released overall, with signs that Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko is hoping to improve relations with the West once more. Ties have deteriorated due to his support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Poczobut was detained by Belarusian authorities in 2021 and later sentenced to eight years in a labour camp after a trial widely criticised by rights groups and Western governments as politically motivated.

Concerns had grown in recent years about his health while in detention.

“Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend,” Tusk posted on social media.

Belarus also ⁠released Polish priest ⁠Grzegorz Gawel and a Belarusian who helped Polish ‌services, whose name was not to be revealed, ⁠the Polish leader added.

‌Russians and Moldovans were also among the prisoners swapped in a “five ⁠for ⁠five” exchange.

Joint-effort

Tusk also noted that the release followed lengthy diplomatic efforts.

“The exchange at the Polish-Belarusian border is the finale of a two-year-long intricate diplomatic game, full of dramatic twists,” he said.

“It succeeded thanks to the outstanding work of our services, diplomats and prosecutors, as well as the tremendous help from our American, Romanian and Moldovan friends.”

The announcement came hours after Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski published a photograph of a meeting with US Special Envoy to Belarus John Coale, saying the pair had discussed “important issues”.

Coale later said that the US had helped to secure the release of three Polish nationals and two Moldovans.

“We thank Poland, Moldova, and Romania for their invaluable support in this effort, as well as President Lukashenko’s willingness to pursue constructive engagement with the United States,” he said.

“Under President Trump, America shows up for its allies and delivers diplomatic victories no one else can,” he claimed.

Poczobut, who had worked as a correspondent for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, has been arrested numerous times in Belarus over the past decade.

In 2011, he was fined and jailed for 15 days for his participation in protests following Belarus’s 2010 presidential election. He was later detained again in 2011 and 2012 on accusations of insulting Lukashenko.

His cases drew international condemnation, with the European Parliament, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International among organisations calling for his release.

Earlier this year, the European Parliament awarded Poczobut and Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli the Sakharov Prize.

Earlier, Sir Philip Barton, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office at the time, told the committee Downing Street had been “uninterested” in the vetting process and the focus was on making sure Lord Mandelson was able to start his job by the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Recently uncovered wreckage of an Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) reveals that Ukraine is employing the AIM-120C-8 version, a weapon that is close to the ‘top of the line’ for these missiles. Ukraine can employ AMRAAMs of all types from its F-16 fighters, as well as from the ground-based National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) air defense system.

A photo showing part of an AMRAAM missile body clearly marked with the AIM-120C-8 designation began to circulate online recently. According to available accounts, the wreckage was found in the aftermath of a Russian air attack on Dnipro in central Ukraine, during which the Ukrainian Armed Forces were active in defense of the city.

Previous imagery of Ukrainian F-16s had confirmed they were using some version of the AIM-120C, which can be identified on account of its cropped fins for internal carriage in the F-22 and F-35. This appears to be the first confirmation that the AIM-120C-8, specifically, has been supplied to Kyiv, in addition to earlier AIM-120A/B versions.

As we’ve discussed in the past, the AIM-120C offers some significant advantages over the earlier AIM-120A/B models.

In general, the ‘Charlie’ version offers a range of advanced capabilities that reflect the continuous development of both this specific sub-variant and the AIM-120 series overall. Even in its earliest sub-generation versions, the C-model features notable upgrades in terms of range, guidance, resistance to countermeasures, and other key areas.

Successive improvements reportedly introduced on the AIM-120C family include a new WDU-41/B warhead (AIM-120C-4), a new WPU-16/B propulsion section with a larger motor and electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) upgrades (AIM-120C-5), and an updated proximity fuze (AIM-120C-6). Meanwhile, the AIM-120C-7 features further improved ECCM, an upgraded seeker, and a longer range.

The exact differences between the AIM-120C-8 and the AIM-120D are somewhat unclear, although the D-model, at least, is understood to feature two-way datalink with third-party targeting capabilities. The AIM-120D may also feature an active electronically scanned array (AESA) seeker, while the C-8 remains a mechanically scanned antenna. There have been previous suggestions that the AIM-120D is reserved for the U.S. military and its closest allies, while other international customers receive the AIM-120C-8.

It was an AIM-120D that was used for what the U.S. Air Force described as the “longest known” air-to-air missile shot, during a series of tests in airspace near Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in the fall of 2024. The launch platform on that occasion was an F-22. This would fit with reports that the D-model features significantly greater range than earlier versions, although, once again, the precise differences between AIM-120C-8 and AIM-120D are unclear.

Both the AIM-120C-8 and the AIM-120D have also been further enhanced under the F3R program, developed for the U.S. Air Force. F3R stands for form, fit, function refresh, and is primarily intended to eke out more performance from the missile, as you can read more about here. It’s not clear if Ukraine’s AIM-120C-8s also benefit from the F3R improvements.

A recent promotional video from Raytheon includes footage of a separation launch of the latest-generation AMRAAM F3R from a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet:

Air Dominance With a Digital Edge

The plan was for the U.S. Air Force to begin to receive AMRAAMs incorporating F3R starting early 2023, as part of the Lot 33 production run. The U.S. AMRAAM program of record is expected to continue into around 2027 or 2028. As for the AIM-120C-8, these missiles are expected to remain in production for international partners long beyond 2030.

Regardless, the AIM-120C-8 offers Ukraine a notably long-range weapon.

While official performance figures are classified, it is generally assumed to be able to hit targets at a distance of between 75 and 100 miles. Of course, in practical applications, a whole range of factors impact a missile’s reach, above all, the energy and altitude state of the launching aircraft and the target.

In an air-to-air context, the weapon goes some way toward closing the gap with Russia’s R-37M missile, known to NATO as the AA-13 Axehead. According to the manufacturer, at least in its export form, the R-37M can defeat “some types” of aerial targets at a range of up to 124 miles. This likely refers to only larger, less agile, aircraft targets and is very much a “sales brochure figure,” with all the caveats that entails.

At this stage, we don’t know for sure whether the wreckage in Dnipro came from an air-launched AMRAAM, i.e., fired by an F-16, or if it was an effector from a ground-based NASAMS.

