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SpaceX lands on public markets as the sixth largest US company by market value.

SpaceX has debuted on US markets with a market valuation of more than $2 trillion, minting CEO Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire.

Shares are set to open on Friday at $150 per share, marking a 6.6 percent increase from the initial public offering (IPO) price, valuing the company at $1.96 trillion putting the aerospace company on track to become the sixth-largest company in the United States.

The company sold $75bn in shares, immediately valuing it at $1.77 trillion. The IPO was oversubscribed four times higher than was otherwise expected, according to the Reuters news agency.

Of the institutional investors allocated, according to Bloomberg News, as much as 70 percent went to what are called long-only investments — a strategy in which holders buy assets based on the expectation that their value will grow over time — and sovereign wealth funds, including those from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen rang the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City opening bell at 9:30am local time as US markets opened.

On Thursday, protesters gathered outside the MarketSite to protest the IPO amid continued allegations that Grok, part of xAI, a subsidiary of SpaceX, allowed users to create non-consensual deepfake sexualised images before the IPO debut.

Shares of SpaceX did not trade until the middle of the trading day as the exchange collected buy and sell orders and underwriters delayed trading until supply and demand were balanced.

“We would expect SpaceX to see an immediate pop in trading due to the hype around the deal, north of 20 percent perhaps,” said Samuel Kerr, global head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket. “Anything lower would actually make me nervous.”

Exchanges and trading firms are eager to avoid the technical mishaps that marred Meta’s 2012 debut. With SpaceX widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for a new generation of mega-listings, market participants will also be watching for signals on investor appetite in advance of forthcoming IPOs for AI heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI.

The landmark listing cemented Musk’s status as the first trillionaire ever and propelled SpaceX into the ranks of the world’s most valuable companies — even though the firm posted a loss of nearly $5bn last year and generated only a fraction of the revenue brought in by similarly valued tech giants.

The surge comes amid growth driven by its Starlink subsidiary, which drives as much as 80 percent of its revenue.

On Friday, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket with 29 satellites into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

With this year’s theme as ‘Red card to child labour: Fair play for children, decent work for adults’, the campaign for World Day Against Child Labour advocates for stronger action on quality education, social protection, decent work, stronger laws and enforcement across the world, as well as other measures that address the root causes of child labour.

A survey in 2022 by the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment of Nigeria revealed that about 24.67 million children in Nigeria, who represent 39.2 per cent of the country’s youth, aged 5 to 17, are engaged in child labour. About 22.9 per cent of the children are engaged in hazardous work. 

The Child Rights Act of 2023, a legislation that protects children and young adults in Nigeria, frowns at the involvement of children in any form of labour that is harmful to their development. While the minimum age for employment is 15, the Act states that the work must not interfere with the children’s education.

According to the Child Rights Act, no child must lift or move anything heavy that might affect their physical health or social development. Also, no child must be employed in an industrial setting that is not registered as a technical school or similar approved institution.

Ukraine said it reclaimed more of its territory than it lost during May, reversing a Russian trend of monthly net gains.

“The ratio of liberated and lost territories is almost 100 square kilometres (40 square miles) in our favour,” wrote Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on his Telegram messaging channel.

Ukrainian defence news outlet Militarnyi estimated net gains slightly higher, at 120 sq km (46 sq miles), citing sources within the military. Militarnyi said Russia seized 130 sq km (50 sq miles) and lost 250 sq km (100 sq miles) during the month.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank using open source geolocated information, assessed Ukrainian gains higher still, saying Russia had seized or infiltrated 40 sq km (15 sq miles) in May but lost control of about 280 sq km (108 sq miles).

The ISW believed Ukraine actually reversed Russian gains in April, when it estimated Moscow’s gains at 28 sq km (11 sq miles) of Ukrainian land and lost 116 sq km (45 sq miles).

The ISW’s assessments suggest Ukrainian gains are growing.

Syrskii said Ukraine reclaimed 600 sq km (230 sq miles) during the first five months of 2026.

However, Russia was successful on one part of the front

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on June 10 that Russian forces had advanced into eastern Konstiantynivka, the southernmost of a “fortress belt” of four cities in the eastern region of Donetsk. Russian forces first infiltrated parts of the city last October, and now hold about 13 percent of it, said the ISW.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has prioritised the capture of the remaining one-fifth of Donetsk he does not possess, but his set deadlines to achieve this have been missed several times.

Putin may be putting out feelers for potential ceasefire talks. Although on June 5 he rejected a call from Zelenskyy for direct talks, Zelenskyy said he had met with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich who acted as Putin’s intermediary.

Mid-range attacks devastate Russian logistics

Ukraine says its battlefield achievements are thanks to a strategy of disrupting Russian supply lines by striking fuel and ammunition in warehouses and in transit.

“The logistical lockdown is working,” said Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. “The number of hits on enemy targets at a distance of over 50km (30 miles) from the (frontline) has doubled,” he said, comparing May to April.

Syrskii put the May total at almost 2,000 strikes.

The effects of Ukraine’s strategy have begun to build up.

Weeks of attacks in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia reduced Russian military traffic by more than 70 percent along the M-14 motorway, the main east-west route, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

On June 7, regional authorities prohibited traffic along the M-14 altogether, Brovdi said.

That forced Russian planners to route more supplies along two highways that reach Kherson and Zaporizhia, via Crimea – the E105 and E97.

The following day, Ukraine struck a bridge that shoulders the E105 over the Chonhar Strait, leaving only the E97 passable. On June 9, as about 50 Russian fuel and ammunition trucks were routed to the E97, Ukrainian forces ambushed and destroyed some of them at Armyansk, commander Dmitry Filatov told Suspilne Radio.

“This operation would not have been possible if other units had not struck at Mariupol and the road to Berdyansk,” Filatov said, referring to the mainland routes. “This is what led to the units stationed in the Hulyaipil direction starting to be supplied, not via the Mariupol highways, but via Crimea.”

Civilians in Crimea have faced severe fuel shortages as a result of Ukrainian strikes, and these became dramatically worse in the past week.

On June 7, Sevastopol occupation governor Mikhail Razvozhaev rationed fuel to 20 litres per car per day. He later changed that to 20 litres per week.

Shortages were reportedly forcing troop evacuations from some outlying positions.

The Ukrainian underground group Atesh, which operates in Crimea, said Russian units were abandoning their positions on the Kinburn Spit because they were running out of food and fuel.

“We will create conditions under which it will be extremely difficult for military personnel and defence industry workers to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or to use the routes leading to them,” Brovdi told Reuters.

Although Russia’s air force continues to command the skies over eastern Ukraine and to drop large ordnance there, Ukraine’s own figures suggest its drone superiority is the more effective tool.

Ukrainian short-and medium-range drones hit 180,000 targets in May, said Syrskii, 12.7 percent more than in April.

Ukrainian defenders are also reportedly becoming more adept at shooting down Russian Shahed drones with their own interceptor drones. Although Russia launched 25 percent more Shaheds in May compared to April, shoot-downs increased by 50 percent to about 4,000, said Fedorov,

Fedorov expected a step-change in Shahed elimination once a new generation of interceptor goes into full production which “automates 95 percent of the entire interception process”.

Beyond these mid-range strikes, Ukraine has also continued a successful long-range strike campaign that has devastated Russian refineries, oil depots and offloading terminals, reducing Russian oil production and export revenue.

Russian recruitment is low

Aware of the Ukrainian drone threat, Russia has created unmanned systems units of its own but appears to be having trouble manning them.

Since the beginning of the year, 14,500 people have signed contracts to serve in these units, about 21 percent of the annual recruitment target, said Syrskii. Overall, Ukraine has killed or wounded 12,500 more troops than Russia has been able to recruit this year, he said.

That is both because casualty figures have been rising since last autumn there – Ukraine estimated 31,500 Russian casualties in May – and because Moscow’s recruitment has been falling, despite increased bonuses to sign-up.

Russian opposition source Vazhnye Istorii said 71,200 people had been paid enlistment bonuses in the first quarter of 2026 according to budget data, compared to almost 90,000 in the first quarter of 2025.

It estimated that recruitment in 2025 was already 10 percent lower than in 2024.

Mexico wins World Cup opener

From Eduard Cauich: FIFA president Gianni Infantino described Mexico City Stadium as a venue “blessed by the gods” and a “true cathedral of soccer.”

Azteca Stadium, as most people know it, is steeped in soccer history and is now the only venue to host three World Cup opening ceremonies. But the Mexican national team had never much World Cup success at the venue.

On Thursday, spurred on by most of the 80,824 fans in attendance and forwards Julián Quiñones and Raúl Jiménez, Mexico managed to defeat South Africa 2-0 and securing its first opening match victory.

Mexico opened the scoring in the ninth minute when Quiñones capitalized on a defensive error by South Africa and fired a shot down the middle, between the legs of goalkeeper Ronwen Williams. The striker, a top scorer in the Saudi Pro League, immediately ran off to celebrate with the bench, marking the first goal of the tournament. The crowd responded by throwing beer into the air.

Mexico continued to press with numerous chances in the first half, including another shot by Quiñones that hit the post and another great save by Williams, who was South Africa’s best player.

“We were far superior in the first half; we could have been up 3-0,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said.

Continue reading here

U.S. vs. Paraguay: Breaking down the challenges in World Cup opener

FIFA World Cup Day 1: Live updates, TV schedule, players to watch and group previews

Click here for complete TV schedule, groups and players to watch

Today’s World Cup TV schedule

Noon, Canada vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Fox, Telemundo
6 p.m. U.S. vs. Paraguay, Fox, Telemundo

Saturday’s World Cup TV schedule

Noon, Qatar vs. Switzerland, Fox, Telemundo
3 p.m., Brazil vs. Morocco, FS1, Telemundo
6 p.m., Haiti vs. Scotland, FS1, Telemundo
9 p.m., Australia vs. Turkey, FS1, Telemundo

Sunday’s World Cup TV schedule

10 a.m. Germany vs. Curacao, Fox, Telemundo
1 p.m. Netherlands vs. Japan, Fox, Telemundo
4 p.m. Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador, FS1, Telemundo
7 p.m. Sweden vs. Tunisia, FS1, Telemundo

Ohtani hurts knee in Dodgers’ victory

From Maddie Lee: The Dodgers couldn’t have asked for better timing, as Shohei Ohtani’s leadoff spot came back around.

In a game the Dodgers would go on to win 8-6 over the Pirates, they were clinging to a two-run lead in the top of the seventh inning against the Pirates on Thursday. With one out and runners on first and second, the Dodgers superstar, who had already reached base four times, was due up.

Instead, Santiago Espinal stepped up to the plate as a pinch-hitter.

Ohtani left the game with inflammation in his left knee, the Dodgers announced.

“Just wanted to be smart and not push it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “So I feel good about him being in there [Friday]. But obviously with the travel [to Chicago Wednesday night], we’ll just kind of see how he comes in.”

Roberts described the injury as “discomfort” at the back of Ohtani’s knee, around where the hamstring attaches. Though Ohtani underwent surgery on the same knee in 2019, that was to address bipartite patella, on the other side of the knee.

Continue reading here

How the Dodgers plan to shuffle catchers with Will Smith on the injured list

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Rams cancel minicamp

From Gary Klein: Unless they are in Maui, as they were last year, Rams coach Sean McVay annually opts to cancel mandatory minicamps after the initial report day.

This year, McVay avoided any pretense of suspense.

On Thursday, he announced to his players that after fulfilling some broadcast media responsibilities on Monday, they would not have a minicamp and break until they report to training camp at Loyola Marymount in late July, a Rams official said.

McVay’s announcement came about a week after San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan canceled minicamp, and Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald did the same.

The Rams play the 49ers in their Sept. 10 season opener in Melbourne, Australia.

Continue reading here

Stanley Cup Final Game 5

Andrei Svechnikov scored twice and Sebastian Aho added a second-period goal in a breakout game for Carolina’s top-line performers, helping the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Thursday night to move one victory away from the Stanley Cup.

Captain Jordan Staal added his fifth goal in the series on a night when Carolina overcame multiple hiccups from these playoffs, from a shaky power play to being outplayed in the second period of this series.

And there had been the waiting game for Aho and Svechnikov — two roster mainstays in an eight-year postseason run — to find a better offensive groove.

Continue reading here

Game 5 summary

This day in sports history

1920 — Man o’ War wins the Belmont Stakes, which was run at 1 3/8-miles, in 2:14 1/5. He shatters the world record by 3 1/5 seconds and sets the American dirt-course record for that distance.

1930 — Max Schmeling beats Jack Sharkey on a fourth-round foul for the vacant heavyweight title in New York. Schmeling becomes the first German — and European — heavyweight world champion.

1939 — Byron Nelson wins the U.S. Open in a three-way playoff with Craig Wood and Denny Shute.

1948 — Citation, ridden by Eddie Arcaro, wins the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown with an eight-length victory over Better Self. It’s Arcaro’s second Triple Crown. He rode Whirlaway in 1941.

1948 — Ben Hogan wins the U.S. Open with a record 276, five fewer than Ralph Guldahl’s 1937 record.

1954 — Milwaukee Braves spot starting pitcher Jim Wilson throws first no-hitter in history of County Stadium when he blanks Philadelphia Phillies, 2-0.

1979 — Bobby Orr becomes the youngest player in NHL history to be selected for the Hockey Hall of Fame. The 31-year-old is inducted months after officially ending his NHL career as the Hall waives its usual three-year waiting period.

1981 — Larry Holmes stops Leon Spinks in the third round for the WBC heavyweight title in Detroit.

1983 — Patty Sheehan wins the LPGA championship by two strokes over Sandra Haynie.

1984 — 38th NBA Championship: Boston Celtics beat Lakers, 4 games to 3, to win the championship title.

