East

For the first time, F-35 stealth fighters have operated from Indian soil in an exercise with the Indian Air Force (IAF). Six of the U.S. Air Force jets joined Tarang Shakti 2026 at Jodhpur, in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan, bringing a fifth-generation combat aircraft to an Indian airbase for the IAF’s biggest multinational air exercise.

Two years ago, the Indian Air Force hosted its first major multinational air exercise in over six decades. The plan to make Tarang Shakti a biennial fixture has held, and from September 26 to October 12, the exercise returned to the international airpower calendar — this time as a single, continuous event centered on Jodhpur and adjoining bases in Rajasthan. Seven foreign air forces sent flying detachments. Of these, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States sent fighters. Australia, Bangladesh, Germany, and Sri Lanka provided transport or special mission types.

The headline act, though, was undoubtedly American.

This edition marked the first time F-35s from any nation operated from an Indian airbase in an exercise with the IAF. Past outings for the stealth jet in India have been limited to Aero India displays in 2023 and 2025, and an India-U.K. exercise which saw British F-35Bs operating from their aircraft carrier (and a widely publicized RAF F-35 diversion to the southern city of Kochi).

The F-35 factor

Six F-35As of the 13th Fighter Squadron from Misawa, Japan, along with over 200 airmen and KC-135R support from Kadena, touched down at Jodhpur on September 26. “American airpower has arrived in Jodhpur!” posted U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor, who later described the deployment as another example of trust between the two countries, noting that the F-35 “does not go just anywhere.”

One 13th FS pilot said that operating with forces from around the world exposed the squadron to new tactics, perspectives, and ways of operating. For the IAF, the payoff was arguably more pointed. Indian crews spent two weeks flying with, and against, a genuine stealth fighter — the closest available proxy for the J-20s and J-35s now fielded by China.

The IAF was understandably tight-lipped about what the F-35s actually did.

The IAF vice-chief, Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, acknowledged the interest at the curtain-raiser in New Delhi on September 22, but declined to discuss specifics. While media commentary quickly cast the jet as a stand-in for the J-20 in mock engagements, Dixit offered a more measured view, arguing that an aircraft’s generation is not the sole arbiter of combat performance — training, networks, and weapons matter as much. He also noted that the IAF is developing its own means of detecting fifth-generation aircraft, alongside its backing for its domestically developed next-generation fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

The IAF and the U.S. Air Force are hardly strangers to one another. Their bilateral Cope India exercises, which began in 2002 and expanded into fighter combat training in 2004, have proved valuable to both sides. Early encounters saw Indian pilots flying Russian-built fighters against American F-15s, with the IAF’s performance prompting the U.S. Air Force to reassess some of its own assumptions about air combat tactics. Subsequent iterations broadened the relationship beyond fighter maneuvers to include large-force employment, airlift, airdrop, and disaster response. The result has been a deeper understanding of each other’s capabilities, procedures, and operating cultures. All this groundwork has helped make larger multinational engagements such as Tarang Shakti possible.

The F-35’s appearance in India comes against the backdrop of a potential, if complicated, future procurement relationship. For years now, some U.S. officials have suggested that the stealth jet could be offered to New Delhi. Most notably, back in 2018, the then-head of U.S. Pacific Command supposedly stated that he supported the sale of the stealth fighter to India. In February 2025, President Donald Trump announced that Washington was paving the way to offer the stealth fighter to India, as part of a broader push to deepen defense ties with New Delhi. The proposal was significant, given India’s longstanding reliance on Russian military equipment, including the S-400 air defense system. No formal sale negotiations have begun, and questions over technology security, Russian equipment, and India’s preference for domestic production remain major hurdles. For now, the deployment at Tarang Shakti represents something more immediate, namely an opportunity for the IAF to work alongside the aircraft, without any commitment to acquiring it.

Power in Partnership

‘Tarang Shakti’ translates to ‘wave of power,’ evoking both the electromagnetic spectrum and the combined force of cooperation. The 2026 edition leaned on the latter, running under the theme ‘Power in Partnership.’

With fighters from France, the UAE, and the United States sharing the skies with their Indian counterparts, the exercise was as much about testing interoperability as it was about signaling the growing depth of India’s defense partnerships.

The context, however, is very different from 2024. Since Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when the IAF briefly went to war with the Pakistan Air Force, Dixit has listed intelligence-led operations, precision, integrated air and missile defense, and jointness as the lessons that mattered most. The exercise, he said, would let Indian combat experience and that of partners test each other’s assumptions.