In the case of the F-16, the importance of the AMRAAM cannot be overstated. This was the first active-radar-guided air-to-air missile to be fielded by Ukraine. This is a class of weapons that the Ukrainian Air Force long campaigned for. One of its fighter pilots, the late Andrii Pilshchykov, better known by his callsign “Juice,” told TWZ back in 2022: “The lack of fire and forget missiles is the greatest problem for us.”

More recently, Ukrainian F-16s have had to rely more heavily on AMRAAMs. Earlier this year, reports emerged indicating that Ukraine had been left late last year with only “a handful” of U.S.-made AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for its F-16s, after the supply of these short-range weapons dried up.

This left the F-16 pilots with AMRAAMs plus the jet’s internal 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon.

As we have discussed many times before, taking out slow-moving drones via another fixed-wing aircraft with guns can be very challenging and downright dangerous, especially for fast jets. AMRAAMs can be employed against drones and cruise missiles, too, but are more expensive weapons than the Sidewinders. Each AMRAAM costs around one million dollars.

To help plug the gap, Ukrainian F-16s have begun using laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets. These rockets provide an extremely valuable, lower-cost option for engaging long-range kamikaze drones and subsonic cruise missiles. U.S. Air Force F-16s began using them in combat last year, as we were first to report.

While somewhat less likely, there’s also a possibility that the Dnipro wreckage came from an AIM-120C-8 fired by a NASAMS.

Deliveries of the first two Ukrainian NASAMS batteries were expedited after Russia’s large-scale missile and drone assault on major population centers in Ukraine in late 2022.

A video showing the Ukrainian NASAMS in action:

Привітання до Дня Повітряних Сил ЗС України 2023

As we explored at the time, a critical advantage of NASAMS is the fact that it fires the exact same missiles used in air-to-air applications. It does not require a special AMRAAM variant or major modifications to existing missiles. In addition, it can fire other types of effectors, including the AMRAAM-ER, which is a hybrid of the AIM-120 and the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), and the infrared-homing AIM-9X Sidewinder and IRIS-T missiles. 

It might be expected that Ukrainian NASAMS is being fed with older AIM-120A/Bs, which, in the ground-launched application, are capable of engaging targets from relatively close ranges to up to roughly 20 miles away and from around 1,000 feet to 50,000 feet. These targets include everything from cruise missiles — which it is very good at engaging — to crewed aircraft and drones.

Another major factor behind the appearance of the AIM-120C-8 wreckage could be the indication that stocks of older (AIM-120A/B and earlier C-version) missiles have been depleted, leading to the inclusion of higher-end C variants. If so, this would increase the pressure on at least some of the foreign partners who are supporting Ukraine with weapons, particularly given the global imbalance between the supply and demand for munitions. The conflict in Iran is likely to intensify this strain, as the United States is reportedly delaying deliveries to customers to prioritize replenishing its own inventories.

As it stands, we now have confirmation that Ukraine is using what is almost certainly the most advanced and capable version of the AMRAAM that is available to all but the very closest U.S. military allies. As such, it should provide Ukraine with a particularly powerful tool in its ongoing battle against Russian air attacks.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Iran has raised concerns about the vulnerability of submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz, which are crucial for the region’s digital economy. This narrow waterway, known for its importance in global oil shipments, also supports several fibre-optic cables connecting countries from India and Southeast Asia to Europe via the Gulf states and Egypt.

Submarine cables are essential for transmitting data and power, carrying about 99% of the world’s internet traffic. They play a significant role in telecommunications, cloud services, and online communication. Damage to these cables can lead to internet slowdowns, outages, disrupted e-commerce, and delayed financial transactions, causing economic consequences, according to analyst Masha Kotkin.

Gulf countries, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have invested billions into artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to reduce dependence on oil, with their national AI companies relying heavily on undersea cables for data transfer. Key submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz include the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1), the FALCON network, and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System, with additional infrastructures being built.

Despite the growth in submarine cable length, faults have remained stable at around 150–200 incidents yearly, largely due to human activities like fishing and anchor dragging, with state-sponsored sabotage being a potential risk. Other threats include undersea currents, earthquakes, and typhoons. To mitigate these risks, the industry has measures such as burying cables and selecting safer routes.

The ongoing Iran war has caused significant disruption to energy supply and regional infrastructure, though subsea cables have not yet suffered damage. However, military operations increase the risk of unintentional damage from ships inadvertently impacting cables. Historical incidents, like one in 2024, highlight these risks.

Repairing damaged cables in conflict areas presents challenges, including obtaining permits and addressing the dangers of remaining fighting or mines. Once conflicts end, another challenge lies in re-evaluating the sea floor to ensure the cables’ safety.

If subsea cables are damaged, there are alternatives like land-based links, but experts warn that satellite systems cannot replace them due to limited capacity and higher costs. Low-Earth-orbit networks like Starlink are not a scalable solution for millions of users at present.

with information from Reuters

The large-scale US airstrike on Venezuela was unprecedented in modern history. The surprise attack forcibly kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, First Combatant Cilia Flores, from Fort Tiuna on the outskirts of Caracas. The US killed over 100 people in the early morning hours of January 3, 2026, including reportedly some civilians in the neighboring Ciudad Tiuna social housing complex.

We visited Ciudad Tiuna 50 days after the US bombing to hear the resident’s accounts. We were the second “solidarity brigade” to visit Venezuela and the first to arrive by air. The delegation consisted primarily of activists from the US, along with Canada, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. CodePink,  Task Force on the Americas, Veterans for Peace, and World Beyond War were among the solidarity organizations represented.

Ciudad Tiuna is a planned housing complex of some 20,000 units, part of the national Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela program. Apartments are allocated with priority to families displaced by disasters and to low-income households. As of December 2025, over 5 million units have reportedly been delivered nationwide.

We were enthusiastically greeted by a community-based club affiliated with the Abuelos y Abuelas de la Patria (Grandparents of the Homeland) mission, a government program empowering seniors in communal life. They organized a cultural presentation and introduced us to social and political organizations in their socialist city.

A woman sang for mother earth accompanied by a shaman drum. A man read poetry by Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman, remarking “not all North Americans fornicate with their mothers” (loosely translated from Spanish).