1990 — Egypt, a 500-1 shot, stuns the Netherlands when Magdi Abdel-Ghani makes a penalty kick with eight minutes remaining to tie the World Cup favorites 1-1.

1991 — The Chicago Bulls win the first NBA championship in the team’s 25-year history with a 108-101 victory in Game 5 over the Lakers. MVP Michael Jordan scores 30 points, Scottie Pippen has 32 and John Paxson 20.

2002 — NBA Finals: Lakers beat New Jersey Nets, 113-107 for a 4-0 sweep and 3rd straight title; MVP: Shaquille O’Neal for 3rd consecutive Finals series.

2005 — Annika Sorenstam closes with a 1-over 73 for a three-shot victory over Michelle Wie in the LPGA Championship. The 15-year-old Wie shoots a 69 to finish second. It’s the highest finish by an amateur in a major since 20-year-old Jenny Chuasiriporn lost a playoff to Se Ri Pak in the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open.

2008 — The Boston Celtics overcome a 24-point deficit and beat the Lakers 97-91 to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the NBA finals. No team has ever overcome more than a 15-point deficit after the first quarter, and the Celtics post the biggest comeback in the finals since 1971.

2009 — Pittsburgh’s Max Talbot scores two second-period goals as the Penguins beat the defending champion Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 and win the Stanley Cup at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena.

2011 — The Dallas Mavericks win their first NBA title by winning Game 6 of the finals in Miami, 105-95. Jason Terry scores 27 points and Dirk Nowitzki adds 21 as the Mavericks win four of the series’ last five games.

2013 — Andrew Shaw scores on a deflection in triple overtime to lift the Chicago Blackhawks to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins in a riveting Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. The Blackhawks gets third-period goals from Dave Bolland and Oduya to erase a 3-1 deficit.

2016 — Sidney Crosby sets up Kris Letang’s go-ahead goal midway through the second period and the Pittsburgh Penguins win the fourth Stanley Cup in franchise history by beating the San Jose Sharks 3-1 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final.

2017 — Kevin Durant caps his spectacular first season with the Warriors by bringing home an NBA championship. Durant, who joined Golden State last July, scores 39 points in a finals-clinching 129-120 victory over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

2019 — Stanley Cup Final, TD Garden, Boston, MA: St. Louis Blues beat Boston Bruins, 4-1 for a 4-3 series victory; first title in franchise history.

2021 — Danish soccer midfielder Christian Eriksen suffers an on-field cardiac arrest during a Euro 2020 match with Finland in Copenhagen. Eriksen is revived with a defibrillator and the game controversially continues with a 1-0 Finland win.

2023 — NBA Finals: Denver Nuggets beat Miami Heat 94-89 to win the franchise’s first Championship; clinch series 4-1; MVP: Denver C Nikola Jokić.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1922 — Hub Pruett struck out Babe Ruth three consecutive times, and the St. Louis Browns beat the New York Yankees 7-1.

1928 — Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees had two triples and two homers in a 15-7 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

1939 — The Baseball Hall of Fame was dedicated at Cooperstown, N.Y.

1954 — Milwaukee’s Jim Wilson pitched the year’s only no-hitter, blanking the Philadelphia Phillies 2-0.

1957 — Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals broke the National League record for endurance when he played in his 823rd consecutive game. The previous mark was established in 1937 by Pirates first baseman Gus Suhr.

1959 — The San Francisco Giant’s Mike McCormick tossed a 3-0, five-inning no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies. Richie Ashburn singled in the top of the sixth for the Phillies, but the hit didn’t count because the game was stopped by rain.

1962 — In Milwaukee’s 15-2 rout of the Dodgers at County Stadium, the Aaron brothers both homer in the same game with Tommie connecting in the bottom of the eighth after his older brother Hank had hit one out in the second.

1970 — Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates hurled a 2-0 no-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader against the San Diego Padres. Ellis walked eight and hit a batter, and Willie Stargell hit two homers.

1981 — Thirteen games were canceled due to the players’ strike.

1997 — After 126 years, baseball broke its tradition and played interleague games. The San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers 4-3.

1999 — Cal Ripken went 6-for-6, homering twice and driving in six runs as the Baltimore Orioles scored the most runs in franchise history with a 22-1 rout of the Atlanta Braves.

2006 — Jason Grimsley was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball, less than a week after federal agents raided his home during an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.

2007 — Justin Verlander pitched a no-hitter to lead the Detroit Tigers over the Milwaukee Brewers 4-0. Verlander struck out a career-high 12, walked four and benefited from several stellar defensive plays.

2009 — Chicago right fielder Milton Bradley had a bad day at Wrigley Field. Bradley lost Jason Kubel’s pop-up in the sun for a single, couldn’t catch Michael Cuddyer’s RBI bloop double, made a baserunning blunder and, most egregiously, flipped the ball into the stands after catching Mauer’s one-out sac fly.

2009 — New York Mets second baseman Luis Castillo dropped Alex Rodriguez’s lazy popup with two out in the ninth inning as two runs scored, helping the Yankees escape with a wild 9-8 victory over the Mets.

2010 — Daniel Nava hit the first pitch he saw as a big leaguer for a grand slam — only the second player to do it — leading the Boston Red Sox to a 10-2 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies. Nava connected on a fastball from Joe Blanton in the second inning. Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a slam on the first pitch he saw Sept. 2, 2006, for Cleveland against Texas.

2011 — Realignment is on the table again as Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association are in discussions to renew the collective bargaining agreement, which expires on December 11th. One of the options being discussed would see one team moving from the National League to the American League to create two 15-team leagues, with the Houston Astros the likeliest candidate for a move.

2012 — Alex Rodriguez ties Lou Gehrig’s record by hitting his 23rd career grand slam.

2016 — Sam Cohen put UC Santa Barbara into its first College World Series with a pinch-hit grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 4-3 victory over second-seeded Louisville 4-3 in the Super Regionals.

2017 — Royce Lewis, a high school shortstop from California, is selected first overall by the Minnesota Twins in the 2017 amateur draft.

2018 — Tigers 1B Miguel Cabrera suffers a season-ending injury when he tears a biceps tendon while swinging at pitch in the third inning of a game against the Twins. He had already missed all but one game of May with a hamstring injury.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Friday marks one year since a deadly Air India Boeing crash, which killed 260 people in a densely populated suburb of the city of Ahmedabad in India’s western state of Gujarat.

Families of those killed gathered at the site on Friday to mark the anniversary of the disaster, but they are still waiting for answers about what caused the plane to come down shortly after takeoff from the nearby airport.

Indian authorities are expected to issue an interim report in the coming days, another source of frustration for the victims’ relatives, who had been hoping for a definitive finding and a final disclosure. Media reports, citing unnamed sources, suggest that Indian investigators will delay issuing a final report into the crash, citing the need to complete an analysis of the plane’s engines.

Under international aviation rules, a final report is due “if possible” within a year of an accident. If an investigation goes on for longer, an interim statement should be issued on each anniversary.

What happened to the Air India plane?

Flight AI171, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane which had taken off only moments before, en route to London Gatwick, crashed into a medical college hostel in the residential area of Meghani Nagar, close to the international airport on the edge of India’s western city of Ahmedabad.

According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the plane’s final signal was received seconds after takeoff at 1:38pm local time (08:08 GMT). It had reached an altitude of 625 feet (190 metres) before crashing back to the ground outside the airport.

The plane had issued a mayday alert to air traffic control just before all communications from the aircraft ceased.

How many people died in the crash?

Of the 242 people on board, all except one passenger were killed. These included 169 Indian nationals and 52 British nationals. A total of 260 people died, as 19 people on the ground close to the crash site were also killed. Another 67 people near the site were injured.

The sole survivor on board the plane, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, is a British national whose brother was killed in the crash.

On Thursday, Ramesh’s representative, Sanjiv Patel, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that Air India had paid £21,500 ($28,800) in compensation to Ramesh to help support his wife and their five-year-old son. It is not clear whether similar payments have been made to other families.

Relatives of the victims are meeting on Friday at a conference organised by lawyers, along with aviation and air safety experts, in Ahmedabad. They are due to hold a candlelight vigil after sunset.

What have preliminary reports shown?

This was the world’s first airliner crash involving a 787 Dreamliner, a Boeing model that has been in service since 2011.

In accordance with international aviation law, India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) published a preliminary report one month after the disaster.

That 15-page document said the fuel supply to the jet’s engines had been cut off moments before the crash, raising questions about possible pilot error.

It also published a conversation between the captain and his copilot about the fuel supply being cut off – two brief sentences that prompted theories of pilot suicide.

The report was met with strong criticism.

It did not state why the fuel switches were turned off – whether it was the fault of a pilot, or a result of a malfunction.

The preliminary report did not make any safety recommendations to Boeing or engine maker GE Aerospace, suggesting no technical issues had been discovered.

The crash also hit Air India at a sensitive stage of its post-privatisation turnaround, which has been slowed by supply-chain snags, an airspace ban imposed by Pakistan on Indian carriers and, more recently, the US-Israeli war on Iran.

What’s the latest on the investigation?

Under international rules, a final report is due “if possible” within a year of an accident, but sometimes investigations take longer. If it cannot be completed, therefore, an interim statement should be issued on each anniversary. With investigations continuing, the AAIB is expected to issue only an interim report at this stage.

The Federation of Indian Pilots union has been pushing for investigators to seek more technical data about the plane from Boeing and Air India to allow for a “rebuttal of the pilot suicide theory being explored by the AAIB”.

“It [an interim report only] will cause more speculation and more misunderstanding,” Charanvir Randhawa, the union’s president, told reporters at a packed news conference in Ahmedabad ahead of the anniversary of the crash.

“We have requested the Indian government and India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) not to come out with any interim report.”

A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India 787 before it crashed supported the view that the captain cut the flow of fuel to its engines, according to US officials’ early assessment reported by Reuters last year.

But the AAIB said at the time it was “too early to reach any definite conclusions”.

Investigators conducted engine testing in April and visited France last month as part of their analysis of the engine management unit, a source told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, as the information is not public.

On Thursday, Bloomberg also reported that the final report into the crash can be expected within three months, once studies of the engines, which had been sent to the US for examination, are concluded.

The captain’s father has asked India’s top court to order an independent investigation that examines possible causes other than deliberate pilot action – a cause that has been suspected in some other fatal crashes and was confirmed in the case of Germanwings Flight 9525, which crashed into the French Alps in 2015, killing all 150 people on board.

As a pariah child in search of Islamic knowledge, Goni Abubakar has no clue what it means to hold a gun and pull the trigger. He is just an almajiri who runs errands for his cleric master in Bama, a town in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. He learns to recite Quran verses by heart; he is one of the brightest pupils under the cleric’s tutelage. In the beginning, the messages are clear: have faith in Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Day of Judgement. Every pupil carries these heavy words around and keenly believes in them. They say the Quranic verses that match those words by heart: “O you who have believed, fear Allah and believe in His Messenger; He will [then] give you a double portion of His mercy and make for you a light by which you will walk and forgive you; and Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

The preaching is pious until peril pierces the heart of the preacher. 

The teacher sells groceries, and Goni doubles as his shop assistant. Detached from his parents as a child, he was now a teen, tending only to the bidding of his mentor. Dozens of children are on this path to seek knowledge, but Goni is the teacher’s delight: fierce, smart, and completely loyal. Their earliest form of education is the Tsangaya, a traditional Quranic education in northern Nigeria, and most of them have not attended any formal secular school before they are thrown under the control of a man they all call “mallam”. The morning and evening classes are held in the shade of a tree and are led by the teacher, who preaches to them the ways of Islam.

Kids like Goni know what it means to grow up in a local community. A child can sing through the neighbourhood, begging anyone there for food and water. Local farmers prosper in peace after months of tilling and cultivating the land. People sleep at night without fear of being raided by assailants or militants. Fear and terror consumed the town when Boko Haram’s strange ideologies spread like wildfire into the communities. Goni’s teacher is among the first to embrace the ideologies propagated by Boko Haram’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf. As his preaching changed, his way of life changed too, beaming terror and extremism infused into the hearts of children under his mentorship.

In 2009, when Boko Haram went underground before re-emerging in 2010, Goni was already a 12-year-old. Too young and naive to ask questions, he and dozens of children followed their tutor to join the insurgent group that would later destabilise Nigeria. Now, in the northeastern region, the Boko Haram insurgency has uprooted over three million people and killed over 350,000, with government authorities failing to rein in the deadly scourge. Armed violence has spread beyond the region’s borders into parts of the northwestern and north-central regions.

Goni would become a grown man, swallowing the rulings of terrorists until he could no longer bear them. He now seeks redemption and reintegration through the state-backed deradicalisation programme. While it appears he has left a life of violence and attacks for good, it’s not that simple. For him and many other men in his shoes, post-Boko Haram life presents some puzzles that test the true efficacy of the deradicalisation scheme.

Are the terrorist deserters genuinely seeking redemption or only trying to survive? For months – between November 2025 and May 2026 – HumAngle probed the complexities of the former insurgents’ lives, documenting their journeys from the past to the present, their struggles to become civilians again, their secret frontline deals with the military, and the fragile peace their reintegration poses to the civilian population.

Snaring the cat

When Goni joined Boko Haram as a teen, his master’s preachings had switched from admonishing children under his watch to have strong faith in their religion to brainwashing them into a life of violence. They embraced it, truly believing that spilling the blood of people who don’t believe in their ideology was the clearest pathway to paradise. Elsewhere in Borno, in the Malam Fatori area, Ali Bukhar also listened to the sermons of Boko Haram’s jihadists. Those sermons summoned the beast in him and took away the best of his humanity. He joined them convinced that true salvation was immersed in the ideology of killing and maiming.

