In July 1943, Allied troops landed in Sicily. Mussolini was overthrown and imprisoned by his former colleagues in the Fascist government. In September, Italy signed an armistice with the Allies. The German army began the occupation of Italy and Mussolini was rescued by German commandos. He was installed as the leader of a new government, but had little power. As the Allies advanced northwards through Italy, Mussolini fled towards Switzerland. He was captured by Italian partisans and shot on 28 April 1945.
Iran has proposed a 10-point peace plan to end the war as the United States and Israel intensify their attacks on Tehran and a deadline looms that was set by US President Donald Trump for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, whose near-closure has triggered a global energy crisis.
At the White House on Monday, Trump called the 10-point plan a “significant step” but “not good enough”.
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Iran’s top university and a major petrochemical plant were hit on Monday after Trump threatened to target power plants and bridges until Tehran agreed to end the war and open the strait, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass.
Here is more about Iran’s 10-point plan and Trump’s response to it:
What is Iran’s 10-point plan?
On Monday, Pakistan, which has mediated talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war, put forth a 45-day ceasefire proposal after separate meetings with US and Iranian officials. The Iranian and US negotiators have not met face to face about the 45‑day truce plan. In late March, Trump told reporters that his envoys were talking to a senior Iranian official, but this was not confirmed by Iran. Tehran has denied holding talks with US negotiators.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran had conveyed its response via Islamabad. Iran reportedly rejected the proposed ceasefire, putting forward instead a call for a permanent end to the hostilities.
The Iranian proposal consisted of 10 clauses, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of sanctions and reconstruction, IRNA reported. The conflict has spread to the Gulf region and Lebanon, where 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced due to Israeli attacks.
Details about the 10 clauses have not been published.
How did the White House respond?
Speaking to reporters about Iran’s plan, Trump said: “They made a … significant proposal. Not good enough, but they have made a very significant step. We will see what happens.”
“If they don’t make a deal, they will have no bridges and no power plants,” he added.
In a profane Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump threatened to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully reopened. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****** Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” he wrote.
The deadline is set for 8pm Washington time on Tuesday (00:00 GMT). Tehran has rejected this ultimatum and threatened to retaliate.
Human rights organisations and members of the US Congress have criticised Trump for threatening to attack civilian targets, which is considered a war crime.
The Axios news website reported that an unnamed US official who saw the Iranian response called it “maximalist”.
What other proposals have been on the table?
The last time the word “maximalist” was used to describe a peace plan in this war was late last month when Iran called a US plan “maximalist”.
An unnamed, high-ranking diplomatic source told Al Jazeera on March 25 that Iran had received a 15-point plan drafted by the US. The plan was delivered to Iran through Pakistan.
The source said Tehran described the US proposal as “extremely maximalist and unreasonable”.
“It is not beautiful, even on paper,” the source said, calling the plan deceptive and misleading in its presentation.
The 15-point plan included a 30-day ceasefire, the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear facilities, limits on Iran’s missiles and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
In return, the US would remove all sanctions imposed on Iran and provide support for electricity generation at Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
Iran has rejected a temporary ceasefire, arguing it would give the US and Israel time to regroup and launch further attacks. Tehran has pointed to Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in June. The US joined that conflict for one day, hitting Iran’s three main nuclear sites with air strikes. Trump claimed at the time that the US had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities but months later justified the current war by saying Iran posed an imminent threat.
The UN nuclear watchdog, however, said Iran was not in a position to make a nuclear bomb.
The US and Israel launched the war on February 28 as Washington was holding negotiations with Iran. On the eve of the war, Oman, the mediator of the talks, had said a deal was “within reach”.
Tehran has said for years that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and it does not intend to create nuclear weapons. It even signed a deal with the US in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. But Trump withdrew from the landmark deal in 2018 and slapped sanctions back on Iran.
In response, Iran decided to enrich uranium from 3.6 percent, which was allowed under the 2015 deal, to almost 60 percent after its Natanz nuclear facility was bombed in 2021. Iran blamed Israel. A 90 percent level of purity is required to make an atomic bomb.
Why does this matter?
With Tuesday’s deadline fast approaching, chances for a ceasefire appear remote as the two sides remain far from agreement and the conflict is now in its second month.
On Tuesday, Reza Amiri Moghadam, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, posted on X: “Pakistan positive and productive endeavours in Good Will and Good Office to stop the war is approaching a critical, sensitive stage …”
From Maddie Lee: The teams were the same. The venues were the same. But the clash between the Dodgers and Blue Jays on Monday at Rogers Centre was far from the roller coaster of Game 7 of the World Series.
And the Dodgers’ most notable performance came from a young catcher who wasn’t on the World Series roster last year.
“These fans, sadly, didn’t want to see us come to town,” catcher Dalton Rushing said after hitting two home runs in the Dodgers’ 14-2 win. “And rightfully so, after what we did tonight. But yeah, I think we all just look forward to carrying it over to tomorrow and leave our mark in Toronto once again.”
Rushing, giving Game 7 hero Will Smith a day off, recorded the first multi-homer, four-hit game of his major league career.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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It was Rushing’s third start of the season and first time playing on consecutive days. The 25-year-old also homered Sunday in Washington.
“I learned a lot from last year,” Rushing said. “Last year, mentally, I was in a tough spot playing the role that I was, and just kind of trying to figure out how you play that role. And this year, I have a little better understanding.
“You’re not going to show up and have a game like that tonight. You’re not going to show up and get two hits every game, whether you’re playing every day or you’re playing every three days. And that was maybe it was just a pill I had to swallow a little bit. I’m just glad I could see results tonight.”
Kyle Tucker singles in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night.
(Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
From Bill Shaikin: Fans lined up before the game, waiting patiently for the chance to take a selfie with trophies that commemorated the back-to-back World Series championships.
Dodger Stadium is not the only place you can do this. The trophies were from 1992 and 1993, and they honored the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Dodgers matched that back-to-back feat over the past two years, including a classic Game 7 victory in Toronto in last year’s World Series, and returned here Monday to a noise pit packed with fans primed to boo, and to urge their team to exact vengeance on the evil mercenaries from America.
On this night, the mercenaries prevailed, in a pummeling so relentless and a silencing so rapid that a three-peat appeared all but inevitable: Dodgers 14, Blue Jays 2.
Michigan players celebrate after defeating Connecticut for the NCAA men’s basketball title on Monday night.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
From the Associated Press: This title for Michigan’s newest Fab Five will look better in the trophy case than a time capsule.
Hard to be too picky — this new-age group of ballers in maize and blue showed they can win any which way.
The five fabulous transfers who make up coach Dusty May’s starting lineup got down and dirty with the rest of the Wolverines to dig out the national championship on Monday. Michigan made only two three-pointers all night but still muscled its way to a 69-63 victory over stingy, stubborn Connecticut.
Elliot Cadeau led the Wolverines with 19 points, including the team’s first three, which came 7:04 into the second half. The second, from freshman Trey McKenney, came with 1:50 left and felt like a dagger, giving May’s team — which had scored 90 points in five straight March Madness games leading to the final — a nine-point lead.
Kings forward Scott Laughton celebrates with goaltender Anton Forsberg after the Kings’ 3-2 shootout win over the Nashville Predators at Crypto.com Arena on Monday.
(Scott Strazzante / Associated Press)
From the Associated Press:Adrian Kempe scored the only goal of the shootout in the second round, and the Kings tightened the Western Conference playoff race with a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators on Monday night.
The Kings have played in overtime in seven of its last 10 games — and 32 this season.
Joel Armia opened the scoring for the Kings and Scott Laughton made it a 2-1 lead in the second period. Jared Wright has an assist in a career-best three straight games for L.A.
Neto launched a leadoff shot on Chris Sale’s first pitch, and Soriano (3-0) struck out 10 as the Angels won their third consecutive game. The right-hander gave up one run and three hits without issuing a walk, throwing 69 of his 96 pitches for strikes.
Soriano gave up a solo homer to Drake Baldwin and a single to Matt Olson in the first, then retired 19 straight batters before Mike Yastrzemski led off the eighth with a single.
Tiger Woods celebrates after winning the Masters in April 2019. Woods was arrested on a DUI charge in Florida last month and will not compete at the Masters this week.
In the wake of last month’s rollover car accident and DUI charge, the five-time Masters winner has stepped away from golf indefinitely and reportedly could be receiving treatment in Switzerland for an addiction to painkillers.
“He’s not immune to it just because he can hit a golf ball really well,” fellow competitor Jason Day said. “He’s had 25 to 30-something surgeries, and when you’re going through that many procedures, it’s painful coming out of those procedures. I’ve had procedures done and I typically try and stay away from all that stuff because I just know that — painkillers, there can potentially be a downfall to it.”
After spending her first two seasons with the Chicago Sky, the two-time All Star has been traded to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for first-round picks in 2027 and 2028, the teams announced Monday morning. Atlanta also receives the option to swap second-round picks with Chicago in 2028.
“An Angel’s DREAM,” Reese posted on X. “ATL WHAT UP?!”
Reese was already a star before coming to the WNBA after helping Louisiana State win the national championship over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in 2023 and leading the Tigers back to the Elite Eight the following year.
1940 — Jimmy Demaret wins the Masters by four strokes over Lloyd Mangrum. Mangrum opens with a 64, a course record by two strokes that stands for 46 years.
1946 — Herman Keiser edges Ben Hogan by one stroke to win the Masters.
1951 — Ben Hogan takes the Masters by two strokes over Robert Riegel.
1956 — Joe Graboski scores 29 points and Paul Arizin 26 as the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Fort Wayne Pistons 99-88 to win the NBA championship in five games.
1963 — Jack Nicklaus becomes the youngest Masters winner at 23, beating Tony Lema by a stroke.
1969 — Ted Williams begins managing the Washington Senators.
1985 — New Jersey’s Herschel Walker rushes for a USFL-record 233 yards in leading the Generals to a 31-25 victory over the Houston Gamblers. Walker breaks his own USFL record for the longest run from scrimmage by going 89 yards on his second carry.
1995 — Baseball exhibition season begins late due to strike.
1996 — Dave Andreychuk scores a goal for his 1,000th career point, and the New Jersey Devils top the New York Rangers 4-2.