The two-phase structure of 2024 was born of convenience, catching European contingents on their way home from Exercise Pitch Black in Australia. No such happy coincidence presented itself this time, and the IAF consolidated everything at Jodhpur, which had hosted the bilateral Veer Guardian 2026 with Japan just four days earlier.

The roster shifted in the run-up. Greece was among eight flying participants named at the curtain-raiser, but had dropped off the list by the time flying began. Bangladesh, which withdrew days before TS24-2 amid the upheaval in Dhaka, made it this time with a C-130J.

The Exercise

Group Captain Manoj Yadav, Chief Operations Officer at Jodhpur, said TS26 “demonstrates the importance of bringing air forces together.” Flying began on September 27 with familiarization and visual-range basic fighter maneuvers, first one-versus-one, then two-versus-one.

From September 30, the large-force employment (LFE) phase took over, with up to 80 aircraft airborne in the most intense missions, set in contested airspace with beyond-visual-range and long-range air defense threats. The IAF fielded examples of its entire fighter inventory — Rafale, Mirage 2000, Jaguar, Tejas, MiG-29 Fulcrum, and Su-30MKI Flanker — and by its count, the exercise logged over 800 sorties and some 600 flying hours.

The IAF also put its recent combat experience on the table. Exercise Director Air Vice Marshal A. Raj Thakur said visitors were keenly interested in Operation Sindoor, and the IAF briefed them on its side of the story. The PACAF Commander, Gen. Kevin Schneider, said Sindoor had also been featured in his own discussions with Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh during a week spent as his guest.

Voices from the Flight Line

France again brought the largest visiting contingent, around 300 personnel under Mission Pégase 26: seven Rafales — four from France and three from a detachment in the UAE — plus three A330 MRTT Phénix tankers and two A400Ms.

“This exercise is quite important for us,” said Julien Sabéné, Deputy Commander of the French Air Defense and Air Operations Command, on arrival. A few days in, he was calling Tarang Shakti the highlight of Pégase 26, and was particularly keen on swapping combat lessons now that both air forces have flown the Rafale in anger. He noted that French and Indian tankers had successfully refueled each other’s fighters, and as a former Mirage 2000 pilot, had a soft spot for the Indian-made Tejas: “It reminds me of the Mirage 2000, which was my aircraft.”

Germany swapped 2024’s Eurofighters for an A400M, but the Luftwaffe made the most of it. Capt. Maurice Berns, an A400M first officer, said his crew was being folded into the large-force engagements — “we, as a transport aircraft, are being involved in big fighter jet exercises.” Lt. Gen. Günter Katz, commander of the German Air Force Forces Command, said his crews had found nothing to separate flying in India from flying at home: “It’s the same setup, the same flow, the same procedures.” France’s Gen. Stéphane Groen made a similar point, crediting years of bilateral exercises with the IAF for how smoothly the multinational drills ran.

For the two South Asian participants, the exercise was a significant step up. The Bangladesh Air Force sent 19 pilots and technicians in what the Indian High Commission in Dhaka described as the BAF’s first multinational air exercise on this scale. Sri Lanka’s King Air 360ER came with a six-member crew, and the SLAF highlighted the value of exposure to unfamiliar tactics and procedures.

Symbolic Finale

An open-house day coinciding with Air Force Day on October 8 drew over 20,000 visitors. Two days later, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh was joined by the Chief of Defense Staff and all three service chiefs for the Distinguished Visitors’ Day. Its set-piece was the ‘Tarang’ formation, an arrowhead led by an IAF Su-30MKI, with an American F-35 flying alongside a Tejas on its left, and a French Rafale paired with an Emirati F-16 on its right.

In his address, Rajnath Singh argued that future military power would depend less on the number of platforms a country fields, and more on the “speed of sensing, understanding, deciding, and acting.”

The final day brought a fitting bookend. On October 12, Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh flew his last fighter sortie in a Tejas, alongside aircraft of the visiting forces and the Suryakiran aerobatic team. He retired on October 31, handing over to Air Marshal Dixit — a neat echo of 2024, when the vice-chief running Tarang Shakti went on to become chief within weeks.

The Future

With its second edition, Tarang Shakti has made the leap from promising debut to established fixture. Dixit summed up the journey well, recalling that for years the IAF had operated with foreign forces bilaterally: “We learned to operate with one partner at a time.” Tarang Shakti, he said, changed that. Gen. Schneider made the case for why it matters: when partners are called on to act together, in a crisis or a disaster, “we don’t do it cold.”