“In the preachings, they’d emphasise that if you died in the cause, you are a martyr. That you are going to paradise straight,” Ali recalls. He joined as an adult in 2014 during the peak of the Boko Haram emergence. About five months after joining the group, he was asked to attend training. His handlers took him to a riverine area and gave him a gun. “They have a specific instructor whose job is solely to train new intakes. You’d train for about four to five months. After the training, they’d return you to the Markaz [Arabic word for headquarters or centre]. And when it is time to go out for a fight, they’d give you guns.”

Suleiman Mohammad tells a slightly different story. He joined Boko Haram in 2013, during the first Baga attack. The militants and the military had been locked in a fierce battle that cost hundreds of civilians their lives and thousands their homes. A retaliatory raid after a military base was attacked in Baga took a bloody turn for mostly civilians, brewing a trust deficit in the operational methods of Nigerian forces in their fight against terrorism. The insurgent group took advantage of the situation to recruit young people into its unholy ways. Suleiman was among hundreds of people brought into the system after the Baga bloody saga and the uprising that followed. He was a herder in Malam Fatori and had grown up through the local Tsangaya education system.

“So after the Baga attack, I was contacted by the fighters who turned out to be from my village,” Suleiman reminisces. “We studied together when we attended Tsangaya and Islamiyya a long time ago. They told me how the other brothers were with them. They told me stories of how they recite the Quran collectively and also wage ‘holy war’ together. Then they invited me to join them. So, we made an appointment to meet at Mairari.”

A week later, the terrorists came as agreed and met with Suleiman’s father in his home. 

“Your son is joining us in the cause of Allah. He’d work for Allah,” the terrorists say. 

“Allah’s cause?” the father wonders. “Jihad is mandatory for all muslims. And since he has agreed to go with you, I have no objections.” 

The terrorists had come with guns and machetes, Suleiman notes, suggesting that his father was made to agree under duress. “That was how I joined them. We had carried out several attacks ever since. From Mairari, Tungushe, and others. In fact, we held Mairari – under Magumeri – captive for quite some time before it was recaptured by the military.”

People joined the Boko Haram insurgency for different reasons. For Goni and his cohorts, it was a case of misguided faith rooted in brainwashing and psychological manipulation. The story is different for many others. The fire of the burning insurgency started from the charismatic oratory and radical sermons by the founder of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, between 2002 and 2009. Since at least 2021, HumAngle has interviewed dozens of defectors who revealed why they joined the deadly group before surrendering to a deradicalisation scheme organised by the government. Mohammed took advantage of the dysfunctions within the Nigerian state to campaign against a secular system of governance and, by extension, democracy.

Testimonies from defectors and custodians of Boko Haram’s history reveal that the post-2009 state repression, especially the actual brutality of the Nigerian military and police against civilians, and the uprising that trailed it, were among the factors that drove young people into insurgency. At the time, “Tura Takai Bango” was the mantra for the agitation, literally meaning “they had been pushed to the wall”. The era and the ugly events that unfolded encapsulate the desperation that leads civilians to affiliate with insurgents. When the state’s counter-insurgency tactics involve collective punishment, the civilian population often finds itself caught in a “double jeopardy” where both the state and the insurgents are viewed as existential threats. 

Isa Alamndiri, one of the victims of the state repression, told HumAngle how he witnessed the summary execution of young people in 2016, in the Marte Local Government Area (LGA), on the grounds that they were shielding terrorists. “They came and gathered all of us in the village. They then separated the elderly and killed all the youths. They shot over 30 youths that day. Their reason was that we were harbouring Boko Haram in our midst,” Isa says. 

Another witness of what many believe pushed youths in the state to the wall, Musa Kurama, recalls that the Nigerian military invaded his village in Meleri, also in Marte, to burn his house, among many others, to the ground, saying that the entire community was a hideout for terrorists. The cycle of violence forced young adults and naive teenagers to take the insurgents’ offer of “protection”, which was a predatory alternative to state-sponsored destruction.

Boko Haram also targeted schools for attacks, deliberately conducting mass kidnappings such as in Chibok and Dapchi to enforce their radical ideology by making secular educational institutions unsafe. This insurgent tactic strategically provides a supply of young captives who were groomed as fighters or forced into “marriages” that facilitate the group’s long-term sustainability. The state’s failure to secure these environments has led to the closure of over 600 schools in the region, creating a lost generation of children who are more susceptible to recruitment because of the absence of alternative futures.

Jihad: ‘Pathway to paradise’

Goni has grown up knowing nothing but violence and bloodshed, and now claims he’s out of the messy circle. He smiles as he speaks, but when he remembers how he joined other terrorists to pillage villages, uproot people from their homes, farmlands, and abduct scores, he furrows his brow. 

“Before we go out, we would prepare. They’d mobilise 100 to 200 fighters, give them arms, and say, ‘We are going out to wage a holy war’.  Then we would charge into military barracks,” he tells HumAngle curtly. “I believe we were deceived by our masters because they don’t practice what they preach and twist religious verses to suit their evil acts and intentions.”

Regardless of how and why they joined, newly recruited insurgents are made to believe that killing and spilling the blood of anyone not following their templates of violence has only one name: jihad. Most defectors we spoke to corroborated this during separate interviews in 2025 and later in 2026.

Experts and scholars in political science, human rights, and peace and conflict studies argue that Boko Haram weaponised the concept of jihad to manipulate its followers into believing keenly in killing and destroying those who disagree with their ideology. In the 2021 issue of the Al-Hikmah Journal on Social Sciences and Education, for example, Issa Muhammad-Jamiu, a researcher at Kogi State University in North Central Nigeria, notes that Boko Haram’s ideology contradicts Islamic injunctions. The most disturbing aspect, he states, is the condemnation of any scholarly verdict that falls short of their view. 

“How could they attribute Islam to the prohibition of Western education, which has become a necessity, if not compulsory, to Muslims in the contemporary world? Do they mean that they are more knowledgeable and more committed to Islam than those Companions and Tabi’un who studied foreign cultures and sciences for the interest of Muslim communities?” Issa ponders.

Two sides of the coin

As Goni speaks, his lips look pale and peeling. He’s been battling typhoid and malaria and is still receiving treatment. He carries a gentle demeanour that betrays the terror he had perpetrated, and wears a blank face wrinkled with emotionlessness. For him, peace is a no-brainer when violence is pervasive.

He quips, throwing on a long, tedious smile when asked what he thinks of the concept of peace. “Peace tastes good,” he says. “Living peacefully among loved ones is greater than any other thing. I was in Njimia before leaving. I had worked in several places, including Gazuwa, my birthplace. What made me leave was recent developments. The conflict between the factions and the injustice. So, I took my weapon and left. I arrived at Konduga, where I was received. They then brought us to Bama and then to Hajj Camp.”

Goni believes that embracing peace simply means walking away from a life of pain, violence, and gnashing of teeth. Dwelling in the forest with terrorists means dining with the devil, he says. His moral postulation and spiritual freedom were destroyed in the terrorist camp. He had access to the Quran and understood its teachings, but every verse he read had to be interpreted in accordance with the sect’s teachings. He had no freedom of thought or understanding of whatever he read from the scripture. He had no meaningful life in the forest, he says, apart from destroying people’s lives.

He and many of the terrorist deserters we spoke to said they experienced pain in its most extreme form. Whenever they sustained gunshot wounds during field battles with the military, they returned to the forest almost dead. They were being treated by their locally-trained doctors, whom many of the ex-combatants described as quacks. Most times, they gave them dangerous, addictive opioids such as Tramadol and Refinol. They became addicted to these drugs to escape their daily ordeals, even after healing from the wounds. 

“They punished us for taking hard drugs they introduced to us in the first place,” Goni complains. “Sometimes a fighter could be killed just because he takes hard drugs. When they knew it was bad, why did they use it to treat us?”

Many terrorists decided to surrender to the military for different reasons. One major cause of mass defections from the terrorist camps was the sudden demise of Abubakar Shekau, the Boko Haram gang leader who took over the mantle of terror from Mohammed Yusuf. There had been cracks within the insurgent group, leading to the rise of the Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP), which was formed as a rebel group against Shekau’s camp. Another thing that followed the death of Shekau in 2021 was disease and hunger outbreaks. 

The Nigerian military took advantage of Shekau’s death to launch several offensive attacks on the terrorist dens in northeastern Nigeria, destroying their logistics bases. That year, the military said it recorded thousands of defections from terrorists who surrendered to embrace peace. Once they submit themselves to the military after years of committing criminal atrocities, they are subjected to deradicalisation through the Borno Model.

HumAngle interviewed several Boko Haram deserters to examine their understanding of peace after committing grave crimes against the human population in the region. Many of them curiously oversimplified the concept, reducing it to simply switching sides and moving from deadly armed violence to living an average civilian life.

“From my understanding, peace is us leaving the group,” Ali simply says and goes ahead to recount how he joined other fighters to enslave girls for sex after kidnapping them from their homes, schools, and farms. He had been through hell as a former Boko Haram member, and now seeks solace in embracing peace by surrendering to the military. He had been imprisoned by his superiors in the terror camp and asked to surrender his arms, but he refused. “I buried it where they could not see it. I was locked up for three months. When they released me, I went and dug up my gun and left them,” he recalls.

For him and several defectors, returning to the civilian community is an exciting prospect. Despite the horror they inflicted on civilian communities as terrorists, they consider living with ordinary locals again, especially close to their families, as a peaceful reconciliation of their horrible past. “We were ignorant when we did those things in the past. But now we know better,” one of them, Abubakar Saleh, says. He was a Boko Haram commander who led dozens of fighters to dislodge communities, rape women and girls and subjugate civilian communities under terrorist control.

He has now returned to Maiduguri with his family. His wife had just given birth when we spoke to him, and he has settled well into the civilian community. To him, peace is relief from the pain that comes with being a terrorist leader. Although he enjoyed authority as a commanding fighter, his life in the forest was miserable, as he was always on the move to evade military operations and surveillance.

“Life here is better,” he affirms. “It is more comfortable and peaceful. In the forest, there is no rest. You’d hunt daily like a lion. Always changing locations. But here, no attacks.”

For civilian casualties of the terror perpetrated by many of these terrorist deserters, however, peace doesn’t come easily. For years, victims of insurgency in the northeastern region have longed for peace and reparations. Thousands of displaced people not only lost their homes, but also lost hope in ever rebuilding their lives or returning to their settlements. In parts of Borno, especially at the Shuwari displacement site, displaced people feed on the leftovers from former terrorists undergoing the government’s deradicalisation programme, a situation that has created an atmosphere of distrust and inequalities. When the Borno State government began a resettlement scheme for displaced people, they were promised protection and stipends to rebuild their lives. Many of them ended up being re-displaced by terrorists and would not get the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

Ensuring peace and justice in the North East is far more complicated than many terrorist deserters have assumed, says Ndubuisi Ani, a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Security Studies. The transitional justice expert told HumAngle that the defectors’ curious understanding of peace undermines the pains and level of destruction civilians have witnessed at the hands of terrorists. He argues that peace and justice cannot be achieved in tackling violent extremism unless there’s inclusivity, good governance, and stability.

“The state must understand that there are basic needs to be responded to (on the side of victims),” Ndubuisi explains. “A lot of communities need a lot of social contracts on the ground.”

The security expert further explains that any transitional justice scheme by the government must be victim-centred. He advised that the state must go back to its original duty of protecting citizens and ensuring peace and tranquillity in society.

“You’ve not psychologically prepared actors. How do you let the victims understand?” he asked, stating that the government can’t successfully reintegrate terrorist deserters back into society without proper public engagement. “The intent is good, but the approach is the problem.”

Seeking peace and redemption

Like many terrorist deserters, Goni accepts that he has lived a complicated life of violence and horror. This is not the time for regret, he says. It’s a moment to seek forgiveness, to retrace his steps, and perhaps to wash the blood from his own hands. When he arrived at the Hajj Camp in Maiduguri after surrendering to the military and going through the process of deradicalisation, he struggled with the guilt of the atrocities he had committed, and, to prove to the military that he had backed off from a life of bloodshed, he agreed to work in the field with soldiers fighting terrorists. He’s not alone in this. Several former combatants we spoke to said they decided to work as auxiliary operatives to fight alongside the military against Boko Haram, the same sect they once belonged to. Several other defectors noted that when they chose to work with the military – as a way to seek redemption – they were handed rifles, loaded onto the backs of patrol trucks, and sent directly into the marshes and forests they had recently fled.

Asked whether they were coerced into joining the military, Goni laughed before saying the escapade was never mandatory. 

“It is a choice,” he replies. “I may decide not to work with them again.”

It is a hard nut to crack, but the terrorist deserters say the military operatives have learned to work and walk with them.

“They arm us and take us with them. If, for instance, a Commanding Officer is going out for an operation, he’d request a certain amount of “repentants” from the Hajj Camp officials. And the officials would assign like 50 or 100 persons to him, depending on the scale of the operation,” Goni says.

By fighting the same people who recruited him into the monolithic Boko Haram camp as a teen, Goni says, he has freed himself from a lifetime of guilt. During his time with the killers, he recalls asking many of the fighters if they loved what they were doing. Those fighters feel trapped, he says; they’re homesick, but even their families have rejected them. Now that he has freed himself from the shackles of terrorism, he says he begs God for forgiveness. But while he seeks forgiveness for the atrocities he has committed, he would use every knowledge he has about the group to fight them back. That’s his way of seeking redemption.

“They give us food and allowances, and we give them intelligence. We show them the hideouts. Because we know the terrain better than they do. We know their fighting styles,” Goni brags, smiling and looking directly at the reporter. “We know their escape routes. Isn’t this helpful enough? Also, we lead the way. They’d follow behind. We charge in.”