In a tribute to Cuba, residents said they do not speak of solidarity with Cubans because “we are one people.” They praised the Cuban’s courage, including the 32 presidential guards murdered by the US in the January 3 attack. They also highlighted Cuban’s generosity in helping Venezuela achieve “territory free of illiteracy” status by 2005. Programs such as Misión Barrio Adentro brought thousands of Cuban doctors into poor urban and rural communities to provide free primary care.

And most of all, they deeply lamented the current US military blockade of Cuba, which has prevented Venezuela from supplying vital oil to the island. The suffering imposed by Washington on the Cubans pained them deeply.

They shared a flyer titled “Never Again – January 3 – Diplomacy for Peace,” which read in part:

Neither forgiveness nor forgetting! Memory is not resentment, but the heart of the people’s dignity who have been attacked. A people without justice becomes submissive. Impunity flourishes if we do not sow justice. We will not tire of weaving unity to triumph.

Their immediate demand is the release of their president and first lady. The flyer also calls for defense of popular sovereignty, no intervention by imperialism in Venezuelan affairs, and reparations for the “offended homeland.”

The flier concludes with a quote from Delcy Rodríguez: “The dignity of the Venezuelan people is the first line of defense. We have to preserve our integrity as a people, guarantee our territorial integrity, and preserve our national independence.”

January 3 was not unanticipated but nevertheless a great shock. During a walking tour, they described the terror of the sneak attack. They told us each time the Venezuelan people successfully resisted Washington’s attempts at regime change – attacks dating back from the founding of their Bolivarian Revolution 26 years ago by then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – the siege has been racketed up.

Fabricio, age 11, described a sky lit red with explosions and filled with US helicopters. The elders vowed: “Never again will we allow our children to be traumatized.” Government mental health workers have since been regularly visiting Ciudad Tiuna.

They explained how they truly felt the horror that the Palestinians experience. The difference, they added, was that for them it was a single day while in Gaza it is every day.

At the time, many feared the attack could signal a protracted full-scale land invasion. Such an incursion, they warned, could well be launched in the future. (This was also the opinion of government officials that we conferred with.)

They are proud that the Bolivarian leadership remains firm and united. This they attribute to the support of the people such as themselves. The concessions forced upon the government under the threat of an even more devastating attack have been bitter to accept, but better than the alternative of greater destruction.

Our hosts described themselves as Chavistas, militants in support of the current government. Some wore shirts bearing the phrase dudar es traición – to doubt is to betray. Their lived experience is of a nation under imperial siege – in a perpetual state of war with the threat of more. Under such circumstances unity is prioritized.

They rejected speculation that the kidnapping was aided by traitors within, arguing that such narratives serve the purposes of the enemy of eroding unity by fostering distrust. They emphasized the continuity of revolutionary policy from Chávez to Maduro and now to Delcy, as she is affectionately called.

Conditions have changed but not the leadership’s dedication. They noted that regional solidarity has weakened, leaving Venezuela ever more isolated.

Before we departed, several children gave us gifts: handmade wristbands in the national colors, decorated pencils, and a book on climate change from a Marxist perspective. Our hosts also had a frank take-home message for us: “We never invaded; we liberated. Take our passion and love to give you strength to do what you must and rise up.” The hardships caused by the US sanctions – including shortages of medicine and essential goods– are linked to the failure of North Americans to restrain our own government.

Meanwhile, the wild guacamayas (blue-and-yellow macaws), which once came to Ciudad Tiuna to be fed by residents but disappeared after the bombing, have now returned to a community that asks only to be left in peace.

Roger D. Harris is with the Venezuela Solidarity Network, the Task Force on the Americas, and the US Peace Council.

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

Source: Common Dreams

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has blamed a ‘narco-terrorist group’ led by a former FARC fighter for the attack.

The death toll from a deadly highway bombing in southwestern Colombia has risen to at least 20, the governor of the Cauca region has said.

Governor Octavio Guzman said on Monday that the death toll included 15 women and five men.

There were also 36 people injured, including three who remained in intensive care as of Monday and “five minors who are out of danger”, Guzman said in an update shared on social media.

Some media reports put the death toll from the lethal explosion, near a tunnel on the Pan-American Highway, at 21 as of late on Monday.

A dozen of the victims were from a village near the town of Cajibio, where hundreds of mourners held a vigil on Monday.

The mourners were dressed in white and waved white sheets or balloons as a sign of peace.

“Please, no more death, no more violence,” Joao Valencia, 42, a relative of a woman killed in the attack, told the AFP news agency, holding up her picture.

“These kinds of women should die of old age, not have their lives taken from them in such a tragic way,” he added.

The bombing was one of the deadliest attacks in Colombia since the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) blew up a Bogota nightclub in 2003, killing 36 people.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said a “narco-terrorist group” was responsible for the attack, specifically naming a group led by Nestor Vera, commonly known as Ivan Mordisco, one of Colombia’s most wanted men.

Mordisco is a dissident former member of FARC, which signed a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016.

The attack comes just more than a month before national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to President Gustavo Petro.

Security is one of the central issues of the May 31 presidential election, with a suspect recently arrested in the assassination of young conservative presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay last June.

U.S. President Donald Trump met with top national security officials today to discuss a new Iranian proposal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed. Iran offered a new deal to reopen the Strait and end the war, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage, Axios reported, citing a U.S. official and two sources with knowledge.

As part of that deal, “the ceasefire would be extended for a long period or the parties would agree on a permanent end to the war,” Axios posited. “According to the proposal, the nuclear negotiations would only start at a later stage, after the strait was open and the blockade lifted.”

The new proposal, passed to the United States by Pakistan, likely won’t earn the support of Trump, who has repeatedly demanded a final end to Iran’s nuclear program as part of an overall deal to reopen the Strait, lift the blockade, and make the ceasefire permanent.

“We have all the cards,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. He also stated it is imperative the U.S. gets Iran’s enriched Uranium.

“These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the U.S. will not negotiate through the press,” Assistant White House Press Secretary Olivia Wales told us Monday morning in response to our questions about the claimed Iranian offer. “As the President has said, the United States holds the cards and will only make a deal that puts the American people first, never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

The claimed Iranian offer comes as diplomacy has stagnated. Late last week, Trump called off a trip to Pakistan by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner after Iran signaled it wouldn’t meet with the U.S. delegation there.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back on Iran’s claim that it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“And what they mean by opening the Straits is, yes, the Straits are opened. As long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,” Rubio stated. “That’s not opening the Straits. Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway, and how much you have to pay them to use it.”