There is room to grow, however. The visiting fighter contingent was thinner than in 2024, even if the debut of the F-35 more than made up for it in interest. The second edition of Tarang Shakti has firmly established the IAF as a host rather than a guest of the world’s air forces, and the force is keen to keep up the momentum toward establishing the exercise as something of a ‘Red Flag of the East.’

Contact the editor: thomas@thewarzone.com

USS Theodore Roosevelt moored at Changi Naval Base in Singapore last night just before midnight Eastern Time, her final stop before continuing on to the Middle East. The Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (CSG) will join the George H.W. Bush and George Washington CSGs, which are both now prepared, locked, and loaded should the commander in chief follow through on threats to renew military action against Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Roosevelt and the three escorting warships will transit the Strait of Malacca next before heading west toward the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR), a journey that will likely take one to two weeks.

Meanwhile, the U.S. quietly launched strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, according to a report first published by The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. officials cited by The Journal said the strikes were reactive and for defensive purposes, but the paper notes they were the latest in a “series of limited strikes Washington has secretly carried out against the country in recent weeks.” However, it’s possible that CENTCOM began shaping operations to prepare the battlefield if the go order is given. The U.S. military did not announce the strikes publicly, a noteworthy deviation from past operations that were typically disclosed, but U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox on Tuesday it was “just a minor attack” on a recently built “anti-aircraft facility.”

Here’s TWZ’s weekly carrier tracker monitoring and visualizing America’s flattop fleet, including deployed CSGs and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs), using publicly available open-source information. Check out last week’s report here.

How Fast Can The Theodore Roosevelt CSG Get To The Middle East?

The Theodore Roosevelt CSG completed combined exercise Keen Sword 27, which involved four other allied navies, on October 29. After being topped off by fleet replenishment oiler USNS Tippecanoe the following day, Roosevelt and her three escorts – guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin and guided-missile destroyers USS Paul Hamilton and USS Decatur – entered the South China Sea via the Luzon Strait and steamed southwest toward Singapore. A U.S. official told Axios that the group will spend a few days in Singapore but “won’t reach CENTCOM’s area of responsibility before mid-November.”

According to MarineTraffic, Roosevelt switched on her Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder about 100 nautical miles east of Malaysia at 11:25 Eastern Time on November 5, broadcasting a precise position publicly for the first time since departing Yokosuka on October 19. The flattop moored at Berth 3/4 at RSS Singapura–Changi Naval Base approximately 12 hours later, followed by the other three warships over the next few hours.

The next leg of Roosevelt’s transit to the CENTCOM AOR runs north through the narrow Strait of Malacca and west across the vast Indian Ocean. In August, USS George Washington completed the journey from the Strait to the Arabian Sea in just over one week. A few days in port and a roughly 10-day cruise support the reporting of a mid-to-late November arrival.

Elements of the Makin Island ARG, which is also reportedly bound for the Middle East, were still in Yokosuka, Japan, as of publication. The three-ship amphibious group, packed with more than 2,200 Marines, will likely replace the Boxer ARG, which is approaching eight months deployed and due for relief. The fleet of amphibious warships is stretched thin, with only 31 in the fleet, but Navy and Marine leaders believe at least 40 are required.

Which Carriers Are On Station If The U.S. Launches Post-Midterm Strikes Against Iran?

USS George Washington, with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 embarked, and USS George H.W. Bush, with CVW 7 aboard, are both operating in the Middle East. The composition of both CSGs is fluid as CENTCOM frequently rotates destroyers and cruisers assigned to strike groups with those on independent deployments. Imagery posted on DVIDS, the military’s content-sharing platform, shows Bush launching and recovering F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers on November 4, and Washington conducting a fueling-at-sea evolution alongside fleet replenishment oiler USNS Oscar V. Peterson on November 3.

Washington left Yokosuka, where she is forward-deployed, 167 days ago on what was expected to be a routine three-month patrol in the Western Pacific. However, the flattop was redirected to the Middle East to relieve the battle-worn USS Abraham Lincoln, leaving the roughly 5,000 Sailors aboard unprepared for an unexpected, and potentially extended, combat deployment. Bush, whose crew knew what their mission was upon departure, has been deployed for 220 days. Neither carrier has broadcast AIS since arriving in theater.