Redemption through revenge

Ali’s life after Boko Haram is even more thrilling: he seeks redemption through revenge. He had fallen for peer pressure to join one of the most brutal terrorist organisations in existence, and his life had since remained terrifying. For years, he was a cog in the Boko Haram machine, serving with vim and vigour. He learned to repair military vehicles in the forest and became renowned as the sect’s mechanic. He would repair heavy military patrol vehicles seized by the insurgents or those stuck in the mud within the forest during ambushes.

Despite his servitude for Boko Haram’s cause, he says, his entire life with the terror group was a lie. He grew to realise that behind the Boko Haram ideology was a hail of deceit and human manipulation. Bamboozled with distorted interpretations of verses from the Quran, Ali recounts how he had joined hundreds of other fighters to trigger plague, tears, and horror in civilian communities in the name of holy war.

“The practice violates the preachings. My biggest reason was that the practice was not what the Prophet truly teaches,” he claims. “The commanders would usually stay behind, leaving a comfortable life, while the foot soldiers are left starving and fighting day and night.”

For Ali, the deal breaker with Boko Haram was during a chaotic raid in the Tungushe town of Borno. He had come under a heavy burst of military gunfire, which tore through his arm, shattering the bone. He had expected that the sect’s medical team would give him some extra care due to his critical condition, but they treated him like disposable property. 

“I was so humiliated by the sect’s medical team, as treatments were handled haphazardly,” he laments. “If it were the commanders, they would treat them swiftly with maximum care. But for fighters, there is usually no medical attention.”

For two straight years, he nursed the pain alone and grew bitter resentment for the sect and its ideologies. He realised he was nothing but a tool for achieving the commanders’ personal hunches and interests. One night, he slipped away, through the scrublands, trudging northward until he found himself around the military garrison in Monguno, where he fell flat on the ground and surrendered.

“After surrendering in Monguno, they took us to Hajj Camp in Maiduguri,” Ali tells HumAngle. “Days later, they brought forward an opportunity where you could help in the fight. You may decide to follow the military during attacks or provide them with intelligence. Whatever you think you can do. So, I said I want to fight. I have a friend who also fights alongside the soldiers. I chose to fight because I have realised that we were deceived by the group.”

Repentance or survival?

Unlike Ali and Goni, repentance has an entirely different meaning for Suleiman: it is an illusion or a political statement made by people in government. Calling him a “repentant Boko Haram” is an insult, he says. To him, that word is a subtle qualifier for a coward. With a cold voice and a sour look, he describes how he worked with ground troops to attack Timbuktu, Sambisa, and other terrorist hideouts.

His case is more of just switching sides than actual repentance. He dreads the term “repentant Boko Haram” and doesn’t hide it. As a terrorist, he lived for violence, pillaging villages and destroying people’s lives and properties. Following the rise of Abu Mushab al-Barnawi, a factional leader of the Boko Haram sect, Suleiman came under his command, joining over 100 fighters under his control. He had fought fiercely against the Nigerian military on many occasions, and he was feared for his precise brutality amid battles.

His cruelty had no bounds, as he had fought against top Nigerian military leaders, as he states, like Captain Bala, Manga, and Abu Ali, leaving scars on the town that are still visible today. He had also raided beyond Nigeria, maiming locals in the Niger Republic, especially in Diffa, Maine-Soroa, and Chabbal.

When factional infighting turned truly brutal, Suleiman chose to be on the safer side. Exhausted by the tireless internal slaughter, he left and surrendered to the military. Now, he does almost the same thing on the other side. The activity is the same, he notes, only the targets are different. 

“I am not comfortable with that name [repentant]. I don’t like it,” Suleiman says. He would frown and then laugh during the interview to convey the complexity of the terror drowning him. “In the forest, I followed someone’s commands. Here too, I am commanded and still branded repentant?”

He wears a worn Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) uniform during the interview with HumAngle, bragging about following soldiers to the battlefield against terrorists in Geidam, Marte, Kala-Bridge and Malam Fatori. Despite his defiance, however, he seems to have taken bullets for the military during counterterrorism raids in northeastern Nigeria. His four fingers are chopped off, and there are scars all over his body. It was during a joint offensive with Chadian forces in northern Monguno. An artillery explosion had torn through the military ranks and killed several soldiers and terrorist deserters fighting by their side. He would follow the forces into the fortified hideouts of Timbuktu and Sambisa, giving on-the-ground intel to navigate the terrain.

“I got this arm scar, and my fingers were chopped off while digging out a planted landmine about five months ago,” he says of another military raid he participated in. “The explosion killed two other ex-combatants and nine soldiers. When the engineer scouted and identified a planted bomb, he refused to dig it out. None of the soldiers did. So they asked me to do it. One of the wires sparked. Then it exploded. It also affected my leg.”

The deradicalisation scheme

The term “repentance”, which Suleiman and several other defectors loathe, is one of the modus operandi of the Operation Safe Corridor, a military-led deradicalisation and reintegration programme across northeastern states. Established in 2016, the programme has witnessed both criticism and appraisal from experts and affected citizens. The quest for transitional justice, following the mass atrocities committed by Boko Haram against the people and the government of Nigeria, pushed authorities to come up with peacebuilding efforts.

The federal government had introduced the judicial approach of mass trials of Boko Haram figures captured on the battlefield, but systemic failures of the legal system derailed the processes. With a conviction rate of less than 10 per cent after conducting mass trials of thousands of fighters between 2017 and 2020, public distrust in the judicial system grew rapidly. These efforts also faced hurdles due to limited resources and circumstantial evidence, as well as a massive backlog of approximately 10,000 suspected fighters awaiting trial. 

Following deficiencies in the judicial and military mechanisms, the government provided non-judicial options, such as the Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC) and, later, the Borno Model, a scheme designed to handle the mass defections of thousands of insurgents.

HumAngle reviewed at least two research studies that confirm our on-the-ground reporting on the deficiencies and the public misgivings against the counterinsurgency initiative. The independent studies, one led by Idayat Hassan, then of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), and the other by Hassan-Taiwo Adebayo of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), noted a systemic imbalance that seemed to favour the rehabilitation of perpetrators over the survival and justice of their victims. The disparity in the attention given to terrorist deserters also fueled widespread community resentment and birthed a narrative that terrorists are being pampered at the expense of their targets. The security and transitional justice experts also assert that a flawed public appeal and information management have sparked outrage and a trust deficit on the government’s side.

One concern Taiwo’s research raised is the persistent challenges in providing sufficient economic support to Boko Haram deserters once they leave the camps. Several defectors HumAngle interviewed raised the same concern. Although they vowed to live civilian lives again, they claimed their lives in the forest were more prosperous, and they’re now facing economic hurdles after defecting. The former insurgents, now working as assets to the military, also complained of constant failed promises. When they’re called upon for operations against the terrorists, the military would pledge mouth-watering financial gains only to offer them an amount far less than what they had promised.

“Then they’d say they’ll pay us each ₦1 million or ₦1.5 million for every crucial piece of information and operation. But after a successful mission, they’d go back on their words and pay ₦100,000 or below. Whereas we have families to cater for. Wives, children, and parents,” Suleiman recounts, a claim substantiated by other former combatants we interviewed.

Wayward ways

As many defectors struggle to settle into communities, civilians also struggle to embrace them. The reason is not far-fetched: the villagers have grown resentful of former Boko Haram members who have raided their settlements, stripping them of their homes and stable lives, only to come and live next door. The moment they leave the rehabilitation camps, they escape the military’s watchful eyes. Many times, this escape means defectors choose what they do with their lives, including displaying violent tendencies against civilians. The villagers call them “repentants”, but insist their ways are wayward.

Locals, including displaced people, say so-called repentant terrorists re-terrorise them, making them relive the terror they had inflicted on them. During separate interviews, civilian villagers accused security agents of shielding defectors when they commit offences against the people. They say this has triggered a climate of silence within the Maiduguri metropolis, where everyone is scared of speaking ill of a former Boko Haram fighter, even when they’re guilty of wrongdoing. When HumAngle visited the Bama displacement camp in 2025, for instance, we saw dozens of defectors moving around aimlessly with guns and other weapons. Camp officials claimed the armed defectors were protecting displaced persons, but when we requested to speak with them, they denied us access. Displaced persons also refrained from discussing their situation, fearing persecution.

In Shuwari, a peri-urban area just outside Maiduguri town in Borno, a few locals agreed to talk to HumAngle on the condition that their identities would be concealed. Villagers say these defectors incite violence, rob civilians, and harass women. When they complain or try to fight back, they brag about having ruled the forest for years and having the power to do whatever they want within the civilian communities. Displaced people also live side by side at the Shuwari IDP camp with men they believe are responsible for their displacement. Living with them at the camp comes with fear and mistrust, IDPs say.

When Salihu Garba briefly returned to Bama, following the Borno state resettlement programme, threats from former Boko Haram fighters forced him back to the Shuwari IDP camp, he says. While some defectors seem to be living without fighting their neighbours, others, especially those working as assets for the military, move around brandishing rifles, spurring terror, and instilling fear among locals. Simple communal disputes often degenerate into violence. Salihu tells HumAngle that, two months ago, a quarrel spiralled into stabbing a villager. A former insurgent had stepped on bricks laid by a villager to build part of his compound, and that escalated into an exchange of blows and domestic weapons. Both the civilian and the defector were arrested, but the latter returned the next day to stab the former, who was later rushed to the hospital to fight for his life.

Rural criminality also adds to the tension that comes with forcibly reintegrating terrorists into civilian communities, locals say. One repentant terrorist was recently arrested for theft after breaking into shops and stealing six bags of beans. Before being sent to the police cell and later prison, he threatened the shop owner: “I will return and kill you after serving my term.”

For Isah Kamsulum, another resident of Shuwari, the fear is deeply personal. In 2015, he witnessed a man named Ba’ana slaughter fifteen people in Bama. Years later, Ba’ana resurfaced as a repentant, working with soldiers in the community. Isah’s nephew confronted him, enraged that someone who had killed his sibling now lived comfortably among them. Ba’ana killed the nephew. He was arrested, held briefly, then released. Today, he fights alongside the military in Gamboru. Residents say they were never consulted before repentants were resettled among them. “We just saw them,” he complains. “The government brought them out of the forest and kept us here, too. We are all under their control.”

Ibrahim Adam of the Zajeri community in the state says he had an even more concerning experience. Over a year ago, about ten former insurgents got an apartment for themselves within the community. They were at first unarmed, but some of their friends, who worked as auxiliary fighters with the military and were armed, would frequently come visiting them daily. Their presence, especially in large numbers, unsettled the villagers. The former insurgents started asking young women to marry them. One divorcee selling food by the roadside was told she must marry one of them. Scared to the bone, the woman abandoned her trade and fled the area.

Villagers say they have grown alarmed living with the repentants, with Ibrahim recounting that they have witnessed about 30 of them crammed in an apartment, talking recklessly and loudly about their past and bragging about their atrocities before surrendering to the army. The community demanded their eviction, but the landlord refused because he’s afraid. While older repentants in the community maintain some decorum, the younger ones, accompanied by armed companions, remain a source of fear.

For Goni, Ali, and several terrorist deserters HumAngle interviewed, relapsing into terror is not an option. They also said they’re not among the young repentants instilling fears into the civilian community. They say they’ve chosen the path of peace and would never return to a life of violence.

Five goals, four water breaks, three red cards and a glittering opening ceremony.

The World Cup 2026 opening day delivered everything you could ask for.

From an early thunder strike to a late winning goal, Thursday was filled with drama, stretching from Mexico City to Zapopan.

Al Jazeera breaks down the key takeaways from the 2026 FIFA World Cup’s day 1:

Is this going to be the World Cup with the most red cards?

The three red cards brandished to Yaya Sithole, Themba Zwame and Cesar Montes during Mexico’s 2-0 win over South Africa were an unusual sight at a World Cup.

In the last two editions, Qatar 2022 and Russia 2018, only four red cards were handed out during the entire tournament. This year’s World Cup opening game nearly matched that singlehandedly.

With officiating at the start of the tournament usually setting the tone for the rest of the campaign, the sequence of sending offs at Estadio Azteca could be repeated several times during the 39-day, 104-match spectacle in North America.

Thursday’s three reds fell just one short of the record of four at a World Cup 2006 game, nicknamed the “Battle of Nuremberg”, between Portugal and the Netherlands.

The record for the most red cards – 28 – was also set at the same tournament in Germany.

Controversial VAR at the centre of debate again

The look of confusion and disbelief among South African players after Zwane was sent off for flinging an arm into Mexico’s Roberto Alvarado’s face prompted the debate: Is Video Assistant Referee (VAR) playing spoilsport again?

Referee Wilton Sampaio did not initially pull out the red card, but after being sent to the pitchside monitor by VAR, Sampaio decided to send Zwane off.

While the replays were unclear, it seemed Zwane was trying to move past Alvarado, but his hand caught the Mexican’s face in the process.

Zwane was ultimately booked for “violent conduct”, a controversial decision, which seemed harsh given it was not an obvious call. South Africa coach Hugo Broos was not convinced by it, either.

“The second red card, I think the Mexican player blocked my player,” Broos said in the post-match media conference.

“It’s the position of the referee, and we have to accept it also, but I don’t think [it was a red], it was too soft to give that as a red card.”

Hydration breaks or momentum killers?

The introduction of fixed hydration breaks – one in each half – came into effect for the first time at the World Cup on Thursday, and attracted early criticism from viewers and coaches alike.

While some broadcasters stuck with the live feed featuring players, others cut to commercials, disrupting the match-viewing experience for fans watching on TV.

Viewers in the United States were frustrated after broadcaster Fox cut away to full-screen commercials and they missed some live action during the second half of the Mexico vs South Africa opening match.

US head coach Mauricio Pochettino had a mixed opinion over the three-minute breaks, which are held regardless of weather conditions and introduced by FIFA to prioritise player welfare.