1998 — Al MacInnis has a goal and an assist in St. Louis’ 5-3 loss at Detroit to become the sixth NHL defenseman to reach 1,000 points.
2000 — 1st regular season MLB game at Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park) in Houston.
2003 — Syracuse wins the NCAA title with an 81-78 victory over Kansas.
2007 — Michigan State beats Boston College 3-1 for its first NCAA hockey title in 21 years.
2008 — Mario Chalmers hits a 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, and Kansas goes on to defeat Memphis 75-68 for the NCAA title.
2009 — Tina Charles scores 25 points and grabs 19 rebounds and Connecticut routs Louisville 76-54 to capture its sixth women’s basketball title. UConn (39-0) wins every one of its 39 games by double digits, a first in college basketball.
2010 — Don Nelson sets the NBA career record for victories by a coach in the Golden State Warriors’ 116-107 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Nelson’s 1,333 wins surpass Lenny Wilkens’ total.
2014 — Shabazz Napier scores 22 points and Connecticut wins its second NCAA men’s title in four years, beating the freshmen-led Kentucky 60-54 in the championship game.
2015 — UConn’s women down Notre Dame 63-53 for their 10th NCAA championship. Coach Geno Auriemma ties UCLA’s John Wooden for the most titles in college basketball.
2016 — Ernie Els, winner of four major titles, opens with a 10 on the par-4 first hole at the Masters. After his first two shots, Els seven-putts from 2 feet. His sextuple bogey is the worst score on the first hole at the Masters, beating the old mark by two strokes.
2016 — The Golden State Warriors become the second team to win 70 games in a season by beating the San Antonio Spurs 112-101.
2018 — Vegas Golden Knights end regular season with most victories of any expansion team.
2019 — Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki play final NBA games.
2019 — Magic Johnson quits as President of Basketball Operations of the Lakers.
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.
Abas Aslani of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies argues that the US and Israel are playing “Russian roulette” with the Gulf’s environmental security following strikes near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant.
A workers’ union at the World Cup venue has asked FIFA to keep ICE agents away from the venue to alleviate their fears.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
A union representing about 2,000 food service workers at the Los Angeles Stadium has asked FIFA to keep United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) away from World Cup operations in the city and warned workers could strike if their concerns are not addressed.
Unite Here Local 11, which represents cooks, servers and bartenders at the Inglewood venue, said on Monday that the workers remain without a labour contract as the World Cup approaches.
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The union laid out three main demands to FIFA and stadium owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment: A public commitment that ICE and Border Patrol will play no role in the tournament, protections for union jobs and working conditions, and support for affordable housing for hospitality workers.
Acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, has said ICE would play a “key part” in the World Cup, a prospect the union said threatened worker and guest safety in Los Angeles.
Local 11 said it also wanted assurances that artificial intelligence and automation would not be used during the tournament to eliminate union jobs.
The union linked its labour demands to broader concerns over housing costs in the Los Angeles area, particularly in Inglewood, and called for support for a workforce housing fund, restrictions on short-term rentals and tax measures aimed at funding affordable housing and immigrant family protections.
“FIFA and its corporate sponsors will pocket billions from Los Angeles while refusing to even acknowledge the cooks, servers, and stand attendants who make this event possible,” Kurt Petersen, co-president of Local 11, said in a statement.
The union said it had repeatedly sought meetings with FIFA since Los Angeles was chosen as a host city, but had been ignored.
The venue is known as the SoFi Stadium, but has been rebranded to the Los Angeles Stadium for the World Cup due to sponsor clashes.
Los Angeles is set to host eight World Cup matches at the stadium, the first being the US against Paraguay on June 12.
The first tranche of these – 1,000 of them – were meant to be created this summer. But the government has now withdrawn those after the BMA announced it was taking strike action. It comes after 30,000 applicants applied for 10,000 jobs last summer, although some of these were foreign doctors.
A US-Israeli strike has caused extensive damage to a synagogue in Tehran, according to a video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency. Footage shows civil defence workers amid the rubble, with Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground.
Arrest comes after Roberts-Smith lost case against journalists who said he was involved in murders of unarmed Afghan men.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
Former Australian special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested at Sydney airport and is expected to face charges for alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The 47-year-old was expected to appear in a court in New South Wales later on Tuesday over five counts of the war crime of murder, related to unarmed Afghan nationals who “were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder”, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday, according to the ABC.
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Barrett said the charges followed a “complex” investigation by the AFP news agency and the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) dating back to 2021.
The arrest comes after Roberts-Smith lost defamation proceedings he brought against journalists who had reported he was “complicit in and responsible for the murder” of three Afghan men.
An Australian judge found in 2023 that those journalists had not defamed Roberts-Smith, a ruling that was upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in May last year.
Rawan Arraf, the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, said the arrest was a “significant and long-awaited step for victims and affected communities” in Afghanistan, where Roberts-Smith was deployed multiple times.
“The proper investigation and prosecution of alleged war crimes by members of the Australian special forces in Afghanistan are essential to ensuring justice for Afghan victims and to Australia meeting its obligations under international law,” Arraf said in a statement.
About 39,000 Australian soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan as part of the United States and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and other armed groups over two decades.
Roberts-Smith’s case has drawn considerable scrutiny in Australia, including because prior to the charges, he had received the Victoria Cross medal for his fifth tour of Afghanistan, and was reportedly the most-decorated living Australian war veteran.
Meanwhile, former Australian army lawyer David McBride remains imprisoned in Australia over his role in revealing information about alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
Australian Senator David Shoebridge responded to the news of Roberts-Smith’s arrest by saying “Release David McBride” in a short post on X.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
An advanced imaging infrared seeker from a U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile interceptor looks to have been recovered largely intact in Syria. This could be a major intelligence loss that may allow adversaries to gain valuable insights into the capabilities of THAAD, which is being very heavily employed in the current conflict with Iran. THAAD has also been an important player in blunting previous Iranian missile barrages against Israel, and is a key component of the U.S. military’s global missile defense architecture.
A video, seen below, began circulating on social media earlier today showing the THAAD seeker, as well as other portions of the interceptor, on the ground. The clip is said to have been shot in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Suwayda in the southwestern corner of the country, though TWZ cannot immediately verify this independently. However, Suwayda is some 25 miles north of the border with Jordan and around 55 miles to the east of Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries. The U.S. military is currently reported to have THAAD batteries in Israel and Jordan.
As its name indicates, THAAD is designed to intercept short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of flight. Depending on a variety of factors, including the physical position of the launcher relative to the threat, the system can attempt intercepts against targets just as they begin their descent into Earth’s atmosphere.
A Missile Defense Agency graphic giving a very general overview of how THAAD executes an intercept using its organic AN/TPY-2 radar. MDA
After launch, the so-called “kill vehicle” at the front end detaches from the rocket booster at the rear. A shroud at the front, which covers the seeker and the rest of the kill vehicle, also breaks away. That shroud is also seen on the ground in the newly emerged video.
The remains of the THAAD interceptor’s nose shroud seen in the newly emerged video. capture via X
Freed from the shroud, the kill vehicle uses its conformal infrared seeker to find and home in on the target missile. In general, imaging infrared has the benefit of being a passive guidance method that is immune to radiofrequency countermeasures, such as jamming or decoys designed to mimic the radar signature of a real threat.
THAAD’s interceptors are hit-to-kill types that are designed to destroy their targets through sheer force of impact. As such, the kill vehicles do not contain any kind of explosive warhead. Each one does have several small rocket motors that help it precisely maneuver into position to slam into the incoming missile. These are collectively known as the Divert and Attitude Control System (DACS).
A graphic the Missile Defense Agency has released in the past, offering a general breakdown of the THAAD interceptor’s components. MDA
“The unique DACS provides two kinds of propulsion: one for attitude control and another for kill-vehicle maneuvering. The DACS uses six thrusters to provide roll, pitch, and yaw control for the interceptor,” according to L3Harris, which supplies this component of the interceptor. “These thrusters work together to precisely stabilize the interceptor-seeker field of view for proper target visibility. The seeker’s target data are then converted into maneuvering or divert commands that actuate the other four DACS thrusters as required. The four divert thrusters provide short, forceful pulses to quickly and accurately position the THAAD kill vehicle for target intercept.”
In the video, the entire kill vehicle is intact enough that the ports for some of these rockets are plainly visible.
Two of the ports through which rockets fire to help the THAAD kill vehicle maneuver can be seen in this capture from the video that emerged online earlier today. capture via X
The fact that the kill vehicle and shroud were recovered on the ground so close together and in relatively good condition points to a failure of some kind, but the exact circumstances remain unknown. What has since happened to the debris is also not known.
Gaining access to a THAAD interceptor seeker, as well as the rest of the kill vehicle, would give an adversary new insights into its performance envelope and other capabilities. That information could then be used in the development of new countermeasures, as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures to reduce the interceptor’s effectiveness. This would be on top of what Iran, as well as countries like Russia and China, have already been gleaning just from observing THAAD’s performance in the current conflict, as well as prior engagements.
Deep intelligence exploitation of the physical design of the seeker and the kill vehicle, as well as the materials used to make them, could be beneficial for supporting other developments, as well. The kill vehicle and the systems within have to survive the stresses of traveling at hypersonic speeds, typically defined as anything above Mach 5, as it screams toward its target. Adversaries like China could leverage this information to improve their own anti-ballistic missile capabilities or attempt to clone THAAD more directly.
A full-scale model of a THAAD seeker is prepared for a test in a high-speed wind tunnel. USAF
Though we do not know what happened to the THAAD seeker and the rest of the kill vehicle seen in the video, this may not be the last time we see such debris in Syria or elsewhere in the region, given how extensively these interceptors are being used as Iranian ballistic missile attacks continue.
US President Donald Trump said ‘Tuesday will be power plant day’ in a vulgar post on social media. He says the US plans to start bombing electricity infrastructure unless Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz. Al Jazeera’s Hala Al Shami looks at Iran’s power plants and the dangers of potential attacks.
United States Vice President JD Vance is travelling to Budapest to bolster support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz Party faces its most difficult election in over a decade.
The White House announced last week that Vance would arrive in Hungary on Tuesday and hold two days of bilateral meetings.
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In February, US President Donald Trump endorsed right-wing leader Orban ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the country that month to show support.
Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University in the US who has spent years as an analyst and critic of Orban’s government, says that the trip is meant to underscore the close relationship between Trump and his Hungarian counterpart.
“Orban will make a big deal out of the fact that he’s got Trump’s support. And that’s why Vance is coming,” she said, adding that she is sceptical that Vance’s trip will have a large impact on the outcome of the election.
“If you look at the polls in Hungary, they show the opposition with an 8 to 12 percent lead, in some recent polls up to a 20 percent lead. One visit by a relatively low-profile American vice president is not going to change that.”
Fidesz party voter Gergo Farkas takes part in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s election campaign rally with his friends in Szombathely, Hungary, April 2, 2026 [Marton Monus/Reuters]
Robust opposition
Orban’s 16-year tenure has been marked by the erosion of the independence of institutions such as the judiciary and the media, as well as reforms that critics say have slanted the electoral system in favour of Orban and his Fidesz party.
But despite what the opposition has described as a deeply imbalanced electoral environment, most polls show the 62-year-old Orban trailing the 45-year-old opposition leader, Peter Magyar, and his Tisza Party.
Magyar is a former high-ranking Fidesz official who broke with the party two years ago and has emerged as a popular voice railing against Orban’s rule.
His campaign has focused on corruption, deteriorating social services, economic conditions, and Orban’s combative relationship with the European Union, which has often centred on immigration and support for Ukraine.
The European Union suspended billions of euros in funding for Hungary in 2022 over what it characterised as democratic backsliding and declining judicial independence.
Magyar has pledged a more cordial relationship with the European bloc, as well as reforms that could lead to the restoration of suspended funds.
While Orban has depicted the opposition as a destabilising force that will sell out the country’s national interests on behalf of Ukraine and the EU, Magyar’s right-leaning politics mean that policies on issues such as immigration would see little change.
“Magyar is centre-right; he’s basically a believer in much of what Orban has done, minus the corruption. In EU terms, he’s slightly eurosceptical but wants to get the money back,” said Scheppele.
Peter Magyar, Hungarian opposition leader of the ‘Tisza’ (Respect and Freedom) Party, delivers a speech at a demonstration during commemorations of the 178th anniversary of the 1948-49 Hungarian Revolution on March 15, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary [Janos Kummer/Getty Images]
Blueprint for the US right
While Orban’s approach to consolidating power and his embrace of far-right politics have mired his relationships in Europe, they have made him a source of inspiration for the US far right and prominent members of the Trump administration, such as JD Vance.
Hungary has previously hosted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual summit where individuals and groups from across the US right and allies from other countries gather to discuss the future of the conservative movement.
When CPAC convened in Budapest in 2024, Trump sent a video praising Orban for “proudly fighting on the front lines of the battle to rescue Western civilisation”.
Shared ire for Muslims, immigrants, and centres of liberal politics such as universities has helped cement that bond, and Vance himself has enjoyed especially close relations with Orban’s government.
When he was selected as Trump’s running mate in July 2024, Orban’s political director shared a photo of himself posing with Vance, captioned: “A Trump-Vance administration sounds just right.”
Orban’s Hungary has been at the centre of the Trump administration’s shifting policy towards Europe, firmly aligning itself with far-right parties and immigration restrictionists in countries such as France and Germany.
Scheppele says that Orban’s relationship with the Trump administration and status as an icon of the global far right may be of limited use in an election that is mostly focused on domestic issues.
But she noted that more tangible steps, such as a pledge of US financial support from the Trump administration if Orban wins, could buoy his chances in the closing days of the race.
“The big thing to watch is that, when Orban came to the US recently, Trump appeared to promise a fiscal safety net if Orban wins,” said Scheppele, adding that the US took similar steps before the 2025 midterm elections in Argentina in order to bolster right-wing ally Javier Milei, now the country’s president.
“Trump hasn’t made that kind of formal promise, and he’s now denied that he made any specific promise. But the Orban people think that Trump is going to backstop them if they win the election,” Scheppele added. “If Vance makes that kind of announcement, it could be a real game-changer.”
Political analyst Trita Parsi says no one should be surprised that Iran has rejected the idea of a ceasefire deal with the US and Israel, given their history of violating previous agreements.
‘It’s a historic day… but don’t forget to enjoy the view.’
Four astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II mission have broken the record for the farthest human travel from Earth. The record of 400,171km was set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Bleeding from injuries incurred ejecting from his F-15E Strike Eagle fighter and climbing a craggy mountain to escape, the U.S. Air Force Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) hid out in a crevice as both rescuers and Iranians frantically searched for him. Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered new details about the complex and dangerous missions to rescue the WSO and pilot – call signs DUDE44 Bravo and DUDE44 Alpha – whose Strike Eagle had been shot down April 3, the first loss of crewed aircraft to enemy fire during Epic Fury. While they offered the government’s take on events, other details emerged that we will address later in this story.
These rescue missions involved hundreds of troops, scores of aircraft and diversion operations over more than a half dozen different parts of Iran. It required risking the lives of many of those personnel to recover the two airmen.
President Trump News Conference After U.S. Airmen Rescue in Iran
The WSO’s recovery occurred on Easter Sunday some 50 hours after being shot down. It all began in the early morning hours of April 3 in Iran. After the F-15E was shot down, officials at U.S. Central Command received a message that would kick start the operation.
“A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle, call sign DUDE44… was down in hostile Iranian territory, the pilot and weapon systems officer had both safely ejected and were isolated behind enemy lines,” Caine told reporters during a White House briefing. “Following confirmation of active rescue beacons, and on the direction of the Secretary [of War Pete Hegseth] and by order of the President, a rescue operation was launched with the stated purpose of bringing both Americans home safely.”
The downing of an F-15E Strike Eagle, like the one pictured, set off missions to recover its crew. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jackson Manske) (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jackson Manske)
A US Air Force combat search and rescue (CSAR) task force was quickly spun up, Caine explained. It included 10 A-10C Thunderbolt II close support jets, HC-130J Combat King CSAR planes, HH-60W Jolly Green II CSAR helicopters and Air Force special operations airmen.
“A package comprised of combat rescue officers and pararescuemen operators audaciously penetrated enemy territory in broad daylight to find, fix and recover DUDE44 Alpha from behind enemy lines,” Caine proffered.
As the CSAR package, protected by a fighter strike package, crossed into Iran, “A-10s and …drones and other tactical aircraft were violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close in gunfight to keep them away from the front seater and allow the pickup force to get into the objective area,” Caine noted. During this engagement, one of the A-10s – “the one primarily responsible for communicating with the downed pilot, was hit by enemy fire,” said Caine. “This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable… The pilot then made the decision to eject over friendly territory, and was quickly and safely recovered and is doing fine.”
A strike package of 10 A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jets protected the mission to rescue the pilot of the F-15E Strike Eagle downed over Iran. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jamal D. Sutter/Released) Tech. Sgt. Jamal Sutter
After picking up the F-15E pilot, the HH 60W Jolly Green “was engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits,” Caine told reporters. “The crew sustained minor injury, and they are going to be fine.”
“The A-10 force and the rescue force did a fantastic job rescuing DUDE44 Alpha,” Caine continued. “He was recovered Friday afternoon, as I said, and the nation needs to know this. This was an incredibly brave and courageous mission, and a testament to the courage, skill and tenacity of the joint force and our leaders, and especially a daylight option.”
Rescuing the pilot was only the first step. The WSO was still out there, alone and being hunted by the military and civilians. Officials in Tehran put out a large bounty for his recovery. If was captured or killed, it would have been a tremendous propaganda coup for Iran and a huge problem for America.
“Meanwhile, the second crew member, the weapon system officer, a highly respected colonel, had landed a significant distance away from the pilot,” Trump explained. “When you’re going at those speeds, even if you go out two or three seconds later, it’s miles and miles away, because you’re going fast.”
The Death-Defying Mechanics of Fighter Jet Ejections | Cars Insider
The WSO “was injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a rough group, as well as the Basij militia and local authorities,” recounted Trump, who was watching it all unfold in real time. “Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture.”
“He scaled cliff faces bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds and contacted American forces to transmit his location,” the president continued. “They have a very sophisticated beeper type apparatus that is on them at all times.”
The WSO was located thanks in large measure to help from the CIA.
“As an agency, the CIA possesses unique capabilities that only the president can deploy,” said its director, John Ratcliffe, who also spoke at the presser. “Some of these capabilities fall under covert action authorities, and because covert means exactly that I’m not going to be able to tell you everything that you want to know. At the President’s direction, we deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses to a daunting challenge, comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”
Trump praised Ratcliffe and the agency.
“And John Ratcliffe was incredible,” the president proffered. “It was actually their genius that called us from – he was 40 miles away – and he said, ‘you know, we’re seeing something moving up in a mountain.’ It’s at night And they kept the camera on for 45 minutes. He wasn’t moving. And they said, ‘you know, probably wrong, but we’re seeing something moving.’ This a man, vast mountain, vast thick with bushes, trees. He said, ‘We see something moving 40 miles away…I’m telling you, it’s moving.’ And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot, stood up, and they said, ‘we have him.’”
“And that was really the beginning of something incredible,” Trump added. “We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That’s big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA too. I don’t think they get enough credit for the great job they’ve done.”
Donald Trump personally takes credit for finding still captured WSO. Trump claims CIA was using camera technology looking at side of entire mountain, and barely noticed a head move. He found him.
Once the WSO was located, “[w]e immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain,” Trump continued. “He kept going higher and higher. The mountain kept getting rougher and rougher, and was really, very, very hard to find. The second rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and more.”
U.S. Dropped 100 Massive Bombs During Rescue Mission. The U.S. focused on destroying roads near the rescue site to prevent Iranians from closing in on American forces and aircraft. Some of the craters in the roads can be seen from satellite imagery. https://t.co/xakYNDresc
All these assets, however, weren’t just for the spot where the WSO was located. Many of these aircraft were taking part in diversion efforts to throw Iranians off the trail.
“We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge,” Trump stated. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location, because they had a vast military force out there, thousands and thousands of people were looking. So we wanted them to look in different areas. So we were scattered all over, like we were right on top of them. We had seven different locations where they thought, and they were very confused. They said, ‘Well, wait a minute, they’ve got groups here. They’ve got groups there.’”