An author on the WSJ article referenced above, Shelby Holliday, embarked on Washington in mid-October and provided a firsthand account of life aboard the carrier in a series of must-watch videos on YouTube and Instagram. Sailors spoke candidly about the deployment, and some hinted at what could come next.

Holliday’s interview with the “Gun Boss,” Cmdr. Brian Garcia, showcased AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response) air-launched cruise missiles and GBU-31(V)4/B JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs equipped with BLU-109 bunker-buster penetrators. “We’re getting more of these weapons right here, and a couple other items that they feel we’re going to need for whatever the mission set sets forward in the future,” Garcia said. When asked what the magazine room looks like before an escalation, he responded, “This is it right here. This is the preparation that we’re ready for; we don’t need to ramp up because we’re already prepared.”

Where Is The Rest Of The American Aircraft Carrier Fleet?

• On the West Coast, USS Ronald Reagan returned to her homeport in Bremerton, Washington, on November 3 after departing San Diego the week before. Reagan was completing flight deck certification and carrier qualifications following a lengthy maintenance availability. USS Abraham Lincoln, which will conduct a homeport shift from San Diego to Bremerton by the end of the year ahead of a Drydock Planned Incremental Availability, remains moored at Naval Air Station North Island. Also pierside in San Diego, USS Carl Vinson has not been at sea since completing a 25 days of Tailored Ship’s Training Availability and Final Evaluation Period in September.
• On the East Coast, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower returned to Naval Station Norfolk yesterday after a one-day underway, according to AIS data. USS Nimitz has been operating at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean conducting Carrier Air Traffic Control Center certifications with CVW 1, as well as carrier qualifications, since October 27.
• Three carriers are currently offline in various states of maintenance: USS John C. Stennis, USS Gerald R. Ford, and USS Harry S. Truman. Stennis is at the tail end of a yearslong Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH), while Truman just began an RCOH. Ford began a post-deployment availability in July, and work is expected to be finished by March 2027.
• The future USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy’s second and newest Gerald R. Ford class supercarrier, returned to Norfolk on November 5 after 13 days at sea conducting Aircraft Compatibility Testing with Super Hornets and Growlers. In mid-October, an F-35C assigned to the Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 made the first arrested landing on and launch from a Ford class. Kennedy, still considered a Pre-Commissioning Unit, is expected to enter the fleet in spring 2027, around the same time Nimitz will begin the process of deactivation.

The Big Deck Fleet At A Glance

Overall, three U.S. carriers are deployed, three are working up in various states of readiness, three are in maintenance, one is post-deployment preparing for an upcoming availability, another is being used primarily for training before deactivation, and the next to be commissioned will be delivered to the fleet in 2027. Two amphibious assault ships are deployed, one is forward-deployed, two are getting ready for upcoming deployments and currently in port, and four are in maintenance.

Note: Positions are general approximations. Non-deployed LHA/LHD amphibious warships are not shown on the graphic.

Contact the author: ian@twz.com or @ianellisjones

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end Washington’s annual military assistance to Israel, estimated at approximately $3.8 billion, by the end of 2026.

The announcement reportedly surprised Israel’s security establishment, where senior officials said they had not received advance notice or detailed information about the decision and its potential implications.

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11 quoted a senior security official as saying the announcement had caught the defense establishment off guard despite ongoing consultations with Washington.

“We did not expect this announcement—certainly not today,” the official said.

“There is a constant dialogue with the Americans, yet it is fair to say that we were taken by surprise,” the official added, noting that the relevant authorities would assess the implications once further details became available.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Trump said he and Netanyahu had agreed several months earlier to discontinue the annual financial transfers, which he estimated at approximately $4 billion.

READ: Trump pressures Netanyahu to exclude Ben-Gvir and paves way for unity government

Trump said the two sides had agreed to stop the payments, adding that Israel no longer required the assistance because of its economic prosperity.

“We will no longer pay Israel,” Trump said, while emphasizing that Washington would remain prepared to provide support if necessary.

“Of course, we will help them if they need it,” he added.

The reported agreement raises questions about the future of US military assistance to Israel, particularly because the existing ten-year memorandum of understanding governing American security aid remains in effect until 2028.

Under the agreement, Israel receives approximately $3.8 billion annually in US military assistance.

In addition to this regular funding, Washington has provided Israel with billions of dollars in supplementary military assistance in recent years amid the war in Gaza and Israeli military confrontations involving Lebanon and Iran.

The report did not clarify how the proposed termination would be implemented under the existing agreement or whether the necessary legislative and administrative measures had been initiated.