“I don’t like it. I only like it when the conditions are very extreme, but when the conditions are good, it is not necessary to have water breaks,” he said during a news conference on Thursday.

“For me, it’s 50-50. For coaches and staff, it’s a chance to make some changes or fix problems. But it’s part of the game, and we accept that.

“I don’t agree with it, but it’s not a big issue and won’t have a big effect on the games,” he said, adding that he did not watch the opening game.

Son Heung-min misfires, but South Korea prevail

Son Heung-min has often been the hero of the South Korea national team on the biggest stage, but on Thursday, even though the talisman got the lion’s share of the chances, he failed to score in their 2-1 win over Czechia.

Son worked seamlessly with the impressive Lee Kang-in and Lee Jae-sung to create a host of first-half chances, with the trio combining darting runs through the middle with a succession of dangerous pass-and-go moves that they just could not finish.

But Oh Hyeon-gyu and Hwang In-beom stepped up to the occasion, bagging a goal each to steer the Koreans to a dramatic late comeback win over Czechia.

South Korea vs Czechia: A clash of styles

Even though both teams opted for a 3-4-3 formation, there was a stark difference in their systems and approach.

South Korea played a fluid, possession-based style of football, while Czechia were heavily reliant on dead balls, opting for a rugged, route-one tactic.

Although the Czechs broke forward first with direct, physical play, the Koreans – buoyed by a largely Mexican crowd rooting for them – bounced back with their dominance of possession and stylish play, getting the better of their set-piece specialist opponents.

Three people have been killed in the border region between Russia and Ukraine, according to officials, as the two sides launched attacks on each other in the latest exchange of fire.

In Russia, two civilians were killed and two wounded in the region of Bryansk after Kyiv struck the settlement of Suzemka with artillery, Acting Governor Egor Kovalchuk said in a post on Telegram on Friday.

A ⁠drone ⁠also hit an apartment building in Russia’s ⁠central region of Tatarstan, ⁠injuring three people, while industrial facilities were ‌hit, regional head Rustam Minnikhanov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Production work was ⁠not suspended, ⁠however, he added, but did not identify ⁠any plants. ⁠The region ⁠is home to key oil processing and petrochemical ‌facilities, among others.

⁠Russia’s ⁠city of Togliatti, home to ⁠the country’s biggest ⁠carmaker Avtovaz, also came under a drone attack overnight, Samara ‌region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said on Telegram.

“Attention! Drone attack regime ⁠for Togliatti,” he ⁠wrote. Togliatti is a city ⁠on the ⁠Volga River some 800 km (500 miles) southeast ‌of Moscow.

These strikes are what Ukraine refers to as a “logistics lockdown”, said Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine, reported from Kyiv. She explained that they are mid-range strikes anywhere over 30 kilometres (17 miles) from the front line, using long-range drones and sometimes heavy weaponry to target things like oil refineries, bridges, logistics, and roads as a means of halting Russia’s front-line operations.

At the same time, she said, Ukraine also launches what it calls “long-range sanctions” against Russian targets – a “tongue-in-cheek term … that we’ve seen escalating over the past several months, where Ukraine is targeting Russia’s oil refineries and oil industry,” MacAlpine explained.

In Ukraine, a drone attack in the border region of Sumy caused casualties.

A 44-year-old woman working as a rail station operator died on her way to a shelter during the strike, according to the head of Ukrainian Railways, Oleksandr Pertsovkyi.

Another woman, a station attendant, was wounded in the attack, Pertsovkyi added.

Three people were wounded in separate attacks on Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region.

“We’ve seen continual threats by Russia before massive attacks, and we have certainly seen the results of those actions here in cities like Kyiv, where ballistics continue to be the Achilles heel for Ukraine”, MacAlpine said.

Russian fuel shortages after Ukrainian attacks

In recent months, Kyiv has carried out an increasing number of attacks on Russia and Russian-occupied territories.

On Thursday, fuel stations on the Russian-held Crimean Peninsula ran out of petrol after a Ukrainian campaign against the peninsula’s supply lines escalated.

A witness in Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, told the Reuters news agency there was no fuel at most local petrol stations, with supplies struggling to keep up with a rationing regime imposed in recent weeks.

Another witness, in the resort town of Yevpatoriya, ⁠said there was a long queue outside the only petrol station open there.

Ukraine has been intensifying drone attacks on supply lines to the peninsula, which Russia seized from Kyiv in 2014. Local authorities have imposed fuel rationing regimes, with some foodstuffs also running short.

Besides Russian-held Crimea, only ‌two regions in Siberia have officially confirmed the shortages.

Most other regions have said the situation is under control, and that some disruptions were caused by panic buying. Moscow has denied there were any problems with fuel supplies.

The U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, in Nevada, recently completed its final weapons instructor course for the A-10 Warthog. Despite an extension in service for three A-10 squadrons to 2030, and recent combat operations in the Middle East, the Weapons School has shuttered its elite training course in line with USAF divestment plans for the type, which were previously set for the end of 2026.

TWZ’s Jamie Hunter recently visited the 66th Weapons Squadron (WPS) and got a detailed cockpit and walk-around tour of an A-10C with “Trippin,” an experienced instructor pilot attached to the unit.

A full episode that goes in-depth with the A-10 Weapons School will kick-off TWZ’s first season of Special Access on YouTube soon, so stay tuned!

A-10 Cockpit And Walk-Around Tour With A Warthog Weapons Instructor

EXPLAINER

Trump cancels planned Iran attacks, saying talks are close as Tehran reviews a proposed US deal.

United States President Donald Trump said he had cancelled a third straight night of planned attacks on Iran, saying talks with Tehran were close to producing a deal.

The announcement marked a dramatic turnaround. Just hours earlier, Trump warned that Iran would be hit “very hard” and threatened to target Kharg Island and other oil facilities.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s correspondent said a senior Iranian official confirmed that a proposed memorandum of understanding with the US was being considered by Iran’s top leadership.

Here is what has happened:

In Iran

• Trump calls off planned Iran attacks: Hours after warning that Iran would be hit “very hard” and threatening attacks on Kharg Island and other oil facilities, Trump said he had cancelled the planned strikes, claiming negotiations had reached a breakthrough. In a Truth Social post, Trump said discussions had been elevated to Iran’s top leadership and that the “final points” of an agreement had been approved by all parties involved, including the US and several regional allies.
• Tehran says the sacrifices of war were worth it: Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall said many Iranians would be relieved to see the conflict end after months of hardship and loss. But the government is also trying to sell a potential deal as a victory, telling people that “it is worth the suffering” because Iran could come out of the war “in much stronger shape”, with the possibility of sanctions being lifted and assets being unfrozen.

In the US

• Expert says Trump used an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy: Richard Weitz, an international security expert at the NATO Defense College, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s threats to intensify the conflict may have been aimed at forcing a diplomatic breakthrough. The strategy, he said, is to “threaten to escalate” a conflict “in order to force an end to it”. However, Weitz cautioned that “we still have a bit of uncertainty over what precisely was agreed and how it will be implemented.”
• Trump has tried to hold Netanyahu back in recent weeks: Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have long had “a shared desire to limit Iran’s nuclear programme” and ensure Tehran never obtains a nuclear weapon. But she said there was a “growing concern” within the White House that Netanyahu could “derail efforts in the diplomatic realm”, with Trump increasingly trying to restrain the Israeli leader and, in the US president’s words, “allow time for diplomacy”.

In Lebanon

• Hezbollah says it carried out 24 attacks on Israeli forces: The Lebanese armed group said it launched a series of drone, missile and rocket attacks on Israeli soldiers, armoured vehicles and military positions across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley between Wednesday and Thursday. Hezbollah said it repeatedly struck troop concentrations near Tayr Harfa, while also attacking Israeli forces in Naqoura, al-Qaouzah, Rashaf, Qantara, Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Yohmor al-Shaqif.

In a significant development, Airbus has announced that its H145 twin-engine light helicopter is being developed in an uncrewed version, the U145. The move continues and expands the manufacturer’s work in the uncrewed helicopter space and reflects similar developments around the globe — most notably, an uncrewed version of the UH-72 Lakota, which is the U.S. Army’s variant of the H145.

The U145 was officially revealed today, ahead of the ILA Berlin airshow, starting this week, during which a full-scale mock-up will be displayed. Airbus says it is planning a first flight of the U145 — with a safety pilot onboard — before the end of this year, and is aiming for entry into service at the beginning of the next decade. 

“With the U145, we are offering our customers an autonomous, uncrewed version of our H145 helicopter — combining the proven airframe, power and useful load of the H145 with the autonomy of a UAS,” said Matthieu Louvot, CEO of Airbus Helicopters, in a company media release. “To develop the U145 and its capabilities as a multi-mission UAS, we will be teaming up with leading autonomous mission partners to further expand the UAS ecosystem in Europe,” he added. 

The U145 will have a maximum takeoff weight of around 8,400 pounds, and is described as a “mission-agnostic solution for civil and military applications, primarily high-volume cargo supply.” Airbus has announced the payload will be up to 2,600 pounds. In comparison, the uncrewed version of the Lakota, the MQ-72C Lakota Connector, will carry a maximum payload of around 4,000 pounds, although this includes slung loads. With that in mind, the U145 and MQ-72C will likely end up offering very similar payload capacities.

The MQ-72C is expected to be able to cruise at speeds of 135 knots out to ranges of at least 350 nautical miles, according to the Airbus website.

Already at this stage, the company is pitching the U145 for specific military roles, including armed scouting and surveillance. Airbus is also planning to adapt the U145 as a “drone mothership” that will carry “launched effects,” on which the company is partnering with European missile house MBDA. A similar concept is currently being pitched by Sikorsky, with its uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter, dubbed the U-Hawk, which is also intended to be able to fire dozens of launched effects such as surveillance and reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions.

Airbus also envisages the U145 operating in conjunction with conventional helicopters as part of crewed-uncrewed teaming. 

The U145 will offer full autonomy, Airbus says, being equipped with a specialized sensor suite and artificial intelligence. For an uncrewed logistics aircraft, the ability to autonomously navigate along a predetermined route using programmed waypoints would provide a practical foundation for autonomous operations. However, more advanced capabilities — such as dynamically adjusting flight paths and responding in real time to emerging threats or unexpected obstacles — would also be very valuable, especially when conducting resupply missions in contested or high-risk environments.

The U145 will have no physical cockpit, so it cannot be flown with human pilots onboard. Other significant changes include adaptations for cargo missions, including a clamshell nose door, a loading platform, and a dedicated cargo floor. The existing rear clamshell doors are retained, as are the cabin side doors. The same configuration has been adopted for the MQ-72C, and a pass-through cargo hold is a big advantage that other crewed helicopters in this class cannot match.

Other features of the new uncrewed helicopter will be carried directly over from the H145, more than 1,800 of which are currently in service.

These features include a powerplant of two Safran Arriel 2E engines equipped with a full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) and a fenestron tail rotor.

The U145 is the next step in the manufacturer’s development of uncrewed helicopters. As such, it follows on from the smaller VSR700, a rotary-wing uncrewed air system which was derived from the crewed Cabri G2 light helicopter.

It is unclear what elements might be ported across from the MQ-72C, also called the Unmanned Logistics Connector (ULC), which is being developed separately by Airbus U.S. Space and Defense, together with its partners Shield AI, L3 Harris, and Parry Lab. Based on the U.S.-made UH-72B Lakota, the MQ-72C is similarly autonomous and is primarily aimed at the U.S. Marine Corps. You can read more about the MQ-72C in our previous coverage of the aircraft, here and here.

Airbus’s UH-72 Unmanned Logistics Connector Sets Its Sights On The USMC’s Future Fleet Requirements

In the context of the MQ-72C, we have previously looked at how this platform fits with the U.S. Marine Corps’ vision for future fleets of cargo-carrying drones. The Marines see uncrewed logistics ‘connectors’ in the air and down below as essential for supporting future expeditionary and distributed operations, especially in the context of a possible future high-end fight with China in the Pacific.

Other U.S. efforts in this space include optionally crewed and uncrewed versions of the larger H-60 Black Hawk series. The U-Hawk demonstrator, a fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter, is intended to carry cargo and deliver launched effects and similarly features clamshell doors in the nose. At the heavier end of the scale, Boeing has said its future plans for the H-47 Chinook include creating a path toward an uncrewed version of the aircraft.

Introducing the S-70UAS™ U-Hawk™

However, these kinds of capabilities are increasingly being eyed by other services around the world, too.

With this in mind, Airbus is hoping to leverage the existing customer base for the H145, which has footprints on six continents. The H145 is already in service, or on order, with a growing number of international military operators for utility and light-attack missions. The uncrewed version maintains significant commonality, which will bring down support and maintenance costs.

At the same time, the U145 has obvious commercial applications. Airbus highlights its suitability for roles like disaster management and firefighting, although it would also be ideal for cargo conveyance, especially remote resupply work and logistics support to offshore platforms and remote areas on land, for example.

An Airbus spokesperson told Breaking Defense that the U145 has not been developed for any specific national or European acquisition.

Undoubtedly, there is growing recognition in Europe, in particular, that changes in the geopolitical landscape mean that the continent cannot necessarily rely on the United States to meet its defense needs. Developing the U145 in addition to the MQ-72C aligns with Europe’s ambition to strengthen its sovereign capabilities.

With the U145, Airbus is betting that autonomous rotorcraft will become an increasingly important part of military operations. By leveraging a proven helicopter platform, it should accelerate the transition to uncrewed operations, but the drone helicopter will be entering an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Seoul court sentences former leader for sending military drones into North Korea.

South Korea’s ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for sending military drones into North Korea, a move prosecutors argued was aimed at creating a pretext for his disastrous martial law declaration in 2024.