As the WSO hid, the military had created a forward arming and refueling point on a farm, Trump noted. You can read more about how the Air Force would set up and defend such a location in our interview with a former Air Force Special Tactics Squadron airman here.
Airmen from the 17th Special Operations Squadron and 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron forward area refueling point team members prepare an MC-130J Commando II to deliver fuel during nighttime training Aug. 17, 2017, at Kadena Air Base, Japan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Omari Bernard) Staff Sgt. Omari Bernard
That location, the president proffered, was less than ideal for such operations, which involved landing two heavily loaded MC-130J Commando II special operations cargo planes that included several H-6 Little Bird special operations helicopters among other equipment in their holds.
“This was not much of a runway,” the president stated, adding that the ground was wet and sandy, making landing, and especially takeoff, a challenge. “This was a farm, not a runway. It’s a farm. But it did the trick.”
After the wounded WSO was found, he was whisked back to the FARP, but getting him and the aircraft brought in to help find him was a tremendous challenge.
Trump said that with the MC-130s stuck in the wet, sandy soil, “we blew them up to smithereens.” The Little Birds were also blown up in place as well, because the aircraft that replaced the Commando IIs weren’t capable of exfilling them.
The wreckage of an MC-130J Commando II and a H-6 Litter Bird after it reportedly got stuck during the operation to rescue the downed F-15E weapons system operator and later blown up by the U.S. so it would not fall into Iranian hands. (Iranian media)
To replace the C-130s, “lighter, faster aircraft came in, and they took them out,” Trump said about the personnel and equipment. He was almost certainly referring to the CASA C-295W, a short take off and landing (STOL) twin turboprop that are modified for the special operations role.
A video has previously emerged said to show a C-295W flying at extremely low altitude in the general vicinity of the crash site. The U.S. Air Force operates a handful of these aircraft, likely assigned to the secretive 427th Special Operations Squadron. This unit is known to specialize in covert and clandestine infiltration and exfiltration missions, among other duties.
You can see that video below.
Casa C-295W Perssauder from the USAF’s 427th SOS from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina low level over Iran today. 😎💪
About a month ago, these guys were practicing low-level flying around 200ft AGL around North Carolina and one person thought it was a plane crashing, called 911 and… pic.twitter.com/rvSKvPHRMq
During the press conference, Trump pointed out not everyone in the military was in agreement that the U.S. should commit so many resources, human and equipment, to such a dangerous effort to rescue two men.
“There was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it,” explained the president. “There were military people that said, ‘you just don’t do this. You don’t go into the heart of a very powerful military.’”
Trump of course listened instead to Caine and Hegseth, each of whom implored him to green light the missions.
🚨WOW! President Trump just revealed that there were military officials who OPPOSED the CSAR operation for the F-15 pilot downed over Iran:
Thank God Gen. Dan Caine and SecWar Pete Hegseth were there!
Now with the official account of the mission behind us, here are some additional details about the rescue that were reported elsewhere.
The communication device the airmen used was the CSEL, or Combat Survivor Evader Locator, according to Ynet. The manufacturer, Boeing, describes it as being “like a global 911 emergency call system for downed personnel, providing U.S. forces with a tactical advantage.”
The CSEL system uses a flexible, modular communications architecture over multiple satellite links for secure communications and sends simple messages in bursts, with a low probability of intercept (LPI). These messages can include basic information about the status of the downed airman. It can then switch to less stealthy line-of-sight radio when extraction forces are nearby.
Approximately 14 hours after the jet was hit, “U.S. officials got a lock on the weapons officer’s location via a beacon he was carrying.” According to The New York Times, in addition to the CSEL, the CIA “used a special piece of technology unique to the agency to locate the airman hiding in the mountain crevice and confirm his identity.”
Intelligence gathered by U.S. and Israeli officials was put together to determine if the airman was alone, surrounded by Iranians, or whether they had been captured, and this was an attempt to dupe them, The New York Times noted.
Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed that Israel had assisted the U.S. military in the rescue, according to the Times of Israel. Netanyahu said he had spoken to President Trump and “congratulated him on his bold decision and a perfectly executed American mission.”
“The president expressed his appreciation for Israel’s help,” Netanyahu added. “I am deeply proud that our cooperation on and off the battlefield is unprecedented, and that Israel could contribute to saving a brave American warrior.”
Unconfirmed reports identify two particular Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commando units, which, it is claimed, helped in the CSAR mission. These are Sayeret Matkal and Unit 5101 “Shaldag.”
Sayeret Matkal is an elite special reconnaissance unit of the IDF. As well as conducting deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines, the unit can be tasked with a wide variety of special operations, including CSAR and hostage rescue.
Shaldag is an Israeli Air Force special forces unit, based at Palmachim Air Base. It specializes in clandestine operations, and as well as CSAR and hostage rescue, it is proficient at commando-style raids and long-range penetration within enemy territory.
🚨 BREAKING : Two Israeli commando units — Sayeret Matkal and Unit 5101 “Shaldag” — participated in the rescue of the American pilot near Isfahan, according to the latest reports.
•Sayeret Matkal is the IDF’s elite general‑purpose commando unit with deep‑penetration and… pic.twitter.com/aJuCxqizqr
To try and buy more time, the CIA put together a deception plan, throwing the Iranians off the scent by making it look as if the airman had been found and was being moved out of the country in a ground convoy, which would take them to the coast for a maritime exfiltration.
U.S. DECEPTION CAMPAIGN: The CIA leaked through multiple sources that they were trying to move a valuable package out of the country through a maritime exfil, I’m told by a senior U.S. official.
This was meant to draw the Iranians away from the area where the U.S. crew member…
Meanwhile, one of several Iranian search parties had assembled at the base of the mountain where the WSO was hiding.
Details about the rescue op for the U.S. Weapon Systems Officer, via a U.S. military official:
“The mountain top area on the left is where the WSO was hiding (he ejected 5ish miles northwest of there). The right area is the makeshift landing strip where they landed 2 C-130s… pic.twitter.com/iYJkzd5eTP
Forces deployed to the remote airstrip provided suppressive fire but did not engage in an actual firefight with the enemy. But the U.S. military took additional steps, “jamming electronics and bombing key roads around the location to prevent people from getting close,” in an area denial operation, Reuters reported, citing a U.S. source familiar with the planning said. Satellite imagery shows roads approaching the landing area were cratered in a uniform fashion with precision munitions.
NEW on CNN: Satellite imagery shows cratered roads in area where US staged airman rescue in Esfahan province.
Satellite images from Airbus taken on Sunday show dozens of craters along several roads in central Esfahan province, around 20 kilometers from a remote airstrip where US… pic.twitter.com/MJy7g5gdvA
There are reports from Fox News, citing high-ranking U.S. sources, that B-2 bombers were using Massive Ordnance Penetrators to strike an IRGC underground headquarters outside of the Iranian capital, Tehran, while the rescue was ongoing.
EXCLUSIVE: While the airman rescue was going on, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper directed a strike on an IRGC headquarters in an underground facility near Tehran. It was done with B2 bombers, using MOPs, the same weapon used in Midnight Hammer, high-level U.S. sources told… pic.twitter.com/jcEI9HMOSA
This rescue operation was certainly a bright spot for a White House and Pentagon beleaguered by global criticism of an unpopular war that has dragged on for more than a month with no clear end in sight. It also highlights that, no matter how much damage the U.S. and Israel have done to the Islamic Republic’s air defense infrastructure through a devastating aerial campaign, Iran still presents a danger to the aircrews flying in its airspace. Above all else, it is a reminder of just how far the U.S. will go and what it is willing to sacrifice in terms of lives and material in order to get their people back.
TWZ deputy editor Joe Trevithick contributed to this report.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Last month, images hit the internet showing a very stealthy, extremely long-endurance, very high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone commonly (and unofficially) referred to as the RQ-180, or an evolution thereof, landing at a base in Greece. Many questions remain about the uncrewed aircraft and why it might be operating from Larissa Air Base.
However, as we noted in our initial reporting, the current conflict with Iran would be a very relevant fit for what the RQ-180 was likely designed to do. Furthermore, a secretive late Cold War-era drone program known as Quartz, intended to persistently monitor mobile nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles deep within the Soviet Union, offers a window into exactly why the RQ-180 could be in high demand in the Middle East now. There is no higher-priority standing mission for Operation Epic Fury at this time than finding and destroying Iranian launchers.
In many ways, the shadowy Quartz program from decades ago was a progenitor for what became a very large flying wing uncrewed aircraft that shares the planform of the B-21 (and the original B-2 design) and is likely at least part of the RQ-180’s origin story.
Strange arrival over Greece
To recap quickly, on March 18, local Greek news website onlarissa.gr first published pictures of what it misidentified as a B-2 bomber landing at Larissa Air Base, also known as Larissa National Airport. The base, which belongs to the Hellenic Air Force, but is also known to host U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones, is situated in the city of the same name.
This aircraft seen over Larissa, Greece is not a B-2 like the local Greek news reported or an RQ-170, but is in fact best imagery ever published of the RQ-180, an undisclosed low observable drone used by the USAF. Location suggests use in the Iran conflict https://t.co/Pa9whNlQSVpic.twitter.com/UsDxy9Tc4n
Onlarissa.gr outlet followed up its initial reporting by posting a video of the drone, seen below. Additional and increasingly more detailed imagery has subsequently emerged.
Το αμερικανικό βομβαρδιστικό Β-2 πάνω από τον ουρανό της Λάρισας
Per onlarissa.gr, the highly exotic aircraft had landed at Larissa after experiencing some kind of technical issue, citing unnamed sources. This remains unconfirmed, but it would explain why the drone touched down in broad daylight, rather than coming in under the cover of darkness. It could also have diverted there with an emergency, while operating out of another location, even one in the continental United States. It is worth noting that Larissa Air Base appears to have unique facilities built in recent years that seem to be very well suited for housing an aircraft like this.
TWZ previously reached out to U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and the Pentagon for comment, but has not received any responses as of the time of writing. In a story published on March 24, Air & Space Forces Magazine said U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) also declined to comment.