READ: Trump claims his endorsement helped Netanyahu perform better than expected in Israeli election

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that diplomatic contacts with Iran have continued despite escalating tensions in the Middle East, stressing that Washington remains open to a peaceful solution provided its core security concerns are addressed, Anadolu reports.

Speaking to reporters in Atlanta, Rubio said there was no set timetable for the ongoing diplomatic efforts, but emphasized that communication channels remained open.

“There are multiple talks. Talks have actually never stopped,” he said, adding that conversations were taking place both directly and, more often, through intermediaries.

“The president’s preference in any challenge around the world is to try to solve it diplomatically and peacefully, if possible,” Rubio said, referring to President Donald Trump’s approach.

He added that Washington would welcome a diplomatic outcome, provided it did not endanger US national security or leave its principal concerns unresolved.

READ: Iran war damage to US bases may cost billions in reconstruction: Report

At the center of those concerns, Rubio said, are Iran’s nuclear program and what Washington sees as Tehran’s destabilizing role across the region.

He accused Iran of targeting commercial shipping in international waters, warning that attacks on vessels carrying oil, natural gas and other cargo threaten not only maritime security but also global energy and food supplies.

Rubio also pointed to Iran’s support for regional groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, arguing that their activities have contributed to instability and security concerns for neighboring countries.

Addressing Gulf security, he reaffirmed Washington’s defense commitments to Saudi Arabia, saying the US remained in regular contact with Riyadh and intended to honor its agreements.

MotoGP says Yamaha’s lack of participation at next weekend’s event in Lusail ‘carries sporting implications’.

Yamaha has withdrawn its MotoGP team from next weekend’s race in Qatar, citing “the situation in the Middle East”.

The Japanese manufacturer announced its decision shortly after the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.

“Yamaha has not identified sufficient grounds to change its existing company-wide travel restrictions,” Yamaha said in a statement.

Among the racers on the MotoGP grid riding Yamaha bikes is France’s Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 world champion. Alex Rins of Spain is the other racer on the Yamaha team.

The sport’s governing body, the MotoGP Group, said it was “disappointed” by the decision and “Yamaha’s non-participation also carries sporting implications”.

“While we recognise the team is subject to a broader corporate policy restricting travel to the Middle East, we do not believe this decision reflects the extensive assurances provided to all championship stakeholders,” it said.

MotoGP said talks with the organisers in Qatar and safety advisers had not flagged any reasons to change plans for the event, which will run from Friday to November 8 at the Lusail International Circuit outside Qatar’s capital, Doha.

“We communicated that position, together with the latest available information, to all manufacturers and teams today and welcome the confirmation from the remainder of the grid that they will compete in Qatar, and we thank them for that commitment,” the MotoGP Group said.

The statements were released shortly after the Malaysian MotoGP in Sepang, after which there are just three races left in the season.

Ducati’s reigning seven-time world champion, Marc Marquez, won the race at Sepang and could clinch the title in Doha.

Qatar was subject to Iranian attacks from February to April after the United States and Israel began a war on Iran. On Friday, a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker was hit by unidentified objects in the Gulf, and in September 2025, Israel carried out an air strike on Doha that killed and injured Hamas leaders.

Al Jazeera has requested a comment from the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation.

Organisers of January’s off-road race say it will be relocated due to recent developments in the region.

The Dakar Rally, one of the world’s toughest and best-known off-road races, has been moved out of Saudi Arabia for the 2027 edition due to the “recent developments in the region”, organisers say.

The rally, scheduled for January, will now be held “in a different territory” to be announced later before a planned return to Saudi Arabia in 2028, the Amaury Sport Organisation and Saudi Motorsport Company said in a statement on Sunday.

A new location will be announced in the “coming days”, the statement added.

It’s the latest in a series of sports events to be moved out of Saudi Arabia this year over the US-Israel war on Iran and deadly attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has hosted the Dakar Rally since 2020. Reports in specialist race media said a move to Morocco or Spain is being considered.

If it is moved to Morocco, it would be the first time the Dakar has been held in Africa since 2007. The event began as a competition from Paris to Senegal’s capital, Dakar. It was cancelled on short notice in 2008 over security concerns in North Africa. Since then, it has been held first in South America, then in Saudi Arabia.

Organisers said they intend to bring the rally back to Saudi Arabia in 2028 to celebrate its 50th edition.

This season’s Formula One grand prix in Jeddah was cancelled while the race in Bahrain was called off and later rescheduled under the same name in Malaysia.