The drone flights, which Pyongyang said included the dropping of propaganda leaflets, triggered a spike in military tensions between the nations in October 2024.

Special prosecutors, who had sought a 30-year prison term for Yoon, said in April that the ex-leader’s effort to “fabricate wartime conditions” with the drones had undermined state security.

Yoon was “given 30 years in jail” for the charges involving the drones, a spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court told the AFP news agency on Friday, without giving further details.

Yoon had denied wrongdoing.

The ruling adds to a series of judgements against the ousted conservative leader, once South Korea’s top prosecutor, whose martial law order plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into its deepest political turmoil in decades.

In February, a South Korean court sentenced Yoon to life in prison after finding him guilty of leading an insurrection linked to the martial law attempt.

He was removed from office last year after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment, triggering a snap election that was won by liberal President Lee Jae Myung.

Yoon’s lawyers said he neither ordered nor later approved the drone operation, which they said was unrelated to martial law and instead a response to months of North Korean launches across the border of balloons stuffed with rubbish.

Yoon, who is already in custody, can appeal Friday’s lower court ruling.

Drone flights remain a flashpoint in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.

Lee expressed regret earlier this year after an investigation found government officials had sent drones into the nuclear-armed North Korea in January.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister called Lee’s statement “wise behaviour”, but hopes for a rapprochement faded after the diplomatically isolated nation returned to calling South Korea its “most hostile” enemy.

Wall Street and Asian markets rally on hopes for an end to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Stock markets have surged following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he called off planned strikes against Iran and a peace deal with Tehran is imminent.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P500 index finished nearly 1.8 percent higher on Thursday, ending a three-day streak of losses for the biggest single-day gain since April.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.5 percent, while the older, blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 1.9 percent.

The rally continued in the Asia Pacific on Friday, with markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia racking up gains.

South Korea’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, surged more than 8 percent in morning trading, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose as much as 4 percent.

Taiwan’s TAIEX gained about 2.4 percent, and Australia’s ASX 200 rose about 1.8 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was up more than 1 percent.

Brent crude, the primary international benchmark for oil prices, fell about 1 percent to below $89.50 a barrel on hopes for a return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime carries about one-fifth of global energy supplies.

The market rebound came after Trump on Thursday suggested that a deal to end the war on Iran could be signed as soon as this weekend.

“We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran… subject to finalisation of documents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House.

Iran has not publicly confirmed Trump’s claims, but a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman told reporters a memorandum of understanding with the US is “under consideration”.

“For the rally to be sustained, investors will want to not only see the actual deal being signed, but a complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for ANZ Bank, told Al Jazeera.

“Only then will we see the gains extend.”

Fabien Yip, a market analyst at the online broker IG Group in Sydney, Australia, said the rally reflected a “meaningful easing of geopolitical risk”, as well as anticipation over Friday’s market debut of SpaceX, set to be the largest of its kind in history.

“The broader read on today’s Asian follow-through is that dip-buying interest remains genuine,” Yip told Al Jazeera.

“That matters for how you characterise what’s happened over the past week.

“This looks less like a structural break in the bull market and more like a healthy reset after a rapid, near-straight-line advance, the kind of consolidation that can potentially extend a rally’s longevity.”

With President Donald Trump proclaiming his desire to take Iran’s Kharg Island — whether he actually means it or not – we reached out to some former military commanders to get a sense of what it would take to seize and hold it and how telegraphing such a move could impact operations. The island, as we have noted in the past, is Iran’s main center of oil exportation, and a U.S. seizure would have tremendous military and economic impacts. An attempt to take it by force and hold it, as we have highlighted in prior reporting, would be an extremely risky operation, by all accounts.

Trump’s latest statements about taking Kharg Island came in the wake of the most intense round of tit-for-tat attacks between the U.S. and Iran since the ceasefire went into effect April 8. The U.S. launched waves of strikes across Iran, including firing what Trump said was 49 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles at Iranian targets. In response, Iran launched missiles and drones at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.

Meanwhile, Iran claimed it shut the Strait of Hormuz completely after the new round of kinetic action while U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) insisted it remains “open for transit.”

However, in the wake of yesterday’s back-and-forth strikes, Trump proclaimed his desire to seize Iran’s vital oil infrastructure, including Kharg Island.

“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social.

A short while later, the president modified those remarks in an interview with Fox News.

“I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest with you,” Trump later told the network. “You’d make a fortune, but I don’t know that America has the stomach, I think they’d like to see us come home.”

Located about 20 miles from the Iranian coastline, Kharg Island presents a daunting challenge, leaving troops trying to take it under threat from Iran’s remaining arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, rocket artillery, and fast boats that can launch swarming attacks on ships, fire missiles, and lay mines. This is something we were among the first to point out, before the possibility of invading the island became a nation news story.

“It seems unusual that we would announce an intention to seize Kharg Island in advance,” retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, former leader of U.S. Central Command, told us. “Military commanders always want to preserve the principle of surprise in any operation – it helps reduce risk and often times gives us the tactical edge.”

“In this case the president did not announce any specific details – which can preserve some operational flexibility,” Votel noted. “It may also be a part of a more elaborate communications strategy that is focused on getting the regime to understand they are running out of options and that we can and will do whatever we need to, militarily, to support diplomatic efforts and bring the conflict to a conclusion.”

“Seizing Kharg Island is a significant undertaking,” added Votel, now a Distinguished Military Fellow at the Middle East Institute. “Not only will it involve ground troops to actually control the terrain – but also tactical delivery means, air cover, a strike campaign to set the conditions and then all the resources to protect this force while they are on the Island. In addition – the force has to be sustained meaning we have to have a way to get them supplies, engineering capabilities, life support, evacuate casualties, and if necessary reinforce them with additional force.”

All these actions would be taken close enough to the Iranian coast to “potentially subject [assault forces] to missile and drone attacks,” the former CENTCOM commander noted. “Not impossible, but certainly not insignificant either.”

When we first spoke to Votel about this issue in March when stories first bubbled up about Trump threatening Kharg Island, he told us that “a battalion sized force of Marines or soldiers could probably do that. So you’re probably looking at 800 to 1,000 troops, kind of size, maybe a little bit smaller, probably not much larger than that.”

Plans for the US military to try and capture the island “have been drawn up for months but continuously shelved because the operation was considered too risky,” a senior Pentagon official and two administration officials told CNN.

Speaking to us on Thursday, Chris Miller, who served as acting Defense Secretary at the end of Trump’s first administration, said it would take considerably more troops for such an operation than Votel first suggested.

“I would expect it would take an infantry brigade at a minimum,” said Miller, referring to a unit of between 3,000 to 5,000 troops. “I’d prefer two brigades and a lot of mobile air defense to protect from Shaheds and plenty of barrier material to make bunkers when artillery starts dropping in. Plus, obviously, significant air power to hit time-sensitive Iranian targets like artillery and missile batteries.”

“It’s completely doable by our combat forces in the region, ” added Miller, now founder and CEO of FPF Defense, a startup building a low-cost Shahed drone interceptor. “This is exactly the type of operation they are designed and optimized for. It’s not that heavy of a lift for them.”

Holding the island, if taken, won’t be easy, however, Miller posited. 

“The logistics would be challenging for us because it will be difficult to get resupply ships in under the Iranian defensive shield,” he explained. “And aerial resupply will be contested as well.”

Miller said he was not concerned that Trump told the world he wants Kharg Island.

“My assessment is the Iranian regime continues to misunderstand President Trump,” Miller said of his former boss. “I suspect the Iranians have already prepared for such an eventuality.”

Former Army Maj. Gen. Pat Donahoe, who retired in 2022 as commanding general of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning in Columbus, said asking how Kharg Island can be taken “is the wrong question.”

“It’s not taking it, it’s holding it over time and enduring the slow bleed of casualties that comes with holding it,” noted Donahoe, now chief operating officer at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.

“It’s Khe Sanh,” explained Donahoe, a reference to one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, where about 6,000 Marines and their South Vietnamese counterparts held out at a base along the Laotian border against 20,000 North Vietnamese troops for nearly 80 days. 

“Sure we can grab it, but it puts us in range of all their stuff,” Donahoe said. “And we have to resupply it etc. It’s dumb.”

The U.S. struck military targets on the island during Epic Fury, but Trump has stated he ordered all the oil infrastructure to be left untouched. Since the ceasefire, Iran has been preparing for a possible U.S. operation to take control of Kharg Island, CNN noted today.

Boeing’s 757 Flying Test Bed was recently spotted carrying a stealthy underwing infrared sensor pod under its fuselage. This may be the first time this aircraft, better known as ‘The Catfish’ because of its unique and highly modified nose profile, has ever been seen lugging around a store on this station. The pod itself is part of a larger “Raptor 2.0″ upgrade package being developed for the F-22. Catfish has served as a key systems integration testbed for the Raptor since the 1990s.

Jerod Harris caught Catfish with the pod under its belly as it came in to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Monday. Edwards is the main hub for U.S. Air Force test and evaluation activities, and Catfish has been seen there many times over the years as part of its work. The aircraft, which carries the U.S. civil registration code N757A, also happens to be the first 757 ever built, and took to the skies for the first time back in 1982.

As already noted, Catfish has already played a central role in the story of F-22. The aircraft’s heavily modified nose is designed to directly replicate that of the Raptor, and contains the same AN/APG-77 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar as the fighter. The swept wings on top of the cockpit were also designed to support testing of the conformal antennas for the Raptor’s AN/ALR-94 electronic support measures system and other components of its ‘fused’ sensor suite. The aircraft has supported the development of a wide array of other systems for the F-22, and is packed inside with additional equipment to support those needs in particular, including a replica of the Raptor’s cockpit. You can read more about Catfish and its general history here.

So it is not surprising then that the heavily modified 757 would also be used now to help with continued testing of the new underwing infrared sensor pods for the Raptor. Carrying the pod under the forward end of the fuselage would offer the sensors inside a good open field of view to the front, as well as to the left, right, and down.

The stealthy pods have been test-flown on actual F-22s for years now. At the same time, there are only a limited number of Raptors available, in total, and they are notoriously fuel-hungry, maintenance-intensive, and otherwise expensive to operate. If the particular test plan calls just for level flight, and over extended periods of time, a platform like Catfish could be an attractive alternative. With space for dozens of engineers and technicians in its main cabin, and workstations for them, the aircraft would also offer very different options for testing and evaluating the pod while in-flight. A North American Sabreliner business jet has also been used to test these pods in the past.

The capability, in general, for Catfish to carry stores under its fuselage might open up additional possibilities for utilizing the aircraft in support of other testing efforts, if it hasn’t already.

Catfish would also be well suited to supporting testing of other elements of the Raptor 2.0 package. Under the current plan, the Air Force’s F-22s are also set to get a new integrated distributed infrared search and track (IRST) system called the Infrared Defensive System (IRDS).

IRST systems have seen a renaissance across the U.S. military in recent years, as well as elsewhere globally. IRSTs detect and track targets via their infrared emissions, making them particularly valuable for helping spot stealthy targets with features designed to reduce their radar cross-sections. The sensors are also immune to radio frequency electronic warfare jamming and operate passively, meaning they do not emit signals that could alert a target to the fact they are being tracked. IRSTs can also be used to cue or otherwise be linked to other sensors, including AESA radars. This data fusion can provide higher fidelity tracks of multiple targets, as well as improved situational awareness overall.

Increased demand for IRSTs has led to a commensurate increase in demand for testing using multiple platforms. This, in turn, has been a major component of a general uptick in U.S. military flight testing in recent years to support a variety of new, advanced programs.

Other elements of the Raptor 2.0 upgrade plan include new stealthy drop tanks, improvements to the jet’s stealthy features, radar capabilities, electronic warfare suite, and more, as you can read about in detail here.

At least a portion of the Raptor fleet is also set to receive modifications to enable them to act as airborne controllers for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. The Air Force’s F-22s are set to be the service’s first tactical jets to be used in that role, though others will follow.

The F-22 upgrade work is reflective of current Air Force plans to keep the Raptors in service for decades to come. In 2024, the Air Force said it no longer had a firm retirement schedule for the fighters.

Raptors have been used in recent years as surrogates to support work on the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative, a component of which is Boeing’s F-47 sixth-generation fighter. As such, Catfish will have already been feeding into those developments, which are now firmly a top Air Force priority.

At the same time, Catfish is now 44 years old. Boeing 757s, in general, are increasingly disappearing from service globally as they become more complicated and cost-intensive to sustain. Especially with the work ongoing now on the F-47, it seems likely Boeing will start looking toward a new highly specialized testbed aircraft modified to reflect the particular physical geometry, unique avionics, and other features of the new fighter.

Similarly, the F-35 family also has a dedicated test jet, the Boeing 737-300-based Cooperative Avionics Testbed, nicknamed the CATbird. There are several other airliner and business jet-based testbeds flying globally today, though Catfish is certainly one of the largest and most visually distinctive. Improving digital simulation and modeling tools could allow for less reliance on surrogate testbed aircraft in the future, but they will in no way be eliminated.

China notably has something of a clone of Catfish based on a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-204C airliner, which itself was designed as an analog to the 757. The Chinese jet’s primary purpose has been supporting the development of the J-20 stealth fighter, the country’s closest answer to the F-22.

In the meantime, Boeing Catfish remains a very important part of continued work to improve and expand the capabilities of the F-22. This now extends to testing of specialized underwing pods for the Raptor.

Special thanks again to Jerod Harris for sharing his pictures of Catfish carrying the stealthy sensor pod with us.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Caracas, June 11, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration continues to dictate conditions on Venezuela’s energy industry for the benefit of US and Western corporations.

At an event organized by Politico, National Energy Dominance Council Director Jarrod Agen stated that he is in contact with Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and her team “multiple times a day” to discuss the legal framework for foreign conglomerates.