Attention was also subsequently called to U.S. Air Force cargo planes having been tracked making unusual flights from Edwards Air Force Base in California to Larissa recently. One of those flights came on February 25, while another one occurred on March 9. A C-5M also flew to Larissa from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma on February 25, according to Aviation Week. Whether there is any connection between these flights and the drone spotted at the base has not been confirmed at this time. Edwards is the Air Force’s main hub for aviation test and evaluation efforts, and flight testing of the RQ-180 was reportedly at least managed from there in the 2010s. The Air Force could also have moved other assets to Larissa via Edwards.
These photos are really interesting as they explain the two C-17s which flew from Edwards Air Force Base to Larissa Air Base in Greece in early March and late February.
The current state of the RQ-180, or any designs that have evolved from it, on a programmatic level, is very murky. In addition to testing at Edwards, past reports have said that a unit at Beale Air Force Base in California began flying the drones operationally, at least on a limited level, by 2019. There has been talk of a large flying wing aircraft similar in configuration to the B-21 Raider bomber flying out of Plant 42 in Palmdale, also in California, under the cover of darkness for years.
There are very strong indications that a photograph that appeared on Instagram in October 2020 of an unmanned aircraft flying in the skies over California’s Mojave Desert near Edwards Air Force Base was the first sighting of an RQ-180. That picture also notably showed a drone with an overall white paint scheme. That aligned with a report from Aviation Week that the design had gained the nicknames “Great White Bat” and “Shikaka.” The latter of these is the name of a fictional sacred white bat that is at the center of the plot of the 1995 Jim Carrey comedy Ace Ventura 2. The drone seen recently flying over Larissa has an overall black or otherwise dark-colored paint job. TWZ has noted previously that an overall white/cream/light pastel color scheme could help the drone to hide better at high altitudes during the day, but that a dark scheme would be more relevant at night. It is very possible, if not probable, that multiple schemes have been tested for a drone expected to fly sorties lasting multiple days.
A notional rendering of the Northrop Grumman drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180. Hangar B Productions
There certainly has been no clear evidence, at Beale or anywhere else, of the establishment of the kind of infrastructure that one would associate with the RQ-180 reaching a more advanced operational state and serial production. It is possible that the drone could share facilities with the B-21 under the larger umbrella of the Long Range Strike (LRS) family of systems. The RQ-180 is very likely intended, in part, to work in concert with the Raider, and there may even be some commonality between the two aircraft. The RQ-180 and/or related designs very likely played a direct role in risk reduction efforts that helped sell the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) concept, and possibly the win by Northrop Grumman of that contract.
B-21 Takeoff and Landing
So, where the RQ-180 stands in terms of its overall capacity and its future remains unclear, but they are clearly being used on operational sorties, at least in a limited manner.
Iranian missile threats persist
After more than five weeks of fighting, the conflict with Iran is still grinding on. Despite the United States and Israel having substantially degraded the ability of Iranian forces to launch retaliatory missile and drone strikes, they have not stopped entirely. Iran has been digging out underground missile bases struck by American and Israeli forces and getting them back into operation, sometimes within hours, The New York Times reported just last Friday, citing U.S. intelligence reports. That followed other reports stating that Iran still retains a vast arsenal of missiles and drones, as well as a significant number of launchers to fire them.
U.S. forces drop precision munitions on underground military targets deep inside Iran to further degrade the Iranian regime’s ability to project power in meaningful ways beyond its borders. pic.twitter.com/ciQRbE0KFM
In recent weeks, publicly available data from multiple sources has, at times, shown relatively small, but noticeable upticks in Iran’s launches. There are also signs that more of those threats are evading interception, though whether this has translated to more damage and/or casualties from impacts is unclear.
Iran’s missile and drone arsenal has taken a hit, but what remains is being used more efficiently. Tehran continues fire an average of 21 missiles per week — with an uptick in its hit rate and ability to impose costs.
The talking point of “launches are down 90% since day 1” is true but so is “launches are up since last week”. The latter is the more important indicator at the moment. https://t.co/Oa4sZPOgWx
When it comes to launchers, Iran has invested heavily over the years in road mobile designs for firing ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones. This includes types that can be hard to distinguish from normal civilian trucks, especially those used for launching short-range ballistic missiles.
✈️🎯60+ strike flights: The IAF completed additional waves of strikes in western Iran targeting the Iranian regime’s missile launchers, defense systems, and live-fire arrays. pic.twitter.com/I1rRLBJlUR
Iran also has extensive underground ‘missile cities’ and other hardened sites that launchers can sprint to and from, and even fire from within in some cases. Beyond the main missile storage and launch sites, Iranian authorities have clearly had plans to disperse these weapons across the country. Reports have said that more authority to employ them has been delegated to lower echelons of command to minimize the impacts of separate U.S. and Israeli strikes on command and control nodes, as well.
On top of all this, Iran still has longer-ranged ballistic missiles that it can fire from areas further to the east, where the volume of U.S. and Israeli strikes has only more recently begun to grow. What’s left of Iran’s air defenses, which presents a real threat, is therefore likely to be more intact in those regions. In general, many of Iran’s air defense systems are also road mobile and can pop-up suddenly. All of this creates challenges for finding and fixing Iran’s remaining launch capacity, let alone neutralizing it.
Three weeks of Operation Epic Fury.
The Joint Force owns the skies, but Tehran holds the Strait. Additional U.S. fighter aircraft and naval assets arrived in both theaters, and Marine expeditionary forces are en route.
The Israeli Air Force has dropped over 16,000 bombs in Iran since the start of the war, in over 800 waves of strikes, the military says.
According to the IDF, over 10,000 separate strikes have been carried out on 4,000 targets. pic.twitter.com/gkU4rW4s8T
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) April 1, 2026
In this context, there is a clear need to be able to readily detect launchers, which can pop out suddenly and unexpectedly from cover, across vast areas. Known missile storage sites and launch areas around them also need to be persistently surveilled. The ability to find launchers faster opens up new options for striking them. Just tracking and recording their typical movements would also help further refine interdiction and intelligence-gathering strategies going forward.
As TWZ has previously explored in great depth, the RQ-180 is best understood as a very high-flying, very long-endurance, and very stealthy intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance platform that is capable of penetrating and persisting deep into enemy airspace. Its primary means of achieving that mission would be a radar with ground moving target indicator (GMTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capabilities, but radar would be just the primary component of a larger sensor package, which would likely include powerful electro-optical sensors and passive radiofrequency ones.
At its most basic, GMTI allows battle managers to see the enemy’s ground movements in real-time and then quickly adapt their game plan to counter those enemy forces before they can ever attack, or even pose a threat to friendly forces. GMTI is also a critical capability for detecting changes in force posture, establishing patterns of enemy movements over time, and identifying new targets of interest. Modern GMTI products can also be looped into a ‘kill web’ for rapid targeting purposes.
Some of this is also achieved through the aforementioned SAR mode, which basically provides a satellite-like image of a target area using radar. It also has the ability to see some things optical systems cannot, and, like GMTI, it can work under nearly all atmospheric conditions, day or night. When paired with GMTI, SAR can be used to help positively identify targets, as well as gain better situational awareness about the targets being tracked.
A generic example of GMTI tracks overlaid on top of a SAR image. Public Domain
Passive electronic intelligence collection that allows for radiofrequency-emitters to be quickly detected and geolocated via onboard antennas and interferometry-based computing is another part of the equation. Long-range optical sensors can also provide higher-fidelity intelligence and spot movements of infrared signatures over large areas. You can imagine how fuzing all these capabilities together, combined with advanced networking, on a single platform could be incredibly potent. Basically, detecting a target or target group of interest, and then training advanced sensors on it to rapidly build up a high-quality understanding of what is going on and even to provide real-time targeting data to ‘shooters’ would be this aircraft’s bread and butter.
All of these are capabilities that would be ideally suited to the very high-priority task at hand of searching for Iranian launchers across the country’s vast terrain.
This all brings us back to Quartz and the very specific mission set that drove that program. Quartz is the best-known codename for a drone conceived as part of what was officially dubbed the Advanced Airborne Reconnaissance System, or AARS program.
The lead-up to Quartz
AARS/Quartz was itself born out of a succession of earlier developments. Proving that using a stealth platform to penetrate enemy air defenses and to stay over contested territory for hours on end while transmitting data collected without being detected is one of the biggest revolutions in warfare of the 20th Century. This capability was demonstrated on the tactical side at the dawn of stealth technology by Northrop’s Tacit Blue. That aircraft was developed as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) highly classified Battlefield Surveillance Aircraft-Experimental (BSAX) program, which began in the late 1970s.
The Tacit Blue demonstrator. Northrop Grumman
Tacit Blue notably served as a periphery risk reduction effort for the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) program that would result in the B-2. However, its reason for being was to show that a stealthy aircraft carrying a huge radar can penetrate enemy air defenses and loiter for prolonged periods of time, collecting GMTI radar data and other intelligence information.
The radar for BSAX was a low probability of intercept design that had come from Pave Mover, another DARPA effort. Pave Mover ultimately led to the non-stealthy and now-retired E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft, but offshoots of that radar technology did end up elsewhere, including on the B-2. Low probability of intercept/low probability of detection (LPI/LPD) radars and communications suites are now key tenets of stealth aircraft design, in general. Keeping signal emissions, which an enemy can use to spot and track threats, to a minimum is critical for low-observable (stealthy) aircraft designs. Pave Mover was also tied into DARPA’s Assault Breaker program, which focused on proving out various technologies to enable standoff targeting of enemy forces, especially large Soviet armored formations on the move, deep behind the front lines.
An E-8C JSTARS aircraft. USAF/Senior Airman Jared Lovett
The famously ugly Tacit Blue, also nicknamed the “Whale,” produced results that were revolutionary, as you can read more about here. Even the most capable existing penetrating intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft available at the time, like the SR-71 Blackbird, could only take a snapshot in time of the enemy and its posture. Satellites were far more predictable and could only provide the same ‘moment in time’ intelligence, and in a much less flexible manner. Tacit Blue could watch for hours with the enemy not even knowing it was there.
An SR-71 Blackbird. Courtesy photo via USAF
This meant the quality of intelligence Tacit Blue was capable of collecting was of far greater value. Metaphorically speaking, the SR-71 was like documenting a wedding by loudly running through a crowd and snapping a few photos. Tacit Blue was like rolling hours of videotape at the same wedding by an invisible cameraman. It was an absolute game-changer. The information was also transmitted securely using a LPI data link in near-real-time so that it could be rapidly exploited, not once the aircraft returned to base.