The final round of the World Rally Championship in Saudi Arabia next month has also been scrapped.

An exhibition tennis tournament in Saudi Arabia due to feature Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev has been postponed until late December.

The WTA Finals were also scheduled to be held in Riyadh next month but will instead take place at Indian Wells, California, in the United States.

The last two races of the F1 season in Qatar (November 29) and Abu Dhabi (December 6) are still on the calendar, as is the Qatar MotoGP next month, but they are the subject of intense internal debate.

Dakar Rally organisers had hoped to keep the 2027 race in Saudi Arabia by working on a new route in the northern part of the country.

But the latest strikes, including a series of attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh this month, which killed 18 people and injured hundreds more, have rendered that impossible.

Fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters has intensified across multiple fronts in Yemen in recent weeks, causing a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

The war in Yemen escalated sharply when the Houthis seized strategic territory from forces loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government along the Red Sea coast last month.

The Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition supporting Yemen’s government forces, have dealt a huge blow to the kingdom, the world’s biggest exporter of crude oil, disrupting its businesses, airlines and normal life and damaging its international image.

The United States ambassador to Turkiye and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq says Washington’s relationship with the countries in the Middle East needs to change.

Tom Barrack says the US no longer seeks to dominate the region.

He won’t say whether the war in Iran was a mistake – but acknowledges the instability it caused has led to unintended consequences.

Barrack says President Donald Trump is against what he calls “forever wars”, and ending the US-Israel war on Iran will require a major compromise. According to him, each side will have to accept conditions it does not like.

However, he is worried that growing tensions could lead to miscalculation.

Barrack says trust is lacking between Washington and Tehran, and that is hampering talks to agree on a deal.

He tells Al Jazeera that countries in the region should not depend on the US to solve their problems and that they need to look out for themselves. He insists the Trump administration has not abandoned the region, but is rather re-examining its role.

Barrack admits that years of US involvement in the region demonstrate that intervention and regime change do not work. He says it is time to put down the guns and resolve disputes through negotiations and mutual respect.

Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir boasted Tuesday of the destruction of the Gaza Strip and mocked Palestinian residents in a campaign video released ahead of parliamentary elections, Anadolu reports.

Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, posted the AI-generated clip on US social media platform X, presenting a vision of Gaza in 2030 based on the widespread destruction inflicted by his government.

The video shows the enclave as a ghost town, with its schools, infrastructure and port destroyed.

A scene showing a donkey is followed by the party’s message: “You’d have to be a donkey to stay in Gaza,” mocking Palestinians who remain.

Ben-Gvir has repeatedly demanded occupying Gaza, displacing its Palestinian population and establishing Israeli settlements on the territory.

READ: Israel’s Ben-Gvir uses fines against mosques in election campaigning

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, launched with US support in October 2023, has killed more than 74,000 victims and injured over 175,000, while destroying 90% of civilian infrastructure.

Despite a ceasefire that has been in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, Israel has continued shelling, shooting and demolishing Palestinian structures, further expanding the destruction.

The campaign video comes after Arab parties accused Ben-Gvir on Sunday of exploiting his measures and violations against Palestinians to rally support and intimidate Arab voters.

Israel is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on Oct. 27, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc competing against opposition parties.

A Channel 12 poll published Monday projected 55 seats for opposition parties and 51 for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, leaving both blocs short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

READ: Netanyahu says Ben-Gvir will hold prominent ministerial position in next government

Doha, Qatar — The United States is moving away from its traditional security-for-oil relationship with the Middle East and no longer seeks to dominate the region, senior US diplomat Tom Barrack has said.

However, it was not abandoning the Middle East, he added, speaking at the Global Security Forum in Doha on Tuesday — but rather reassessing its role, after years of attempts to reshape governments across the region.

“The US no longer wants to own,” said Barrack, who serves as US Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria. “The bargain is not to control, but to not leave. We’re not leaving.”

Barrack acknowledged that regional countries were increasingly recognising the limits of US involvement.

“Everybody is saying: OK, I can’t rely on America to solve all my problems,” he said.

Barrack questioned the effectiveness of previous interventions, saying that the US had been involved in 23 regime changes across the wider Middle East.

“Every time we try and intervene, change the person or the regime, it seems to have been a mistake,” he said.

His comments come as Washington and Tehran try to negotiate an end to the US-Israeli war on Iran that has destabilised the region and disrupted global energy supplies.