Iran’s armed forces would be the authority responsible for the Strait of Hormuz under the country’s proposed law for managing the waterway, a top official says.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission in Iran’s parliament, tells state television that the armed forces are already in control of the Strait and are seeking to prohibit the passage of “hostile vessels.”

Azizi added that the proposed law states that financial gains from the strait should be paid in the local rial currency.

Clearly, Trump’s blockade aims to cripple Iran economically and pressure the regime into making a deal or face possibly years of economic ruin once their oil infrastructure degrades.

A satellite image emerged showing Iran, as of Sunday, still loading oil onto tankers at Kharg Island.

“So beware of talk about Tehran running out of onshore / floating storage in only a couple of days,” Bloomberg energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas said Monday on X. 

Blas’ observation about Kharg Island was in reference to a statement Trump made Sunday on Fox News signaling an interest in maintaining the blockade of Iranian ports. The president claimed that Iran’s oil infrastructure could “explode” in about three days because of mechanical issues exacerbated by that blockade.

“When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships, which has happened to them — they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth,” Trump told Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”

“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was.”

On that note, WSJ reports that China is looking to export oil to China via railway in order to circumvent the blockade, even though this is a far less efficient method:

UPDATES

An Iranian F-5 combat jet flew through U.S. air defenses and struck Camp Buehring in Kuwait during the first days of the war, NBC News reported. The attack happened despite the aircraft being heavily outclassed by opposing aircraft and air defenses and the infrastructure to operate Iranian fighters being heavily targeted during this conflict, as well as the 12-Day War between Iran and Israel last June. 

The news about the F-5 was part of a larger story by NBC that claimed Iran caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. military assets and bases in the Gulf region. The targets included runways, high-end radar systems, dozens of aircraft, warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars and satellite communications infrastructure, much of it we have already reported.

As TWZ editor-in-chief Tyler Rogoway notes, U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 C/D Hornets F/A-18C Hornets from the VMFA-312 “Checkerboards” that arrived in the Middle East will bring special capabilities to the fight, especially around the Strait of Hormuz, should it reignite.

“USMC F/A-18C/Ds pushed to the Middle East are extremely capable drone hunters,” he wrote on X. “Now significantly upgraded w/APG-79V4 AESA and APKWS air-to-air rockets. Good targeting pod etc. Marines better at dispersed ops. Expect them forward and working in counter air screen over gulf if needed. Good for hunting small boats too etc.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin today in St. Petersburg to discuss the war and efforts to end it. The meeting comes as a shaky ceasefire extension issued by U.S. President Donald Trump continues to hold despite Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and an ongoing U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

Araghchi “explained the diplomatic process of Pakistan’s mediation for the complete end of the imposed war and the establishment of peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and the Strait of Hormuz,” his Telegram channel noted. “He considered the continuation of America’s destructive habits, especially insistence on unreasonable demands, frequent changes in positions, threatening rhetoric, and continuous breaches of agreements as factors slowing down diplomatic progress.”

Putin, for his part, said he hopes that the Iranian people will get through “this difficult period of trials and that peace will come,” according to Russia’s official TASS news outlet.

Putin added that Moscow is ready to do everything in its power to ensure that peace in the Middle East “is achieved as quickly as possible.” He also stressed that Russia “intends to maintain” its strategic relations with Iran.

As we have frequently noted, Iran and Russia have close military and economic ties. Moscow has reportedly provided Iran with intelligence to help its targeting of U.S. assets in the Middle East while Iran provided Russia with Shahed-136 drones used during the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine has released more details of Russia’s S-71K Kovyor — translated as Carpet — an air-launched missile that Kyiv says has been used in combat since late last year. The continued development of weapons in this class highlights the fact that Russia is looking for alternatives to its more established — and more costly — legacy air-launched cruise missiles, with current production levels struggling to meet wartime needs.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) today publicly released new information on the S-71K, including an interactive 3D model. The GUR had previously released details of companies involved in the manufacture of Russia’s Su-57 Felon fighter, and notes that the new missile was specifically developed for this platform.

“The new missile was first deployed by the enemy late last year and appears to represent the United Aircraft Corporation’s (UAC) initial venture into missile manufacturing,” the GUR says.

The GUR adds that the warhead of the S-71K utilizes a 551-pound OFAB-250-270 high-explosive fragmentation bomb. This bomb, which was developed in the Cold War as a free-fall air-launched weapon, is integrated into the structure of the S-71K, which otherwise features a low-observable airframe.

The S-71K’s airframe is made from “a multi-layer fiberglass material with additional reinforcement,” with other internal elements made of aluminum alloys. The airframe has a low-observable shape, with a trapezoidal cross section, chined nose, pop-out swept wings, and an inverted V-tail. Available imagery of the wreckage reveals details of the top-mounted conformal engine intake, feeding a pentagon-shaped intake duct. There are, however, no signs of any low-observable coatings, such as radar-absorbent material, likely to keep costs down.

The GUR also provides information on various electronic components, of which it says “the vast majority” are of foreign origin, including items manufactured in China, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States. As the GUR says, “Continued access to foreign technologies and components allows the aggressor state to develop new weapons and scale their use in the war against Ukraine.”

This makes it one of many Russian weapons relying on foreign parts. For instance, a Russian Shahed-136 strike drone obtained by the GUR contained numerous components from the U.S. as well as parts from Iran, Taiwan, and other nations. Previously, we noted that the GUR found multiple foreign components in a Russian S-70 Okhotnik-B (Hunter-B) flying-wing uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) downed in a case of friendly fire.

The S-71K is powered by a compact R500 turbojet engine, also produced by UAC, and features what the GUR describes as “an inertial navigation system based on simple sensors.”

With three separate internal fuel tanks, Ukraine assesses that the S-71K has an operational range of up to 186 miles. Earlier reports suggest that the missile flies at a speed of Mach 0.6 and at altitudes of up to 27,000 feet.

In 2024, it was reported that Sukhoi had received approval from the Russian Defense Ministry to begin producing the S-71, after it underwent “significant design changes” based on lessons from the Ukraine conflict.