“I raised issues [on oil contracts] when I went down [to Venezuela] and she said ‘we’ll work with you to get through it,’”the Trump official added. 

Agen stated that the administration is currently working to turn “memoranda of understanding (MoU) into binding contracts” and insisted that Venezuela has “made a lot of progress” in overhauling the country’s hydrocarbon and mining laws. 

The legislation approved by the National Assembly slashes royalties and fiscal responsibilities for private companies, while also granting them expanded control over operations and sales. After the laws were approved, authorities were tasked with drafting regulations for their implementation and new contract templates.

Agen went on to announce that a Trump administration delegation will travel to Caracas in the coming days to further discuss conditions for multinational firms in petroleum and gas projects.

Venezuelan oil authorities have reportedly begun circulating drafts of regulations and contract models with industry partners, though the texts have not been made public. The final versions are required to be published in the country’s National Gazette. 

According to Bloomberg, Caracas has revised the proposals under pressure from investors, including the removal of a clause that would have allowed the Venezuelan government to terminate contracts, with compensation, for reasons of “public interest.” Venezuelan leaders have openly acknowledged incorporating private sector input into the recent oil and mining reforms.

Since launching military strikes and kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the Trump administration has seized control of the South American country’s energy and mineral exports.

While keeping wide-reaching sanctions in place, the US Treasury Department has issued multiple sanctions waivers allowing select Western corporations to undertake oil and gas operations in Venezuela while barring participation from Chinese, Russian, and Iranian competitors. The general licenses mandate that all Venezuela-owed payments, including royalties and taxes, be deposited in a Treasury-run account.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration updated multiple licenses concerning energy, petrochemical, and mining activities, stipulating that contract disputes can now also be settled in the United Kingdom, France, and Singapore, rather than just the US. However, the licenses still demand that contract terms be “construed and interpreted” in accordance with US laws and jurisdiction.

The revised waivers likewise establish that contracts may recognize that “certain aspects” of the activity are subject to Venezuelan laws and regulations.

For its part, the acting Rodríguez administration has aggressively courted foreign investment in the oil and gas sectors.

On Wednesday, Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA signed a memorandum of understanding with SLB, formerly Schlumberger, one of the world’s largest oil services providers with a presence in the Caribbean nation since the 1920s. The Houston-based multinational stated that the agreement intends to “strengthen operational execution and promote sustainable development” of the Venezuelan energy sector.

During a televised ceremony, Rodríguez said she was “very pleased” with the deal and expressed confidence that SLB’s cutting-edge technology would have a “major impact on oil exploration and production.”

The acting leader has inked agreements with multiple Western energy giants in recent weeks, including Chevron, Shell, BP, and Repsol. Rodríguez has announced that more companies are set to arrive in the coming weeks. Business executives have made repeated trips to Venezuela to evaluate opportunities and meet with government officials.

Rodríguez recently visited India and touted oil project opportunities in meetings with Reliance Industries and Indian public sector energy firms.

Other government officials, including Economy Vice President Calixto Ortega and Oil Minister Paula Henao, have also held closed-door meetings with investors to promote recent reforms and incentives for foreign firms. At a Houston conference in May, Henao trumpeted the new oil law’s international arbitration clauses for offering more “legal certainty” to investors.

Venezuela’s oil output has continued its recent upward trend, with OPEC’s secondary sources registering a production of 1.072 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, up from 1.036 million in April.

For its part, PDVSA registered a 1.179 million bpd output last month, up from 1.136 million in April. Direct and secondary measurements have historically differed over disagreements on the inclusion of condensates and natural gas liquids.

According to Reuters, Venezuelan oil and byproduct exports rose for a third consecutive month, registering 1.25 million bpd, thanks to increased volumes shipped to the US and India.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

Norwegian missile-maker Kongsberg has finalized its acquisition of a majority stake in Zone 5 Technologies, bringing under its umbrella the U.S. start-up’s Rusty Dagger low-cost cruise missile, among others. With both those weapons already moving into large-scale production, the two companies are making the case for combining Kongsberg’s stealthy Joint Strike Missile (JSM) cruise missiles in operational scenarios. Zone 5 has also now confirmed that the Rusty Dagger, which is already being supplied to Ukraine, is now cleared for use on four different types of fighter aircraft, including the F-16.

At the ILA Berlin airshow yesterday, where TWZ was in attendance, officials from the two companies announced that Kongsberg has now formally acquired a 90 percent stake in Zone 5. California-based Zone 5 will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary under the Norwegian contractor. As well as discussing the industrial acquisition, the officials provided details of how the Rusty Dagger fits into the new-look portfolio, and updates on how that program is progressing.

Zone 5 Technologies – Rusty Dagger

Founded in 2011, Zone 5 is one of an emerging class of defense companies gaining prominence for developing low-cost, rapidly deployable capabilities. In many ways, they represent the inverse of traditional defense contractors, favoring speed, scalability, and cost efficiency over highly customized, high-priced systems.

Kongsberg first announced the acquisition in December, with executives noting that buying a stake in Zone 5 offered the fastest path to offering lower-cost missiles that still deliver meaningful combat capability, especially in terms of bringing these to the European market.

“What we’re doing here is that we’re combining Kongsberg’s niche, exquisite technologies with a company very capable of designing for cost efficiency and mass production,” explained Thomas Akers, founder and CEO of Kongsberg.

As to why Kongsberg didn’t choose to develop its own equivalent to the Rusty Dagger, Harald Aarø, Kongsberg’s executive vice president for business development and strategy, provided the following answer:

“Technically, could we be capable of doing it? Yes, but we are not as capable, as we will probably spend a longer time, and perhaps not strike as smart solutions,” Aarø said. “That doesn’t mean that our engineers aren’t just as smart. Our engineers are just as smart, but on a different sports field, so to speak.”

Aarø also described how the specific combination of the Rusty Dagger and the JSM makes for “a very effective future strike solution.” Namely, the Rusty Dagger provides cost-effective but still highly capable standoff strike, while the more exquisite JSM comes with a heftier price tag but offers a greater chance of making it through to even heavily defended targets, on account of its sophisticated guidance and low-observable characteristics.

As well as being launched from a pylon on a fighter, the Rusty Dagger can be configured for palletized employment from a cargo aircraft, reflecting growing interest in this type of munition employment. It can also be surface-launched both on land and at sea.

According to Tom Kanewske, Zone 5’s chief strategy officer: “What’s interesting about our missile is that the same base, light cruise missile is field retrofittable for all employment modes, and that puts us in a very unique space, in that a country and their [armed] services are able to purchase the same munition and field retrofit for that to be surface launched, whether from land or the deck of a ship, or pylon launched from a fighter aircraft, or palletized.”

Since larger numbers of Rusty Daggers can be launched in any given scenario, they can overwhelm enemy air defenses and improve the chances of success.

According to Kanewske, Rusty Dagger and JSM “offer a weapon pairing that truly no other missiles in the world do.”

While the JSM can be carried internally in the F-35, the same is not currently the case for the Rusty Dagger, although Kanewske said that this is “something that is of keen interest to the [U.S. military] services and several of our international partners.”

When it comes to utilizing the Rusty Dagger and JSM together in a combat scenario, Kanewske noted the possibility of integrating capabilities that would allow the Rusty Dagger to offer “cooperative behaviors” with the JSM. This reflects a growing trend toward leveraging artificial intelligence to help make all munitions more effective and survivable, something that has been demonstrated via Golden Horde and follow-on programs.

Both missiles fly at high-subsonic speeds, the Rusty Dagger being able to strike targets at a range of 250 miles, according to Zone 5, while the JSM has a range of more than 215 miles.

In one highlighted scenario, F-35s could penetrate closer to the target, with their JSMs carried internally to preserve their low-observable features. Meanwhile, much larger numbers of Rusty Daggers could be pylon-launched from fighters, and dropped in palletized form out of the cargo holds of transports, from outside of the range of hostile air defenses.

Kanewske confirmed that, this year, its first year of production, “well above 1,000 units for Rusty Dagger” will be completed, including for the U.S. Air Force, as the AGM-188, under the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) program. The Air Force’s proposed budget for the 2027 Fiscal Year laid out plans to buy nearly 28,000 FAMM munitions over the next five years.

Last month, the Pentagon laid out plans to acquire at least 10,000 lower-cost cruise missiles over the next three years, as part of a broader strategy to dramatically bolster its stockpiles of standoff strike munitions and prepare the industrial base to sustain those inventories going forward. This is seen as especially critical for supporting the demands of future high-end fights, such as one in the Pacific against China, and doing so in a cost-effective manner.

The Rusty Dagger has so far been cleared for use from four different types of fighter aircraft, Kanewske said. One of these is the F-16, which used the weapon in end-to-end live-fire trials at the Eglin Test and Training Range in Florida earlier this year. Another platform may be the A-4, with a contractor-operated example of the attack jet having been used in company trials. Then there is the Ukrainian Air Force, which is using the Rusty Dagger, under the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) program, although the specific platforms have not been disclosed. Any of the MiG-29 Fulcrum, Su-25 Frogfoot, and Su-27 Flanker are likely candidates — as well as its own F-16s.

A series of unverified photos, first published by Russian sources, showing purported parts of Rusty Dagger missiles retrieved after being used by Ukraine:

It appears that the AGM-188A “Rusty Dagger” cruise missile has undergone field testing in Ukraine.

Russian sources are publishing photos of an unknown 8-element CRPA antenna. On the back side of the unit there is a circuit board with a large heatsink, which carries the CAGE code… pic.twitter.com/phZeOJfHJ0

— 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱△ 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇺🇲🇬🇷 (@TheDeadDistrict) June 7, 2026

In the case of the F-16, Kanewske said that only 72 hours were required to integrate the Rusty Dagger on the jet during the trials at Eglin.

“We’re the only affordable mass munition that is currently on contract with an export international customer, and we are actively involved with them at this time,” Kanewske said, clearly referring to Ukraine.

Zone 5 is currently under U.S. Air Force contract for both FAMM and ERAM, and is also under contract with the U.S. Army for its Low-Cost Containerized Missile (LCCM) program, and for the U.S. Navy as part of its Coalition Heterogeneous Affordable Offensive Strike (CHAOS) program, which seeks a low-cost anti-ship cruise missile to provide to partner countries. Both LCCM and CHAOS involve surface-launched missiles.

As well as the ability to rapidly scale up production and a relatively low unit cost, the Rusty Dagger brings with it an open-architecture concept, applying to both software and hardware. This means new, sovereign features and capabilities can be introduced at short notice by customers. In the past, an operator might have to wait up to five years for unique subcomponents to be integrated in a similar weapon, Kanewske contended. With the Rusty Dagger, Zone 5 has demonstrated that this can be achieved in under 12 months.

Then, when it comes to producing the missile at mass, rather than having to “make that factory bigger and bigger,” Kanewske explained that the company offers a franchise model “that allows us to roughly parachute in the design, the equipment, the tooling, the fixtures, the quality control, so that countries can drop in their own subsystem capabilities, and we can achieve manufacturing at pace and at scale.”

Speaking in Berlin yesterday, Kongsberg’s Harald Aarø confirmed that Germany is a particular target for this franchise model, including for the Rusty Dagger. He identified Germany as having “probably the best manufacturing capabilities on this planet,” making it an obvious choice for a European manufacturing footprint.

Reflecting on the changing security situation on the continent since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Aarø said that now is “a natural time to start looking at a production site in Europe,” providing nations there with national sovereign capabilities based on the Kongsberg/Zone 5 joint portfolio.

Kongsberg’s acquisition of a majority stake in Zone 5 evidences a broader shift in Western defense planning toward affordable, mass-produced precision weapons that can be fielded at scale alongside more sophisticated strike systems.

The war in Ukraine has exposed the harsh reality that Europe needs far more standoff weapons than it currently possesses, and it needs them at a price point that allows stockpiles to be measured in the thousands rather than the dozens. Rusty Dagger is very much indicative of a new generation of systems designed around that requirement, prioritizing low-cost mass production over the exquisite but scarce munitions that have traditionally dominated Western arsenals.

As conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to highlight the operational value of low-cost, long-range munitions, demand for capabilities such as the Rusty Dagger is likely to grow. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, Kongsberg and Zone 5 will hope they can leverage their partnership, the Rusty Dagger’s combat use in Ukraine, and the potential to harness its capabilities in combination with the JSM, to build on the missile’s success.

At the same time, Kongsberg’s interest in establishing European production reflects a wider recognition across the continent that long-range strike capacity, industrial resilience, and the ability to sustain missile inventories are becoming increasingly important elements of national and collective defense.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Serena Williams opted to let Nike break the news about her pro tennis comeback at age 44 in two slick commercials. The abrupt end to her doubles foray at the HSBC Queen’s Club Championships was more muted.

Williams’ playing partner Victoria Mboko injured her left knee in a fall during a singles match Wednesday. The turn of events restricted Williams’ return to tennis to one match, a 7-6(2), 6-2 victory with the Canadian teenager over No. 3 seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.

Shed no tears for Williams. She pivoted quickly and will partner with Czech tennis star Karolína Muchová in doubles at the grass-court WTA 500 Berlin Open next week.

“Every tournament I add to my schedule right now feels special, and Berlin is no exception,” Williams said in a statement. “I’m excited to compete in front of the German fans and continue building momentum throughout the grass-court season.”

Another commercial by Nike, her collaborator and business partner of more than two decades, probably isn’t necessary. Williams’ announcement that she would play for the first time since the 2022 U.S. Open came via a pair of clips from the athletic footwear and apparel conglomerate.

One was captioned “good news travels fast.” Talk about buzzy. Her phone makes all sorts of sounds while she’s working out on the court, ending with the text: “Guess everybody heard the news,” and her saying, “I gotta change my number.”