Political analyst Luciano Zaccara described Barrack as probably “the most realistic of Trump’s allies” in his assessment of US involvement in the Middle East.

He told Al Jazeera that Barrack had effectively acknowledged that regime change, one of Trump’s stated objectives in the war on Iran, was unlikely to succeed.

Zaccara said Barrack’s reference to regime changes in the Middle East was an acknowledgement “that what the US has been doing in the region has not been working, regardless of which administration it was”.

According to Zaccara, Barrack had stopped just short of suggesting that Trump needed to retreat from “the maximalist demands” he had made of Iran.

US-Iran negotiations ongoing

Qatar says negotiations between Tehran and Washington are continuing despite growing fears of renewed fighting.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari, speaking separately at the Global Security Forum, said mediators were continuing to exchange messages between the warring parties, with regional partners involved in efforts to reach a deal.

“We are working between the parties, continuing our job as mediator with our partners and others in the region,” he said.

Al-Ansari said the lack of public information about the negotiations should not be interpreted as a lack of progress.

“The fact that we’re not hearing about it is a good sign that we’re doing our job properly,” he said.

The diplomatic efforts come as Iran’s seven-day proposal to end the war remains on the table, with the US yet to give its response.

The plan envisages reopening the Strait of Hormuz and resuming nuclear negotiations in exchange for US concessions, including lifting the naval blockade on Iranian ports and easing economic sanctions on Tehran.

Analyst Negar Mortazavi said the diplomatic door remained open, but negotiations were stalled over the terms and sequencing of an agreement.

“Tehran wants to end the war, but it is not prepared to surrender under military or economic pressure,” she told Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the forum in Doha.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a major flashpoint, with attacks on commercial shipping raising concerns over global energy supplies. Before the US-Israeli war on Iran, one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies transited through the strait.

Mortazavi said the escalation was part of Tehran’s strategy to maintain leverage against Washington despite its military disadvantages.

“Iran’s leverage has diminished but has not disappeared,” she said. “Moving tankers is not the same as restoring safe, predictable and normal maritime traffic.”

According to Mortazavi, Tehran wants to increase the economic and political costs of the war for Trump, while signalling to future US administrations that military action against Iran carries consequences.

But she warned that continued escalation posed serious risks to Iran and the wider region.

“Ultimately, neither military escalation nor economic pressure is likely to produce Iranian capitulation,” she said.

Fighting in Yemen

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson also reaffirmed Doha’s support for Riyadh in the fighting against Yemen’s Houthi armed group, saying it backed Saudi Arabia in “defending their sovereignty against this attack”.

Fighting intensified in September after the Houthis seized areas along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including the port city of Mocha. In response, forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government launched an offensive, dubbed “Dawn of Yemen”, on October 4, backed by Saudi air strikes.

The Houthis have retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and military installations. Strikes on Riyadh’s King Khalid international airport earlier this month killed at least 14 people and wounded hundreds.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday questioned the Trump administration’s claims surrounding its efforts to redevelop a historic Washington golf course, challenging its contention that a recent tree-cutting spree did not indicate work was moving forward on the project, which is temporarily blocked by a court order.

“There is no universe in which all of this coincidentally happened all at the same time,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said during a hearing over the fate of a project that has emerged as the latest legal flashpoint in President Trump’s campaign to leave his personal imprint on the nation’s capital.

Reyes last week ordered a halt to the golf course’s redevelopment plans until at least Oct. 26 after scolding the government for starting a large-scale tree removal at the course over a holiday weekend while providing little notice to the court or the plaintiffs trying to stop the makeover.

Then, on Sunday, Trump announced plans on social media to close the golf course for 15 months, starting on Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers. In a post on Monday, Trump said the work would start immediately.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys challenging the golf course renovation work have asked Reyes to extend her order that temporarily paused the work. They say the work is inflicting irreversible damage and that the redevelopment would violate the congressional act that created the park where the course is located.

The hearings on the century-old golf course have grown increasingly tense and on the eve of Monday’s hearing, Reyes rejected the administration’s request for her to recuse herself from the case. The government questioned her impartiality and accused her of engaging in “egregious” behavior from the bench during last week’s emergency hearing for the case.

Trump, a Republican, referred to Reyes as a “crazed lunatic” in his social media post on Monday.

“The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that!” Trump wrote.

Reyes, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden, said the government has failed “by any objective measure” to demonstrate the need for her recusal from the case.

“It is easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion. But it is much harder to meet the demanding legal standard against a full record,” she wrote.