These changes apparently included increasing the range and reducing the radar cross-section to improve survivability against air defenses.

The GUR has not said what platform or platforms are understood to have employed the S-71K in the war in Ukraine. As mentioned, the S-71K is known to have been developed with the Su-57 in mind and has at least been tested on this aircraft, with captive-carry trials in April 2024 at the Russian flight research center in Zhukovsky. There is no reason that it couldn’t also be carried by other Russian tactical jets; this would be necessary for large-volume employment, if significant production numbers are actually realized.

It is also expected that Russia will explore the integration of the S-71K with its S-70 Okhotnik UCAV.

Interestingly, there have also been reports that the S-71K may be complemented by a more advanced weapon, known as the S-71M Monokhrom. While described as a kamikaze drone, this is essentially an air-to-ground missile expected to have a “human-in-the-loop” capability, to allow dynamic targeting, including against moving targets, via a controller on the ground. In this way, it differs from the S-71K, which apparently features a fairly basic inertial guidance system, likely backed up by satellite navigation. The S-71M is also said to feature electro-optical sensors for day and night operations, and multiple warhead options, including high-explosive and shaped charges.

While the S-71K is externally carried by launch aircraft, the S-71M can reportedly also be accommodated in the weapons bay of a Su-57 or S-70 UCAV. So far, we have not seen S-71s with folding tailfins, which would be required for internal carriage.

Earlier this year, unconfirmed reports from Russia suggested that the S-71M Monokhrom may have been used in an attack on a Ukrainian HIMARS launcher in the Chernihiv region, although the Russian military stressed that the target was destroyed by a Geran loitering munition. Images released of S-71M test rounds indicate a missile design that is notably less stealthy than the latest S-71K, but the M-version may also have been refined in the meantime.

In March of this year, the GUR revealed details of another new Russian air-launched cruise missile, the Izdeliye 30, which you can read more about here.

The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has published an interactive 3D model, the main assemblies, and components of the enemy’s new cruise missile “izdeliye-30,” as well as data on 20 enterprises involved in its production cooperation chain.

🔗: https://t.co/shMagPCZHE pic.twitter.com/6XgEsxVatf

— Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) March 2, 2026

This missile also has folding wings, but offers a much longer range of at least 930 miles. It is similarly powered by a compact turbojet engine but does not have a stealthy airframe.

Various components in the Izdeliye 30 appear to have been reused from existing weapons, reducing cost and complexity and speeding development.

Based on its range, the Izdeliye is likely intended as a cheaper, simpler alternative to the air-launched cruise missiles otherwise used by Tu-95MS and Tu-160 bombers, namely the Kh-101 and Kh-555 (the Kh-55 carries a nuclear warhead).

Meanwhile, the S-71K appears to be tailored for tactical crewed and uncrewed aircraft, while its more limited range is partly compensated for by the fact that it has low-observable features (and is intended for launch from low-observable platforms).

The S-71K should also offer a cheaper alternative to the Kh-69, a weapon widely associated with the Su-57, although it can also be launched by ‘legacy’ Russian tactical aircraft. You can read about this air-to-surface missile here.

1/ TASS reports that KTRV will display (a mock-up of) its Kh-69 air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) at the upcoming “Army-2022” forum.

Specifications:
– Max range (km): 290
– Cruise speed (km/h): 700 – 1,000
– Warhead (kg): 300 – 310 (depending on configuration) pic.twitter.com/UD38MsNNpG

— Guy Plopsky (@GuyPlopsky) August 11, 2022

While it remains to be seen exactly how the S-71 series will be used in an operational context, it’s clear that Russia has a need for cheaper, easier-to-produce air-launched missiles for its combat aircraft fleet. 

Just as the U.S. military is facing the challenge of limited munitions stocks as it prepares for a potential future conflict with China, Russia has a requirement today for strike weapons that can be manufactured cost-effectively and in large numbers.

At minimum, the deployment of the S-71 poses an additional challenge for Ukraine’s already strained air defense forces, especially given the continued scarcity of Western-supplied ground-based air defense systems.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Caracas, April 27, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) has announced the hiring of outside firms to audit Venezuelan export revenues currently controlled by the Trump administration and disbursed to Caracas.

In a press statement, BCV Acting President Luis Pérez confirmed that both the Venezuelan and US governments had hired auditing companies to “ensure peace of mind and impartiality.”

“The auditing of the country’s resources by external consultants gives us peace of mind,” Pérez stated. “Venezuela can be confident that the resources are being channeled where they have to and getting where they need to.”

According to Reuters and Bitácora Económica, Deloitte is one of the firms selected to inspect the Central Bank’s accounts, though it is not known whether it was chosen by Washington or Caracas.

One of the largest global consulting corporations, Deloitte has close ties to the US political establishment and national security state.  The London-based firm has a well-documented history of hiring former CIA agents and undertaking corporate espionage.

Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has taken control over Venezuelan oil revenues, mandating that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be deposited in US Treasury-run accounts before a portion is returned to Caracas at the White House’s discretion.

US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have stated before congressional committees that the Venezuelan government’s allocation of its own resources, once returned by Washington, would be subject to outside audits.

Rubio additionally claimed that Caracas needs to submit “budget requests” before accessing funds. Both US and Venezuelan officials have acknowledged the use of US-managed funds for imports of medicines and medical equipment from US manufacturers.

The sequestered Venezuelan earnings have not been returned directly to the BCV but injected into foreign currency auctions run by banks. US officials have confirmed the transfer of US $500 million of a projected $2 billion initial agreement, though analysts have reported a higher volume of foreign currency made available in recent weeks.

Recently issued US Treasury licenses allowing transactions with the Venezuelan Central Bank are expected to restore some of the institution’s capacity to intervene in the economy. In a recent meeting with banking executives, Acting President Pérez stated that the BCV was prioritizing inflation control and forex market stability. A black market exchange rate has consistently hovered above the official one, with a gap currently at around 30 percent. Critics have blamed the BCV’s lack of oversight for the proliferation of currency speculation.

Pérez likewise pledged to review the Central Bank’s current reserve requirements, a recurring demand from banks in recent months. Banks are presently forced to hold 73 percent of deposits as reserves.