The second is even zanier, a bit with LeBron James and Nike executives pitching a film called “The GOAT’s Goodbye” to Williams, who wants none of it because she still wants to play. James says to the suits, “You’re gonna have to find someone else,” and Williams walks onto the court with racket in hand.

Tagline: “The GOAT’s back.”

For now, her comeback is open-ended. Wimbledon begins June 29 and Williams has not indicated whether she will play. She has 14 titles in the prestigious tournament, six in doubles, one mixed doubles and seven in singles.

Asked shortly after her lone doubles victory at the Queen’s Club why she returned to the tour after a hiatus punctuated by the birth in 2023 of her second child, Adira River Ohanian, Williams shrugged.

“I don’t know, I had nothing better to do,” she said with a smile. “I got tired of sitting at home. My kids are out of school for the summer, so why not?”

Israel continues to expand settlements in the occupied territory, which are illegal under international law.

The Israeli government has allocated a first tranche of an expected $388m in new funds for the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The anti-settlement group Peace Now reported on Thursday that the government had allocated 152 million shekels ($51m) to prepare construction plans for 69 illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank.

The cabinet later reportedly postponed a decision about a 1-billion-shekel ($338m) allocation. That proposal, if passed, would mark one of the largest expansions of illegal Israeli settlements in decades.

“The government decided to postpone the decision [on the 1-billion-shekel allocation] and refer it to the Security Cabinet which is expected to convene on Sunday,” Peace Now wrote.

Under the yet-to-be-approved plan, construction for the settlements, including infrastructure and public buildings, would begin despite necessary planning protocols not having been carried out in accord with Israeli law.

Peace Now accused the government of intending to bypass planning and construction regulations.

“October 7 proved that the right-wing approach has failed: the conflict cannot be ‘managed,’ and the Palestinians cannot be ‘defeated’,” the group said in a statement.

“Israel must reach a political solution and diplomatic agreement, but instead the government is only sinking us deeper into the mire and condemning us to many more years of bloody conflict.”

Israel has come under growing condemnation for expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France and Norway imposed sanctions on networks involved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence against Palestinians.

According to Peace Now, the current Israeli government has approved 103 settlements since it took office in December 2022. From that figure, 51 are entirely new settlements.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International published a report accusing the Israeli government of playing a central role in what it describes as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The report described the government’s actions as “integral”.

At least 117 villages in the West Bank have been subject to either complete or partial displacement due to settler attacks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Amnesty also condemned the upcoming “Great Israeli Real Estate Event”, which is due to take place in London on Sunday.

The event, which has also been held in the United States and Canada, promotes the sale of properties in the occupied West Bank, which campaigners say is in violation of international law.

Operators of the C-17 Globemaster III have been reaching out to Boeing about possibly restarting the product line, and the company has been “encouraged” by these engagements. Separately, Congress recently directed the U.S. Air Force to prepare a formal briefing on the feasibility of acquiring new Globemaster IIIs. The Air Force’s C-17 fleet is critical for U.S. power projection globally. At the same time, a succession of crises in recent years has put serious strain on these aircraft, and questions have already been raised about the viability of the current plan to keep them flying through 2075.

The House Committee on Armed Services added the requirement for the C-17 production restart briefing to a report accompanying the latest draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), last week. The Air Force took delivery of its last Globemaster III in 2013, and has some 222 of these airlifters in service today. The air arms of Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom also have smaller fleets of these airlifters. Three more of these aircraft are operated under the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) initiative, a multi-national arrangement with several European members, as well as the United States. Boeing shuttered the C-17 line entirely in 2015.

Boeing Pieces Together the Last C-17 on the Line

“The committee recognizes that the existing C-17 fleet continues to bear significant operational demands supporting combatant commander requirements, humanitarian assistance missions, and global mobility operations,” the provision in the House Committee on Armed Services’ report notes. “The committee is concerned that future operational demands may place additional strain on the existing C-17 fleet.”

“Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than March 1, 2027, assessing the feasibility of restarting the production line for the C-17 aircraft,” it adds.

The committee wants the Air Force’s briefing to at least include the following:

• “An assessment of the technical and industrial feasibility of restarting the C-17 production line, including the status of tooling, supplier base viability, workforce availability, and potential reconstitution costs.”
• “An estimate of the timeline required to reestablish production and deliver the first newly produced aircraft.”
• “A cost estimate for restarting the production line and procuring additional aircraft, including options for limited procurement and multi-year procurement.”
• “An evaluation of alternative approaches to increasing strategic airlift capacity, including service life extension programs, modernization of existing aircraft, procurement of commercial derivative cargo aircraft, and expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.”
• “An assessment of potential international partner interest in participating in or contributing to a restarted production line.”

TWZ subsequently reached out to Boeing to ask about the company’s current position on rebooting C-17 production.

“Our goal is to help our customers be successful, and we work with them to develop innovative solutions to meet their mission needs, including development and production partnerships,” a Boeing spokesperson told us this week. “We are proud of our continued support for the unique, mission-proven capabilities that the C-17 Globemaster III delivers to the U.S. Air Force and eight allied nation partners.”

At the Paris Air Show last year, Turbo Sjogren, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Global Services-Government Services, had told Shephard Defense that talks with an unnamed country about a possible C-17 production restart were in their “early infancy.”

“It is a very extraordinary effort to do” and is “reflective of the utility of the aircraft,” he also said at the time, according to Shephard.

Boeing has also now said that it is always willing to work to better understand the requirements and needs of its customers. Any talk about the prospect of restarting C-17 production would also have to be viewed in the broader context of the Air Force’s still-evolving requirements for the Next Generation Air Lift (NGAL) program. The service’s current NGAL plans envision a single aircraft replacing the very different C-17 and C-5 Galaxy fleets, as you can read more about here.

TWZ also reached out to the US Air Force about the recently requested briefing.

It is unclear what it might cost to get the C-17 line restarted and what the unit price of these new-production aircraft would be in the end. There are various factors at play, including whether Boeing retains any relevant tooling, the knowledge base of its current workforce, the state of third-party supply chains, and the availability of physical space to build the airplanes. Back in 2019, the company sold off the facilities in Long Beach, California, where it built the original run of Globemaster IIIs.

More than a decade ago, the RAND Corporation did conduct a detailed, independent analysis that explored options for resuming production of the baseline C-17A, a new C-17B, and a significantly revised “fuel efficient” C-17FE derivative.

The C-17B was “a variant Boeing has proposed that adds centerline landing gear, a tire deflation/inflation system, higher-thrust engines, advanced flaps, and an advanced situational awareness and countermeasures system,” according to RAND’s report. The C-17FE derivative “would have a narrower fuselage, up-rated engines, a double-element flap system, winglets, a longer loading ramp, a shorter cargo door, and a modified horizontal tail.”

RAND said that it could cost between $2.1 and $2.7 billion in 2011 dollars to begin making C-17A models again after a pause, depending on how much tooling Boeing retained. Those costs would rise to $4.6 to $6.4 billion for new production of the improved C-17B version, and $6.2 billion to $7 billion to start building the C-17FE derivative. Billions more would be required to actually procure the aircraft, with unit prices being highly dependent on the total size of the production, as outlined in the table below. If nothing else has changed, these cost projections would still be significantly higher today just due to inflation.

As an aside here, RAND published a similar assessment of the options for restarting production of the F-22 Raptor in 2011. That report factored heavily into a study the Air Force subsequently delivered to Congress on that topic back in 2017, which you can read more about here.

Foreign participation in new production of C-17s could help defray costs, and is one of the points the House Armed Services Committee specifically wants the Air Force to address in its briefing. As TWZ noted last year after Turbo Sjogren made comments at the Paris Air Show, Boeing’s discussions at that point might not have been with the U.S. government. Earlier in 2025, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba had expressed interest in buying Globemaster IIIs, raising immediate questions about where those aircraft might come from.

It should be noted here that the U.S. Air Force’s C-17s have received various upgrades over the years, and the service continues to move ahead with other plans to improve their performance and expand their capabilities. This includes the installation of 3D-printed microvanes on the fuselage, which offer a very minor reduction in drag (approximately one percent), but that translates into real reductions in fuel consumption. All Air Force C-17s are expected to have this feature by the end of next year. Communications and data-sharing upgrades have also been a major focus area across all of the Air Force’s airlift and tanker fleets.

Boeing is now under contract for a more extensive upgrade of the flight decks on Air Force C-17s. The company says this will aid in “resolving avionics obsolescence” and integrate new open systems architectures to make it easier to add new and improved capabilities and functionality in the future.

The prospect of a re-engining effort for the Globemaster III fleet has also been raised in the past, but the Air Force downplayed the value of doing so earlier this year.

When it comes to discussions about restarting C-17 production, another key factor is the lack of immediate alternative options. There is really no other aircraft in this class in production now in the United States or anywhere else in the West. Airbus has long positioned its turboprop-powered A400M as sitting in a capability space between Lockheed Martin’s C-130 family and the C-17. Embraer’s KC-390 Millennium design, which is also offered as an aerial refueling tanker, has generally been pitched as a jet-powered competitor to the C-130. China’s Y-20 and Russia’s Il-76 are really the only in-production analogs on any level to the C-17 globally.

The House Armed Services Committee has now also asked the Air Force to speak to the possibility of buying “commercial derivative cargo aircraft” and/or an “expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet,” or CRAF, to help bolster airlift capacity. The CRAF is an arrangement by which the U.S. military can call upon commercial airlines and charter companies to help move cargo and personnel, which you can learn more about here.

A key issue here is that the C-17 is specifically designed for tactical operations right at the tactical edge. This includes the ability to bring combat-ready forces to far-flung locations without the need for an established airfield. Additional commercial alternatives could still be utilized in rear areas to help free up C-17s for more demanding missions and otherwise relieve stress on the Globemaster III fleet.

Questions have been increasingly raised about the survivability of the C-17 itself, especially in the context of a future high-end fight, as the threat ecosystem continues to expand and evolve. The Air Force has made clear that it is working to find new ways to bolster the defensive capabilities of all of its existing airlifters, as well as its tanker fleets, and that this is a key consideration in the evolving NGAL requirements.

TWZ has long been sounding the alarm on the need for more survivable cargo planes and tankers. The Air Force already has decades’ worth of experimental work and studies on concepts for stealthy cargo aircraft and tankers, as well as non-stealthy ones with blended-wing-body (BWB) planforms, under its belt. Over the years, several companies have publicly put forward prospective designs that could be relevant for NGAL, as well.

When any new platform developed under NGAL actually enters service remains to be seen. The stated plan the Air Force has put forward to date would see those new aircraft replacing its C-5s first, with C-17s flying through 2075. By that point, the Globemaster III, as a type, will have been in service for 80 years.

“The C-17 is the most amazing airplane ever made. I have a lot of time in it, so I can say that. We have asked it to do a lot of things, and it’s done more than we ever planned for when we bought that airplane,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Rebecca Sonkiss told TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) annual Warfare Symposium in February. “It has performed flawlessly, but it’s getting old too.”

Sonkiss is Deputy Commander of Air Mobility Command (AMC). She has been serving as the interim head of the command since her predecessor, Gen. John Lamontagne, became Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force in January.

“I cannot have a gap in my strategic airlift forces, and we’re working forward on the NGAL to combine the view of the C-5 and the C-17 fleet and figure out what the next strategic airlifter needs to be. That conversation, in my book, can’t happen enough, or can’t happen fast enough,” she added at the roundtable in February. “We have to get after what next looks like, and we can’t wait until we’re shoveling it into the boneyard before we get to that discussion.”

Whether the Air Force’s future airlift plans also include buying new-production C-17s remains to be seen. For its part, Boeing does not appear to have ruled out the possibility just yet.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The Washington institution cut its global growth forecast by 0.4 percentage points to 2.5 percent, citing surging energy prices, inflation and borrowing costs.

The conflict in the Middle East is set to bring global economic growth to its slowest since the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank has warned.

In its latest Global Economic Prospects report, published on Thursday, the Washington-based institution cut its global growth forecast for 2026 to 2.5 percent from the 2.9 percent it had predicted in January, citing surging energy prices, rising inflation and higher borrowing costs.

The report highlights the significant economic costs of the conflict, which is at risk of flaring up again, as the fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran is tested on both sides.

The analysis warns that the outlook could decline further if supply disruptions worsen. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz – a vital passageway for oil and gas transit – in response to the hostilities launched by the US and Israel has put huge stress upon global energy and other supply chains.

The World Bank estimates that Brent crude prices — the international oil benchmark — will average $94 a barrel this year, 36 percent above last year’s average. Fertiliser prices are forecast to increase significantly this year, with knock-on effects for food prices.

Overall, the closure of the strategic waterway will help to push global inflation to 4 percent this year, a substantial increase from last year’s rate of 3.3 percent.

However, the World Bank cautions that global growth could plummet to as low as 1.3 percent this year, should energy supply disruptions worsen, with inflation pushing to 4.4 percent.

The World Bank report also cautions that developing countries are on the front line of the potential impact.

In its report, the institution has downgraded its growth forecasts for two-thirds of countries since January. Global growth is expected to improve to 2.8 percent in 2027, but will remain 0.4 percentage points below the average during the 2010s, during which the world economy was recovering from the global financial crisis.

Excluding China and India, the report worries that developing countries have made little progress towards narrowing their per capita income gap with wealthy nations over the past decade.

“Developing countries have faced a series of challenges over the last decade,” said Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank Group. “The impact differs by country, but the basic test is the same: protect people and preserve stability today, without giving up on growth and jobs tomorrow.”

The World Bank is pledging to assist any developing country experiencing the economic fallout of the Middle East conflict. The organisation says it has set aside up to $60bn to help. It added that if the conflict persists, it can increase its support to $100bn.