Trump has pledged to turn the course into a world-class golf venue — part of his grand vision for Washington, D.C., where he has torn down storied structures, remade or renamed others and deployed the National Guard for more than a year.

While it has been open to Washingtonians of all income levels, opponents of Trump’s plans for the golf course have argued it will alter the character of the space and make it less affordable to people.

Monday’s hearing started with a tense confrontation between Reyes and Justice Department official Stanley Woodward, when the judge asked if other any government attorneys in the room “as officers of the court” were willing to certify that everything within a Sunday filing was truthful and legally sound under federal rules of civil procedures.

In that filing Woodward argued that there were no final plans for the park.

“First, the plan is not final because the Park Service has not completed its review and the details of the proposal are subject to change during the review process,” the filing said.

Much of the hearing revolved around Trump’s social media posts over the weekend and his appearance last June at the golf course, accompanied by golf course architects and members of the administration and why there was such a sense of urgency for the cutting of the trees.

The witnesses at the hearing, Greg Wischer, deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, and acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron both acknowledged that they had only learned of the National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report in September that led to the tree cutting. That NPS report was from 2019.

Fields writes for the Associated Press.

The Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exchanged artillery and missile fire from their positions in Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, while a UN official warned that famine is threatening the country.

Army forces bombed RSF sites in the Riyadh neighbourhood and Sports City, south of Khartoum.

From their positions east of Khartoum, the RSF launched artillery shelling, targeting army camps in the capital and the General Command.

This comes as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu, resumed its bombing of the city of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State, after having ceased for weeks.

SPLM bombed the city with artillery and Katyusha rockets from the east and north.

In South Darfur state, about 80 people were killed over the last three days in the tribal conflict between the Beni Halba and Salamat tribes near the city of Buram. The conflict between the two tribes has broken out several times and led to the death and injury of dozens.

A UN official has warned that the ongoing conflict could mean more than six million people face the threat of famine.

The deputy head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHOA) in Sudan said that the general situation in the country is catastrophic.

READ: Sudan medics warn that cholera and dengue fever are spreading

Sudanese medical sources reported that 18 people died and 265 were infected with cholera in the state of Gedaref, bordering Ethiopia, while medics warned of an outbreak of cholera and dengue fever across the country with the start of seasonal rains and the effects of the war on the health system there.

The Sudanese Medical Association reported that 3,398 cases of dengue fever were recorded in the states of Gedaref, Red Sea, North Kordofan and Khartoum from mid-April to mid-September.

The war has forced more than 4.2 million people to flee their homes and about 1.2 million to cross into neighbouring countries.

US President Donald Trump has accused Houthi rebels of targeting Saudi infrastructure to inflate energy prices before the US midterm elections.

Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar face double-digit declines in GDP amid the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran.

The economy of the Middle East and Central Asia is set to shrink in 2026 amid the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran, with countries such as Kuwait and Qatar facing double-digit contractions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The region’s gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to contract by 0.3 percent this year, a sharp downgrade from the 1.9 percent expansion projected in April, the IMF said in its latest economic outlook on Tuesday.

The IMF cited the prolonged disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of global oil supplies in peacetime, for the downgraded outlook.

Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar are forecast to have the most severe economic contractions, with their GDPs expected to shrink by 16.7 percent, 16 percent and 15.6 percent, respectively.

Bahrain’s GDP is forecast to contract by 11.3 percent, while Iran’s economy is projected to shrink by 7.6 percent.

Saudi Arabia, which has partially offset the hit to its energy sector by boosting oil exports through the East-West pipeline, is projected to record negative growth of 3.3 percent.

Kyrgyzstan is expected to have the strongest growth in the region, with GDP forecast to expand 9 percent.

The Middle East and Central Asia is the only region that is expected to experience negative growth in 2026.

Emerging and developing Asia’s GDP is forecast to grow 5.1 percent, while the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to expand 4.5 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, are forecast to register growth of 2.3 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, while the eurozone’s GDP is estimated to grow 1.1 percent.

The IMF said it expected global GDP to grow 3.1 percent, up from 3 percent in its previous outlook.

The Washington, DC-based institution said while economic activity had proved resilient this year, the global economy faced multiple risks.

“Further escalation in conflicts, a reassessment of expectations surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), renewed trade tensions, and fiscal vulnerabilities could weaken growth,” it said.

“On the upside, stronger momentum in AI investment and productivity gains from AI or a sustained easing of geopolitical and trade tensions could strengthen growth.”