The contraction of credit, alongside reduced public spending and the freezing of wages, were policies adopted by the Maduro government in recent years in an effort to slow down inflation in the sanctions-hit Venezuelan economy.

Pérez was appointed acting president of Venezuela’s financial authority on April 16. He replaced Laura Guerra, who had been in the post since April 2025. Last week, the Venezuelan government’s “rapid response” social media denied reports of negotiations with the US State Department and the far-right opposition to select a new BCV board.

Since January, the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with the Trump administration.

The White House’s recognition of Rodríguez as Venezuela’s sole leader has paved the way for the resumption of dealings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while creditors of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt anticipate a lucrative restructuring agreement.

The Rodríguez administration has likewise driven a pro-business legislative agenda with the goal of attracting foreign investment. The Caribbean nation’s parliament has approved reforms to the hydrocarbon and mining sectors that grant increased control to foreign conglomerates, alongside reduced fiscal responsibilities and the possibility of taking disputes to international arbitration bodies.

Canadian miner Gold Reserve issued a statement Monday “welcoming” the new mining law, noting that some of its “key recommendations were reflected in the final enacted law,” including the repeal of a 2015 decree establishing majority Venezuelan state control over the sector.

Acting President Rodríguez, as well as National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, have both acknowledged receiving “recommendations” and “suggestions” from oil majors in the hydrocarbon industry overhaul.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

While a multitude of law enforcement agents sprang into action after a shooter tried to storm a ballroom where President Donald Trump and others were attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, one well-dressed and cool under pressure plainclothes agent went viral after whipping out a Heckler & Koch MP7. The MP7 is a high-end personal defense weapon (PDW) that is already something of a pop culture fascination, being famously used by SEAL Team Six and featured in countless video games. Unlike many of its counterparts, it also remains unavailable in any configuration on the general firearms civilian marketplace. Regardless, the memes have come fast and furious and have made this still unidentified expressionless agent, and his futuristic-looking weapon, internet stars.

What agency this individual belongs to still is not entirely clear, with the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and U.S. Capitol Police having been raised as possibilities. The latter is very likely to be the agency in question, having adopted the MP7 for its Dignitary Protection Division following another politically-motivated shooting nearly a decade ago.

Cole Tomas Allen was subdued and arrested at the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., on Saturday after authorities say he attempted to shoot his way past security to get to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He is said to have been armed with a .38-caliber pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun, as well as knives, at the time. A Secret Service agent was hit by gunfire, but the projectile was reportedly stopped by a combination of their protective vest and cellphone, and they are expected to recover. Allen, a resident of Torrance, California, sent a message to family members stating his intention to target members of the Trump administration right before the attack.

The President and First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and other top members of the administration were at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and other members of Congress were also present. A host of other dignitaries were in attendance, as well. Trump and other administration officials were moved first to secure locations on site, before returning to the White House after authorities asked everyone to leave the venue.

It was during that initial response that the plainclothes agent emerged carrying the MP7. A photographer actually caught the individual pulling the gun from what looks to be a Crye Precision EXP-series pack. The MP7 in this case was also fitted with a non-magnifying T2 red dot optic on a raised Unity mount, both of which are made by Aimpoint. What appears to be a Surefire XVL2-IRC laser aiming and light module was also spotted mounted on top of the gun in front of the optic. It also had a collapsible foregrip.

Since Heckler & Koch first introduced the MP7 in 2001, it has been presented as ideally suited to being discreetly carried by individuals tasked with VIP protection duties. In its standard configuration with its built-in buttstock collapsed, the gun is around 16 and a half inches long. Without a magazine loaded or any accessories fitted, it weighs just under four pounds. The MP7 is a bit heavier than the smallest version of Heckler & Koch’s famed MP5 submachine gun, the MP5K, but also has far more modern ergonomics and controls.

MP7A1 vs MP7A2: H&K’s Modern PDW

In addition, the 4.7x30mm round that the MP7 fires is designed to offer excellent low-recoil, armor-penetrating, and range characteristics in a very compact package, especially compared to traditional pistol rounds. Due to its relatively tiny rifle-style ammunition, Heckler & Koch’s gun is regularly compared to the FN P90, a very different weapon design-wise, but which was built around a broadly similar cartridge, the 5.7x28mm. Both offer submachine gun size, but with armor-piercing capabilities that their pistol caliber cousins cannot offer. The accessibility to increasingly capable body armor by civilians is a main reason why units have moved from submarine guns to guns in the PDW class, including the MP7 and FN P90, as well as compact assault rifles.

The MP7’s focus on lower felt recoil also helps increase accuracy. Altogether, the gun, with its rate of fire of around 950 rounds per minute, is intended to offer a potent amount of firepower that a shooter can get on target easily and keep it there, even when drawing quickly from concealment under pressure.

Despite still having a relatively small user base today, as noted earlier, the MP7 has attained a certain spot in popular culture, including video games and movies, in large part due to the gun’s use by SEAL Team Six. This is the same unit, also known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), responsible for the raid that led to the death of Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

“I ran with a suppressed MP7 submachine gun on a few missions, but lacked the knockdown power of my H&K 416 [5.56x45mm assault rifle]. The submachine gun came in handy during ship boarding, in the jungle, or when weight, size, and the ability to stay extremely quiet were needed,” retired Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette (writing under the pen name Mark Owen) wrote in his 2012 book No Easy Day. “Several times we shot fighters in one room with a suppressed MP7 and their comrades next door didn’t wake up. The H&K 416s didn’t compare to the MP7 when you were trying to be extremely quiet.”

SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU kit. MP7 and HK416 in matching camo. The real gem is the ‘Pirate Gun,’ the sawed-off M79 40mm break-open grenade launcher made famous by ‘Mark Owen’s’ book No Easy Day. pic.twitter.com/IzwEwun4ZX

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 6, 2020

MP7s are also in service worldwide with a variety of conventional and special operations military units, as well as law enforcement agencies, including in the United States.

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the agent’s stoic action movie mystique and tailored suit also upped the ‘cool factor’ when paired with his intriguing MP7 armament.