A drone to hunt Soviet mobile ballistic missiles
AARS/Quartz can be seen as something of a strategic parallel to the more tactically-minded BSAX effort and the Tacit Blue demonstrator. It was conceived as a cooperative effort between the U.S. Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). NRO, the very existence of which was only declassified in 1992, is and has historically been responsible primarily for intelligence-gathering via satellite. However, it was also involved in ISR drone operations in the 1960s and 1970s.
The supersonic D-21 drone, seen here atop an M-21 mothership aircraft during a test, is one of the uncrewed aircraft programs NRO was involved in during the 1960s and 1970s. USAF
In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration grew concerned about a gap in reconnaissance assets, in the air and in space, to persistently track and monitor Soviet mobile nuclear-armed intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“As spy satellite systems came on line in the 1960s, they shared the same fundamental operational scheme as the SR-71. Both conducted reconnaissance with relative impunity but were so fast that they only provided episodic coverage. The Soviet system of fixed air bases, missile silos, and command centers of the Cold War’s first 30 years favored ‘fast pass’ reconnaissance, however, so its weaknesses were not evident until the strategic equation shifted in the late 1970s,” Thomas Ehrhard wrote in a monograph, titled Air Force UAVs: The Secret History, which the Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies published in 2010. “Soviet mobile missiles (both nuclear and air-to-air) and the advance of aviation technology opened the door for a true loitering surveillance UAV called AARS.”
Ehrhard pointed to three missiles as particular drivers behind the AARS program. The first of these was the road-mobile RSD-10 Pioneer, known in the West as the SS-20 Saber, a nuclear-armed intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with three warheads in a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration. The SS-20 had an immensely destabilizing impact on the security environment in Europe. Its appearance was a central factor in the United States and the Soviet Union ultimately signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987.
A Soviet RSD-10 Pioneer/SS-20 Saber IRBM, at left, alongside a U.S. Pershing II medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), at right, on display at the National Air and Space Museum. The INF treaty allowed for the preservation of a small number of demilitarized RSD-10/SS-20s and Pershing IIs, but the rest were destroyed. National Air and Space Museum
The other Soviet missiles that helped make the case for AARS/Quartz were two ICBMs, the rail-mobile RT-23 Molodets (SS-24 Scalpel) and the road-mobile RT-2PM/RS-12M Topol (SS-25 Sickle).
RT-23/SS-24 SCALPEL MOD 1 ICBM
RT-2PM/SS-25 SICKLE ICBM
In his 2010 monograph, Ehrhard describes the Reagan-era view of the resulting problem set as follows:
“The technological problem of holding these mobile missiles at risk, one that NATO had never solved with the SS-20, now became vastly more complex [with the inclusion of the SS-24 and SS-25]. U.S. forces had to constantly monitor their movement and electronic emissions, something neither fast-pass satellites, U-2s, nor the SR-71 could accomplish. The mission also entailed breaking the over two decade-long declaratory policy of not overflying the Soviet Union, a prospect the Reagan Administration apparently felt was worth the gain. To complicate matters further, they needed a platform that could track those missiles in a nuclear detonation environment while flying from remote bases in the continental US. Operating and receiving imagery from such a craft beyond line-of-sight using space relays would prove daunting. The political and design challenges loomed large, but in the end the Air Force/NRO/CIA consortium opted for a leap-ahead system.”
With all this in mind, AARS/Quartz was seen as a national imperative. The very long-endurance drone, penetrating deep into Soviet airspace, would be able to locate many of these threats, allowing them to be targeted during the opening throes of a potential apocalypse – something we will come back to later on.
By the mid-1980s, contracts were doled out to Lockheed and Boeing to develop what at the time could be seen as the most ambitious ‘silver bullet’ aerospace program of its time, albeit one that had very few eyes on it as it was deeply buried in the classified realm. Ehrhard writes:
“To accomplish the loitering surveillance mission, this UAV needed autonomous (i.e., not remote controlled), highly reliable flight controls, and a design capable of intercontinental ranges from bases in the US zone of the interior with extreme high altitude capability (long wingspan with sailplane-type lift and multi-engine propulsion to reach altitudes more than 70,000 feet). Moreover, it had to carry an array of high-resolution sensors, high-capacity satellite communications capabilities, and various antennas—all in a package that was stealthy to the point of being covert. The cost of developing each technology piece alone would be staggering, but integrating them presented an even greater challenge – thus the project became a magnet for the best and most starry-eyed technologists in the black world. As one CIA engineer said in an anonymous interview, this project was ‘the cat’s pajamas,’ and ‘the single most fun project I ever worked on’ because it stretched every conceivable technology area.”
Ehrhard does not elaborate on the expected sensor package, but an LPI/LPD radar with GMTI and SAR modes, as well as other sensors, would have been needed for a stealthy platform tasked with this mission set. As noted earlier, electronic emissions, which can be detected passively, were also seen at this time as a key way to spot and track mobile missile launchers.
A highly ambitious undertaking
By all indications, AARS/Quartz was seen as a very ambitious effort from the start, but one that could yield impressive capabilities needed to address a mission requirement critical to national security. It should be noted that the U.S. military was pursuing a host of advanced stealth aviation technology programs at around the same time. Many of the efforts would go on to produce real results, if they hadn’t already by the mid-1980s, and this is just based on what is known publicly. Northrop’s stealthy Tacit Blue demonstrator flew for the first time in 1982. Lockheed’s F-117 Nighthawk reached an initial operational capability the following year. The Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) program that would lead to the B-2 was well underway by this time, too.
Another look at the Tacit Blue demonstrator, as viewed from below. Northrop Grumman
In the end, AARS/Quartz did not fare as well as many of its contemporaries, at least from what we know. The program ran through the end of the Reagan years and into the 1990s under the administration of President George H.W. Bush. It morphed and changed hands considerably from a smaller ‘bleeding-edge’ NRO-led program into one that was integrated into a new national unmanned aircraft strategy. This, in turn, caused its mission set to balloon as a maelstrom of stakeholders demanded many capabilities out of a single platform that was already beyond the available technology of the era.
Ehrhard’s 2010 monograph sums up just how bloated AARS became by the 1990s:
“[David A.] Kier[, NRO’s Deputy Director from 1997 to 2001] said the large version of AARS, which according to some reports had a wingspan of 250 feet, cost less than a B-2, but more than $1 billion a copy. Reportedly, the production plan called for only eight vehicles at a cost of $10 billion, each of the vehicles capable of an amazing 40 hours on station after flying to the area of interest.”
“Air Force officials were so leery of the UAV’s autonomous flight concept (no pilot had moment-to-moment control) that they reportedly insisted the flying prototype carry a pilot to handle in-flight anomalies and that the final design include a modular, two-place cockpit insert to make it optionally piloted. ‘By the time everyone got their wishes included,’ Kier said, ‘it [AARS] had to do everything but milk the cow and communicate with the world while doing it.’”
“With all of AARS’s leading-edge sensors and communications links, each of which posed substantial technical challenges in its own right, flight reliability quickly became the biggest design hurdle, according to Kier. The technologies were so secret, and the value of the payload and the air vehicle was so great that its loss over unfriendly territory was unthinkable. One defense official remarked, ‘If one had crashed, it would have been so classified we would have had to bomb it to ensure it was destroyed.’”
“Sailing along on the glut of black money in the late 1980s, AARS kept moving forward despite its continually expanding, problematic requirements list. As happened with [the] D-21 and Compass Arrow [drone programs] in the early 1970s, however, AARS was about to have its most vital mission curtailed.”
A D-21 reconnaissance drone, also known by the codename Tagboard. USAF
“The end of the Cold War brought the expensive program to a halt. An Air Force general familiar with the project said: ‘When AARS was invented, there was more money than they [the NRO] could spend. After the Cold War, the money went away and projects like that could not possibly survive.’ Like predators stalking a wounded animal, manned alternatives to AARS emerged. One proposal would put a sophisticated target acquisition system on the B-2 stealth bomber –the so-called RB-2 configuration. The proposal had value as a terminal tracking system, but the RB-2 lacked a method of off-board cueing to direct it to a search area.”
…
“As it turned out, none of the alternative programs made the cut, for not only was the Cold War officially over with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the venerable Strategic Air Command was disbanded in June 1992. With that move, AARS lost its primary military constituent and the AARS alliance began to crumble.”
“…The Air Force pulled funding on AARS, and it was terminated in December 1992 by the intelligence community hierarchy just as it was to enter full scale development. AARS was, in the final analysis, a misfit. It was a major aircraft program backed by a satellite organization (the NRO), and a risky unmanned surveillance platform slated for a combat pilot-led Air Force—hardly an edifice solid enough to survive the removal of its strategic underpinnings. No one organization provided focus or advocacy for the program. As a result, the “perfect” surveillance UAV faded away even as the ultimate Cold War satellite system, Milstar, and the equally exotic B-2 stealth bomber managed to survive, backed as they were by one service, and powerful sub-groups within that service, who were culturally and operationally attuned to those configurations.”
A view of the official rollout ceremony for the B-2 bomber in 1988. USAF
Kier, who Ehrhard also identifies as the last AARS program manager, says the drone’s design ultimately evolved into something that “resembled a substantially scaled-up version of DARPA’s DarkStar.” Lockheed’s DarkStar, which eventually received the designation RQ-3, was a stealthy tailless design with an ovoid central fuselage and with very long, slender, and straight main wings. Boeing was also a major subcontractor for the RQ-3.
The RQ-3 DarkStar. USAF
DarkStar was also referred to as “Tier III-minus,” a moniker that reflected the requirements for the drone, which were truncated compared to a planned Tier III type. Tier III was a more direct follow-on to AARS, but was already envisioned as a smaller and less capable, and one would imagine less expensive, uncrewed aircraft. There were also additional lower capability tiers, one of which ultimately led to the RQ-4 Global Hawk. Ehrhard says some members of Congress and of industry did attempt to drum up support for a true successor to AARS/Quartz, unofficially referred to as Tier IV, but without success.