All of this has now also contributed to the images of the MP7 agent at the Washington Hilton this weekend going viral on social media. The general visual of the MP7 being drawn from the pack has also prompted comparisons to iconic photos of Secret Service agent Robert Wanko producing a Uzi submachine gun from a custom briefcase during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. The MP7-armed agent spotted over the weekend is already developing a similar following online. 

As noted, there still remains something of a question as to what agency the MP7-armed individual seen at the Washington Hilton on Saturday belongs to.

The U.S. Capitol Police is a particularly distinct possibility based on its very public adoption of the MP7 for use by its Dignitary Protection Division (DPD). Agents from DPD would have had a clear reason to be among those providing security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, given the presence of Speaker Johnson and other legislators. In the United States, the Speaker of the House is an extremely important position, with whoever is serving in that role being second in line to succeed the President if need be.

The USCP’s Dignitary Protection Division (DPD)

The U.S. Capitol Police first began acquiring MP7s as a result of four people, including then-U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (another Louisiana Republican), being shot at the annual Congressional Baseball Game in 2017. The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, was also wounded in the ensuing firefight and subsequently died. Authorities concluded that Hodgkinson had deliberately targeted Republican lawmakers at the event.

“It should be noted that we do have the ability to deploy another weapon, the M4, the [5.56x45mm] assault rifle. We have that ability today, and we deploy that when necessary,” then-Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police Matthew Verderosa told members of Congress at a hearing in 2019. “The MP7 is a pilot program that the Board has directed us to engage in, in terms of providing a weapon that meets the needs that sort of bridges the gap between a true assault rifle and a handgun.”

“We currently have a [sic] MP7 assault weapon that is specifically utilized by our Dignitary Protection Division agents,” Assistant Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police Sean Gallagher also said in 2022. “I believe almost 60 to 70 percent of our entire DPD is trained on that weapon.”

Gallagher’s comments came in an interview with the House of Representatives’ Select Committee investigating the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The individual with the MP7 at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner may still belong to another agency, though this seems less likely to be the case. The Secret Service has been brought up as another possibility. However, it is known to have adopted the P90, and it is unclear why it would also have the functionally similar MP7 in inventory. Interestingly, on April 24, the Secret Service also awarded a contract to J.P. Enterprises, Inc., for an unspecified “9mm Pistol Caliber Carbine,” which could be based on that company’s existing JP-5 or GMR-15 designs.

FBI has also been put forward based on the badge the individual has on their belt. It features an eagle on top with wings that are not fully connected with the rest of the badge, as is the case with what the FBI issues to special agents. The FBI is also not known to be a user of the MP7, though this does not rule out the possibility. At the same time, members of the U.S. Capitol Police have been seen wearing badges with eagles with similarly detached wings over the years, as well.

TWZ has reached out to the Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. Capitol Police for any additional information they can provide. FBI declined to comment.

More broadly speaking, though the response looks to have largely worked as intended, the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has raised questions about security protocols, especially around Trump at public events. Trump, both as President and as a candidate, has already been the target of multiple assassination attempts. He was notably wounded during one attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024. The Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies were widely criticized over that incident.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting may well trigger further reviews of tactics, techniques, and procedures at the Secret Service and other agencies. Whether it prompts the adoption of new weapons, like the U.S. Capitol Police’s adoption of the MP7 in the wake of the 2017 attack on the Congressional Baseball Game, remains to be seen.

If nothing else, the suit-wearing expressionless agent carrying the MP7 has already been cemented as a core image of the shooting incident at the Washington Hilton this weekend.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

September 2024 came with water. It moved through Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s North East, in fast, stubborn currents, destroying homes and property, and displacing thousands.

In many affected areas, like London Ciki, where Khadija Usman lives, it washed away firewood and charcoal, a critical source of cooking fuel for many homes. She was home alone one afternoon when that absence settled into something practical. Khadija wanted to cook, but there was nothing to burn. 

“The water destroyed almost everything,” she said. “It became difficult to find firewood and charcoal.” Moving out to search for fuel was not easy, as she uses a wheelchair. And like for most people here, the expectation did not shift with the flood. Meals still had to be prepared. 

So, Khadija turned her attention to what was left behind: charcoal residue, bits of waste, and a technique she had once seen. “I decided to come up with a solution,” she stated. She gathered what she could, shaping it into compact pieces that might hold a flame. When it finally caught, it was small, steady, and enough. 

Not yet a long-term solution, but a way through that day.

In the weeks that followed, that small flame evolved into something more substantial. The turning point came when she visited a friend, Zara Tijjani, who also has a disability and was cooking over firewood. The smoke stung Zara’s eyes as she struggled to keep the fire alive. Inspired, Khadija went home, made briquettes, and then returned to show her friend how to make them as well.

From there, the knowledge began to spread among women, particularly those for whom gathering firewood posed significant risks or challenges. What Khadija started in the aftermath of the flood has since contributed to a broader shift in Borno, where biochar is gradually being adopted. However, her focus remains shaped by those around her: women navigating limited mobility, daily cooking demands, the risks of gathering firewood in terror-controlled territories, and a changing climate.

When cooking depends on the forest

Across Maiduguri and much of northeastern Nigeria, cooking still depends heavily on firewood and charcoal. For many households, especially in low-income and displaced communities, these remain the most accessible and affordable sources of energy.

National data reflects this dependence. The 2024 Nigeria Residential Energy Demand-Side Survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that about 67 per cent of households rely on firewood, 22 per cent on charcoal, and only 19.4 per cent on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). In the North East, the pattern is even more pronounced. 

The report shows that wood use rises to 93.4 per cent in the region, the highest in the country, while LPG remains limited, particularly outside urban centres. Electricity and kerosene play only marginal roles in cooking.

In Borno State, reliance is near-total. A 2019 joint assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Food Programme (WFP) found that 98.7 per cent of households rely on firewood and charcoal, with only a small fraction using cleaner fuels. Even access to these traditional sources is constrained. Many households purchase firewood rather than gather it, reflecting both scarcity and restrictions on movement in conflict-affected areas. This aligns with humanitarian reporting that “firewood is the primary source of cooking energy” in Borno.

This dependence carries layered costs. Trees are cut steadily to meet demand, placing pressure on already fragile ecosystems. For women in these communities, who are primarily responsible for cooking, the burden extends beyond the home. Finding fuel often means travelling to the outskirts of town or into nearby bush areas, where risks of harassment and violence persist.

The September 2024 flooding deepened these pressures. Supply chains were disrupted, stored firewood was washed away, and charcoal became scarce and more expensive. In homes already navigating scarcity, cooking became uncertain.

Beyond immediate access, the environmental toll is significant. The NBS 2024 General Household Survey shows that Nigeria consumes an estimated 30 billion kilogrammes of fuelwood annually, driving deforestation. In regions like Borno, where vegetation is already sparse, this accelerates land degradation and desertification, reinforcing a cycle of environmental stress and energy poverty.

Health and safety risks are also closely tied to this dependence. Smoke from firewood and charcoal contributes to indoor air pollution, which is linked to respiratory illnesses, particularly among women and children. In the North East, these risks extend further. Women who gather firewood often face threats of harassment, violence, and abduction, making the simple act of cooking fuel collection a dangerous task.

Within this system, energy, environment, and security are tightly bound. It is this reality that shapes both the problem Khadija is responding to and the limits of the solutions emerging around it.

Improvising in the aftermath of the flood

Khadija’s first attempts were small, almost tentative, as though she was testing not just the materials in her hands but the possibility that something useful could still be made from what the flood had left behind.

Without equipment or formal training, she worked with what was available: charcoal residue, scraps of household waste, fragments others might have discarded without a second thought. She burned them, pressed them, broke them apart again when they failed — testing what held, what crumbled, and what caught fire and stayed lit. The process was slow.

There was no machine then. No structured method. Only a need that could not be postponed.

The knowledge has since gone from one woman to another: Women with limited mobility. Women navigating spaces where stepping out to collect fuel is not always safe.

Within the disability community, the effort did not go unnoticed. 

“We rallied behind her,” said Hassana Mohammed Bunu, women’s leader of the Association of Persons with Physical Disabilities in Borno State. 

“I have stopped using charcoal and firewood ever since I began using her briquettes,” Zara said. Although Zara has been taught how to make them, she prefers to buy them from Khadija. “She uses a machine to make them. And they are more compressed than handmade,” she added. “It is smokeless, and they burn longer.”

Climate shocks uniquely affect persons with disabilities in Nigeria and other parts of the world. These disasters deepen already existing barriers. Mobility becomes more difficult. Access to resources narrows. In conflict-affected settings like Borno and much of the North East, those constraints are often sharper, less visible, and rarely addressed directly.

In energy access, the gaps are even more pronounced. Clean cooking programmes, where they exist, are not always designed with accessibility in mind. Physical barriers, cost, and social exclusion often limit participation. Nigeria’s legal framework, including the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, exists, but its translation into everyday interventions, particularly in climate and energy responses, remains uneven.

Scaling a local idea

To sustain what she had started, Khadija began to think bigger.

She raised her first capital in small, deliberate ways, selling caps and setting aside the earnings. With that, she bought sawdust, Arabic gum, and starch, enough to stabilise her production and move from improvisation to something more consistent. What began at home remained modest but steady, supported by family, friends, and members of the disability community who saw the value in what she was building.

In 2025, her work drew the attention of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). After three months of training at the Abdul Samad Rabiu Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maiduguri, she received a grant that marked a turning point. With it, she purchased a briquette-making machine.

With the machine, she could produce up to 100 bags of briquettes per day, each sold at ₦6,500.

To deepen her technical knowledge, she partnered with Faaby Global Services, a Maiduguri-based environmental organisation, where she now works closely with a production team. There, she contributes not only as a learner but as a practitioner. 

“She shares her ideas in production and on tackling some challenges,” said Heriju Samuel John, an assistant manager at the organisation. “She is also a native of this town, so she helps us in sourcing raw materials.”

Her machine is now one of three in the facility, a small but significant marker of how far the work has moved from its starting point.

Yet, the broader briquette ecosystem in the region remains uneven. Programmes led by organisations such as FAO have introduced briquettes and fuel-efficient stoves to thousands of households across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, often linking energy access to protection concerns.

But outside these interventions, the market is still thin. Production is limited. Adoption is inconsistent. Many initiatives remain tied to donor funding rather than sustained commercial demand.

In that landscape, Khadija’s work sits somewhere in between, not fully independent of institutional support, but not entirely defined by it either.

Can briquettes change the equation?

The briquettes Khadija produces are made largely from what others leave behind. Charcoal residue. Sawdust. Rice husks. Groundnut stalks. Agricultural waste is sourced from farmers and traders who would otherwise discard it. Coconut shells, when available, add density, though they are harder to find in places like Maiduguri and are more expensive.

The materials are burned in a low-oxygen environment, then converted into biochar, and finally ground into fine particles and bound together using eco-friendly binders such as gum arabic or starch. What emerges is a compact fuel that holds its shape and, according to Khadija, burns longer and with less smoke.

“We are recycling,” she said, describing a system that pulls from multiple points in the local economy.

Farmers sell their waste. They also source leftover charcoal and firewood particles from traders. Additionally, waste management actors like the Borno State Environmental Protection Agency (BOSEPA) deliver degradable materials. 

To manage fluctuations, especially during the rainy season when materials become scarce, Khadija stores raw inputs in bulk in a rented facility in the Abbaganaram area of Maiduguri. 

Her briquettes now move through different layers of the market; restaurants, bakeries, and roadside food vendors buy in bulk. Households purchase for daily use. Some consignments travel beyond Maiduguri, to nearby towns like Bama, and even across borders into Cameroon, with up to two trucks dispatched weekly.

For women, particularly those with disabilities, the impact is measured less in scale than in use. Khadija sells at discounted rates within the community and has trained more than 20 women to produce their own briquettes. “She taught some of our members,” Hassana said.

In some households, Khadija told HumAngle, the shift is already complete. Firewood has been replaced. “This gives me joy,” she said, adding that the transition could extend further. “If people fully understand the benefits, they would stop using charcoal and firewood.”

But the shift is not without constraints.

Raw materials fluctuate. Storage remains limited. Transport is still a challenge. And beyond logistics, there are social barriers that do not disappear with production. “People say I am doing what able-bodied people should be doing,” she said. “Being a woman makes it even worse.”

Still, she continues to plan, looking toward a larger production facility that could employ more women and stabilise supply.