With regard to the RQ-3, at least two flying examples were built, the first of which crashed in 1996 after suffering a control system malfunction. DarkStar had vanished completely from the public eye by 1999, but it has since emerged that a direct line can be traced between it and the stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel via another secretive drone called the X-44A, which TWZ was first to report on back in 2019.
An RQ-170 Sentinel at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. USAF via FOIA
When it comes to AARS/Quartz, the full scale and scope of what exactly came out of the hundreds of millions, and possibly billions, spent on the program over at least a decade, remains unclear. Clearly, major leaps were made in the critical communications, command and control, structural, and sensor technologies needed to make the system a reality. There are rumors that sub-scale risk-reduction test articles were flown, but details surrounding the program remain highly secretive.
A mission requirement that rhymes
As we noted earlier, many questions remain about the RQ-180, as well as the overall status of that program. At the same time, fast forward some three decades or so from the end of AARS (and its immediate successors), and there are now echoes of the Cold War mission requirements that prompted that program, including in the current conflict with Iran.
The Iranian arsenal of conventionally-armed missiles is not anywhere near the same kind of threat as Soviet nuclear-tipped IRBMs and ICBMs. Still, they do present very real threats, especially for strikes on large critical infrastructure targets and as terror weapons when loaded with cluster munition payloads. The current conflict has demonstrated that strategy also puts immense strain on Israeli missile defenses, which could have broader ramifications, as you can read more about here. Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles offer additional flexibility against targets on land or at sea. In addition, it has been clear for years now that Iran is very willing to launch conventional ballistic missile attacks.
As already noted, the launchers for these missiles are mobile, and some are configured to look like typical civilian-style trucks at a casual glance. Some operate from hardened and underground bases. A number of those facilities were even built with ports that allow missiles to be fired from within, though it is unclear how extensively Iran has made use of that capability in the current conflict. These apertures have likely been repeatedly struck by the U.S. and Israel.
The underlying challenge of finding Iran’s ballistic missiles, and doing so with enough time to attempt to strike them before they launch, has clear similarities to the mission that drove AARS/Quartz. The Iranian case is perhaps more complex in certain respects, given the larger number of smaller missiles, many of which could be dispersed over a broad area. Still, the long-range weapons that threaten Israel are clearly the top priority and would be the easiest to spot for an asset like the RQ-180.
CENTCOM:
The Iranian regime is using mobile launchers to indiscriminately fire missiles in an attempt to inflict maximum harm across the region.
U.S. forces are hunting these threats down and without apology or hesitation, we are taking them out.pic.twitter.com/l4lxbTlAf4
🚨 WATCH: CENTCOM releases footage of strikes on fortified missile bases in southern Iran. The first footage includes hits on tunnel entrances and on mobile and stationary launchers at the missile base in Hajjiabad, Iran. pic.twitter.com/wuoi5GEhqp
— Major Sammer Pal Toorr (Infantry Combat Veteran) (@samartoor3086) March 22, 2026
Iran is responding to external threats by releasing a new video showcasing one of its underground missile tunnel systems, packed with missile engines, mobile launchers, and a range of advanced weaponry. The footage prominently features the Paveh cruise missile, the Ghadr-380… pic.twitter.com/ILsdlrPtQy
Furthermore, Iran’s air defenses have been significantly degraded after some five weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes, on top of the losses during the 12 Day War last year, but threats remain. As noted, the northeastern end of the country has seen fewer strikes compared to other areas, overall. Total air supremacy over Iran has yet to be achieved.
This is not a hypothetical assessment either, as underscored by the recent loss of a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle. In the ensuing efforts to recover the F-15E’s crew, an A-10 Warthog crashed after being hit by hostile fire and two rescue helicopters were also damaged. American forces deliberately destroyed additional aircraft – reportedly two MC-130J special operations tanker transports and four Little Bird helicopters – inside Iran to prevent the capture of sensitive material. This came after the MC-130Js had become disabled after touching down at an austere operating location during the final mission to retrieve the downed Strike Eagle’s Weapon System Officer.
A picture showing a destroyed Little Bird, on the right, and the hulk of a C-130, to the left. via X
This is exactly the environment where a very high-flying, extremely long-endurance, and very stealthy drone, like the RQ-180, would be valuable, if not critical, to perform the aforementioned mission. The drone would simply fly outside the range of Iranian defenses if need be and likely fly nearly directly over most of them without fear of being shot down. From that perch, which could be far above where normal jet aircraft fly (60,000-70,000+ feet is possible) it would be able to monitor massive swathes of Iranian territory for movement of launchers and indications of launches, especially around known launch areas and storage sites.
AARS/Quartz was never intended to exist in a vacuum. It was explicitly seen as a part of an ecosystem that also included the B-2 bomber (to strike the targets the drone found) and the Milstar communications satellite constellation (to help transmit relevant data). The B-2 and Milstar did enter service, although the former did so on a very truncated level due to post-Cold War drawdowns. The U.S. military has made further investments since then in advanced networking capabilities as part of integrated kill web architectures. The B-2 and other relevant capabilities that could directly tie in with the RQ-180 are being employed publicly in the current conflict with Iran. It is possible, if not highly plausible, that this integration has already existed for years, in part as a result of the development of the LRS family of systems.
Another rendering of a notional ‘RQ-180’ design. Hangar B Productions
There is a degree of precedent here already, with regard to Iran specifically, with the RQ-170 Sentinel. RQ-170s are understood to have conducted extensive flights over Iran in the 2000s and into the very early 2010s, particularly to provide persistent monitoring of nuclear sites. Those missions were thrust into the public eye in 2011, when an RQ-170 went down in Iran and was captured largely intact.
The fact that the Sentinel has been flying operationally for nearly two decades, at least, also just underscores the degree to which stealthy, persistent drone surveillance capabilities had already advanced decades ago. That being said, the RQ-170 is a medium-altitude platform that was developed as a more tactical-level asset for surveillance of smaller areas. It does not fulfill the continued requirements for something like the RQ-180, able to fly at much higher altitudes over far greater distances for much longer periods of time, while carrying huge sensors, and was never intended to do so.
It’s also worth noting here that any decision to employ a highly secretive and sensitive asset like the RQ-180 over Iran would still carry major risks. Stealth aircraft aren’t invisible or completely immune to threats, and accidents do happen. As noted earlier, a technical issue of some kind may well be the only reason why we got a clear look at the drone during the day at Larissa in Greece, to begin with. At the same time, there is something of a precedent for taking these kinds of risks with regard to Iran, specifically, even outside of the demands of open conflict. After the RQ-170 went down in Iran, it is very likely that Russia and China had opportunities to analyze the drone in detail. But the technologies in the RQ-170, and its very design, are understood to be far less exquisite than what would be found in the RQ-180.
But even as an RQ-180 would have an even more pressing use case against a peer competitor like China, which is drastically expanding its nuclear arsenal and has thousands of road-mobile ballistic missiles, risking such a sensitive asset over Iran is paired with the high stakes involved with this operation, especially in regard to Israel. Iran’s massive and rapidly growing number of long-range missiles were a stated reason Trump decided he had to act now. The administration has said that soon Iran would be able to oversaturate any defenses if action wasn’t taken. It is this same threat that would be a major factor in using such a prized asset for Epic Fury, to do whatever possible to limit the damage to Israel, and to America’s Arab allies as well.
When the secretive drone first emerged at Larissa, comparisons were also drawn to an Israeli design referred to as the RA-01. That uncrewed stealth aircraft has a roughly similar planform, but is a smaller overall design that likely falls between the RQ-170 and the RQ-180. It has been very active during the conflict, being seen in videos. It would be of no surprise if it were tasked with hunting Iranian missile launchers, as well.
It should be stressed that we still do not know for sure why the secretive drone is at Larissa and what operations it might have been conducting, or still is, from the Greek base. As mentioned at the start of this piece, U.S. authorities have, so far, declined to comment on the uncrewed aircraft’s presence there at all.
At the same time, its emergence does come at a time when the capabilities of the RQ-180, or an evolution thereof, would be in extremely high demand to support current operations over Iran, and specifically to address the urgent need to counter Iran’s long-range weapons, just as the progenitor of the concept was meant to do nearly four decades ago.
US president says Washington, as the ‘winner’ of the war, has a ‘concept’ for charging a toll in strategic waterway.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
President Donald Trump has suggested the United States may be looking to charge a toll in the Strait of Hormuz after the war, a move that would likely require direct US military control over the strategic waterway.
Asked on Monday whether he would accept a deal that would allow Iran to take fees from ships to traverse the strait, the US president said: “What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won.”
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Trump reiterated that Iran has been militarily defeated, a claim that he has been making since the early days of the war, despite Iran’s sustained drone and missile attacks across the region and its continuing blockade of Hormuz.
“The only thing they have is the psychology of, ‘Oh, we’re going to drop a couple of mines in the water.’ All right, no, I mean, we have a concept where we’ll charge tolls,” Trump told reporters.
Hormuz, which connects the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, lies mostly within Omani and Iranian territorial waters. About 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passed through the strait before the war.
Trump’s latest comments came as he issued what he called a “final” ultimatum to Tehran to reopen the strait and agree to Washington’s terms or face attacks against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
The US president told reporters on Monday that any deal with Iran must include reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be, we want free traffic of oil,” he said.
Reports have suggested that Iran is already charging a toll for some of the few ships it is allowing to pass through the strait.
“The Strait of Hormuz situation won’t return to its pre-war status,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X last month.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also called for “new arrangements” to manage the waterway after the war, ensuring safe passage for ships and protecting Iran’s interests.
“I believe that after the war, the first step should be drafting a new protocol for the Strait of Hormuz,” he told Al Jazeera in March. “Naturally, this should be done between the countries that lie on both sides of the strait.”
The White House said last week that Trump is considering asking Arab countries to pay for Washington’s expenses in its war on Iran.
In the midst of the escalation of the Gaza conflict that has been going on since 2023, the world is once again witnessing the heartbreaking reality of women crying among the ruins of their homes and the burning of property, mothers who have lost children, and families separated by military attacks. Global media were quick to point to this event as a symbol of the suffering of civil society. But behind the empathy shown, there is also a question that is rarely asked: how exactly can Palestinian women be represented, and who can shape that narrative?
For decades, women in conflict zones, such as the Middle East, have often been portrayed in the same framework, as passive victims who need to be rescued and protected. In the context of Gaza, this pattern has resurfaced. Global media coverage often only highlights women’s plight without giving enough space for their voices, perspectives, and agency in conflict. This narrative does look humanistic, but it also contains an element of simplification that makes the world unaware of the more complex reality behind it.
This is where postcolonial feminism offers a sharper critique and helps us to look further at this issue as a form of epistemic violence. This perspective emphasizes that in understanding women’s experiences, it cannot be separated from considerations about the history of colonialism and global power relations. In the context of the Gaza conflict, this means that violence is experienced by women. Not only a patriarchal problem but also supported by aspects of colonialism, militarization, and inequality politics (Enloe, 2014).
This phenomenon cannot be separated from the thoughts of Lila Abu-Lughod, who mentioned “politics of saving” in her work entitled Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Abu-Lughod (2013) criticized how the Western world portrays Muslim women as an oppressed group in need of rescue. This narrative is not only a form of simplifying women’s representation but can also be used as a legitimacy for political, cultural, and even military intervention from external actors. Such as the concept of militarization of daily life raised by Enloe (2014), who explains that militarization does not only occur on the battlefield but also enters into the reality of daily life, including in how the media frames conflicts. Where in this context the representation of Palestinian women as passive victims is used to affirm certain narratives about war, security, and the legitimacy of power.
The term “security politics” in the Gaza conflict appears in a more subtle form. Palestinian women are positioned as a universal form of suffering but are rarely seen as political subjects with diverse experiences and aspirations. The suffering they experience in conflict becomes a global consumption, while structural contexts, such as colonialism and power inequality, are often ignored.
An important question then arises: who really has the right to speak on behalf of Palestinian women? This is where Spivak’s (2009) thoughts on the concept of the subaltern become relevant. Spivak himself argues that the subaltern group is a group that is in a marginalized position so that its voice is not heard in the dominant discourse. Even when they are “represented,” their voices are often mediated or even filtered by stronger actors.
In many news narratives about Gaza, Palestinian women rarely appear as the main narrator of their own experiences. Brand awareness is often told by foreign journalists and international organizations. Or humanitarian institutions as “representatives.” As a result, the narrative that is born is not a complete reflection of the reality they face, but rather a form of representation that has been framed according to the logic and direction of global media reporting.
This issue becomes more complex when we look at how the media tends to ignore the agency dimension. Palestinian women not only live in the shadow of conflict but also have active agency in various forms of resistance, both as activists, journalists, medical personnel, and community leaders. They have the capacity to build solidarity and even contribute to political struggles as well as peace. However, aspect II rarely gets the same spotlight as the narrative of suffering.
This disregard of agency can create an imbalance of representation. Palestinian women are only seen as passive victims, which makes them look like they also have no capacity as active actors. This inequality is not only a question of representation but also a question of power regarding who has the right to define reality for a particular purpose.
In the digital era, this is certainly starting to change. Social media provides a space for Palestinian women to be able to speak directly to a global audience. Through various social media platforms, they can share experiences and aspirations that are often not featured in the mainstream media. This ultimately opens up the possibility of a more authentic and diverse counternarrative.
However, the digital space is still full of limitations. Certain narratives can easily go viral, while others sink and disappear without a trace. In other words, while social media can offer opportunities, the space is not completely free from the influence of broader power structures.
Rereading the narrative of Palestinian women in the era of the Gaza conflict is a form of recognition that representation is not neutral. It is always related to interests, ideologies, and power relations. The narrative of “rescue” may seem like a form of concern from the surface, but if you look further, it can also be a form of control over the other party’s representation. Looking at the Gaza conflict through the lens of feminism is to question basic assumptions in global reporting. Do we really see them as individuals? Do we really hear their voices, or just voices about them?
Therefore, it is important to change our perspective. Instead of seeing Palestinian women as victims who need to be saved, we need to recognize them as subjects who have the capacity to speak, form agencies, and share their experiences in the form of real reality. This is not to ignore the real suffering but to place Palestinian women’s experiences in armed conflict in a broader, fairer, and closer context to reality. As Abu-Lughod (2013) reminds us, the more important question that arises is not how to save Muslim women, but how to understand the conditions and realities that shape their life experiences.
Ultimately, the lens of feminism, particularly postcolonial feminism, invites us to not only have empathy but also to be more critical. By looking further at how the narrative is formed, who can benefit, and which voices are ignored.
Perhaps the more relevant question is not whether Palestinian women need protection and rescue, but whether the world is ready to hear and see them as subjects who have the capacity to speak and move. Because what needs to change is not them, but the way we understand them.
Her players, though, were as excited for their coach as they were for themselves after defeating South Carolina 79-51 to claim the first NCAA national title in program history.
“I’m super proud of her as well, the way she responded as a leader last year,” UCLA senior guard Gabriela Jaquez said. “We responded well. Obviously we’re here now. I think it started with Coach Cori and the way she wanted to make a change in our program and get us back here, get this result.”
Close, who has been with the Bruins since 2011, got UCLA close last season, when the Bruins reached the Final Four and were blown out by Connecticut in the semifinal.
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But they turned the tables on South Carolina on Sunday, and Close said the best feeling was knowing that her process could work.
“This has been a calling, not a job,” Close said. “I’ve been saying it all day, but I don’t even know how else to say it, it’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine. I’m really grateful.”
UCLA coach Cori Close points across the court and talks with guard Kiki Rice during a win over South Carolina in the NCAA national title game Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
At times during her career, Close was viewed as an excellent recruiter and strong motivational speaker, but her tactical decisions were easy to question every time her team faltered during big moments. During the course of UCLA’s win over South Carolina, Close demonstrated every weakness her team showed during the past four years had been corrected. The result, was a lopsided victory that announced her arrival as one of women’s college basketball’s top coaches.
WNBA star Caitlin Clark on posted on X, “Not many care about the game as much as Coach Close … couldn’t be happier for her!!”
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said Close and her Bruins deserved all the praise.
“Cori is one of those people who really works at making our game better. Not just UCLA, but our entire game,” Staley said. “She’s always speaking out, uplifting our game in so many areas that it’s hard to continue to do that while maintaining the job that you have to do every day. But she finds the time.
UCLA coach Cori Close hugs South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley before their teams faced off for a national title Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
“Although we didn’t win, I can swallow it because we lost to a really good human being and a good team that represent women’s basketball well.”
Close will have to face a rebuild and likely have to work the transfer portal hard in the coming weeks to replace her six seniors and graduate students. But now, it might be a little bit easier since she’s proven her players bought in and she can win.
“Coach Cori really stayed patient with me,” said senior Lauren Betts, who was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. “She wanted to see me accomplish everything that I’d ever dreamed of. They just continued to remind me, they want me to see myself the way they all see me. I feel like now at this point I can finally truly do that. I think that’s what I’m most proud of.”
Not only win, either, but in such joyous fashion that it kept many of the players committed to the program and each other. Close’s approach ultimately carried them to a national championship.
UCLA forward Gabriela Jaquez dribbles under pressure from South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s about their work and their habits yielding,” Close said while tearing up. “We say this, we want to recruit courageous. There were a lot of times we wondered if it could be true. I said I wanted to find uncommon, courageous women that were willing to make uncommon choices that maybe possibly could yield an uncommon result, and today it did.”
More love for the national champions
The UCLA women’s basketball team’s win sparked celebrations throughout the country.
UCLA two-sport star Megan Grant, who spent part of the fall practicing and playing on the Bruins’ basketball team, helped the softball team sweep Indiana before catching a flight to Phoenix. She greeted the basketball team at its hotel and joined the celebration, getting decked in UCLA national championship gear and receiving a piece of the title net from Close.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a proud UCLA alum, recorded a video congratulating the team on its title win from one champion to another. “You guys made the entire Bruin nation so proud,” he said.
Lakers legend Magic Johnson, former U.S. Soccer star Abby Wambach, former President Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass and many others congratulated the Bruins on social media. The state capital was lit in UCLA colors Sunday night in honor of the Bruins’ win. Fans greeted the team when the Bruins’ bus from the airport arrived on campus Sunday night.
UCLA is inviting fans to a national title celebration at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday night. The official start time has not yet been announced.
Gymnastics advances to NCAA championships
The UCLA gymnastics team was locked in a tight battle Sunday in Corvallis, Ore., for a spot in the national championship meet.
The Bruins, however, were confident their super-power event — the floor exercise, their final rotation — would keep alive their goal of winning a national title.
Ciena Alipio scored a 9.875; Mika Webster-Longin, Sydney Barros and Ashlee Sullivan all scored a 9.900; and Tiana Sumanasekera added a 9.925.
Then it was time for senior Jordan Chiles to close out the meet for the Bruins.
Chiles delivered the same dynamic floor routine that has earned high scores all season, bursting into tears as soon as she stuck the final landing. She was rewarded with her eighth perfect 10 of the season and clinched the regional victory for the Bruins.
It was UCLA’s 25th NCAA regional title and the program’s first since 2019.
UCLA’s final team score was 197.725. Minnesota was next in line with 197.625 and will join the Bruins as the teams advancing to the national title meet.
Longtime UCLA rival Utah placed third with 197.500 and Alabama was fourth with 197.175.
Louisiana State, Stanford, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Arkansas are the other six teams that advanced to the national championships, which will be held April 16 and 18 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
No. 1 UCLA baseball sweeps No. 12 USC
The No. 1 UCLA baseball team completed a three-game sweep of No. 12 USC at Jackie Robinson Field, rolling to a 10-4 victory.
With the score tied 3-3 in the fifth inning, Will Gasparino hit a two-run homer. Mulivai Levu added a two-run homer in the sixth, and Roch Cholowsky tacked on a three-run blast in the eighth.
UCLA earned a 12-4 win over USC on Friday, then had to rally for a 9-8 win Saturday.
The Bruins (29-2, 15-0 Big Ten) are riding a 23-game win streak. The Trojans (27-6, 10-5) started the season on a 19-game win streak but have been challenged by Big Ten competition.
The UCLA football team kicked off spring workouts this past week. We’ll get our first chance to talk with players this week and promise to have more football coverage in the newsletters to come.
Do you have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future UCLA newsletter? Email newsletters editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
