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For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country.

The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race.

During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer at the top of the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election.

The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees.

But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote.

It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll.

That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent.

Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy.

But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party.

Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box.

Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low.

The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump.

While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028.

That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican.

Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran.

Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025.

Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office.

But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party.

In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently topped the CPAC straw polls.

Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition.

Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still topped the straw poll in 2021, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024.

Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised.

The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent.

Iranian opposition leader calls on Trump administration to ‘stay the course’ as the US and Israel continue to wage war on Iran.

Amid questions about the future of Iran’s government, the son of the former shah has pitched himself to a right-wing summit in the United States and received a raucous welcome.

Reza Pahlavi spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas on Saturday, urging US President Donald Trump not to cut a deal with Iran and instead seek regime change.

“Can you imagine Iran going from ‘Death to America’ to ‘God Bless America’?” the self-styled crown prince asked his audience in Grapevine, Texas.

“President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again,” he added, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

His remarks came on the one-month anniversary of the US and Israel’s decision to launch a war against Iran. As the conflict enters its second month, at least 1,937 people in Iran have been killed, and tens of thousands more injured, with no end to the fighting in sight.

Pahlavi has become a central opposition figure in the Iranian diaspora, with a loyal base of supporters who often carry his image, along with Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag, at protests around the world.

During his speech, some in the audience chanted, “Long live the king!”

While some in the Iranian diaspora have expressed reservations about the US-Israeli attacks and their effect on the future of Iran, Pahlavi has emerged as an outspoken supporter of Trump, aligned with the administration’s most hawkish figures.

“This regime in its entirety must go,” he said on Saturday.

Analysts have warned that the Iranian government is not likely to collapse and could emerge from the conflict more hardened than before. Some exiles, meanwhile, have been criticised for lending their voices to support the US-Israeli war despite the heavy toll on Iranian civilians.

Trump has himself previously downplayed the possibility that the son of the former shah, who was expelled from Iran during the country’s 1979 revolution, could play a central role in Iran if the current government were to collapse.

Earlier this month, Trump said that Pahlavi “looks like a very nice person“, but indicated that the shah’s son lacks popularity in Iran.

“It would seem to me that somebody from within, maybe, would be more appropriate,” Trump had said.

Divides within the US right over the war in Iran were also in evidence at CPAC. Polls suggest that, while the war is widely unpopular among US voters, Republicans support it by large margins.

In a Pew Research Center poll, for instance, 71 percent of Republican voters felt the US had made the right decision to attack Iran. Overall, among voters regardless of party, 59 percent opposed the initial strikes.

Still, a handful of influential voices on the US right, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have emerged as vocal critics of the war. Younger activists have also expressed frustration with what they see as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to avoid military adventures overseas.

“We did not want to see more wars. We wanted actual America First policies, and Trump was very explicit about that,” Benjamin Williams, a 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty, told The Associated Press. “It does feel like a betrayal, for sure.”

Arrests come days after force announced U-turn, saying that despite High Court ruling, ‘terror’ ban remains in place.

London’s Metropolitan Police have arrested 18 supporters of Palestine Action, days after the force promised to resume arrests in a reversal of policy.

The protesters had sat on the steps of New Scotland Yard, the Met’s headquarters, on Saturday, holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Officers made the arrests under “terrorism” legislation.

Following the High Court’s ruling in February that banning Palestine Action as a “terrorist group” was unlawful, the force had said it would adopt a “proportionate approach” and stop arresting the group’s supporters and focus instead on gathering evidence.

But on Wednesday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman said that since any “impact of that judgement will not take effect until the government’s appeal has been considered, which could take many months”, it would resume arrests. “We must enforce the law as it is at the time, not as it might be at a future date,” he said.

As she was led away by two officers on Saturday, one woman, in footage posted to social media, can be heard saying: “I’m being arrested for holding a cardboard sign, whereas our government feels the need to sell weapons and use our airbases to commit genocide in Palestine.”

Critics say the Met’s U-turn defies the court ruling.

Palestine Action is a direct action campaign group which has targeted weapons manufacturers linked to Israel and an RAF base.

The government proscribed it as a “terrorist organisation” in July 2025, placing it alongside groups including al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. The High Court called the move “disproportionate” and in breach of freedom of expression.

The government was granted a stay pending an appeal, meaning the ban technically remains in force.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who said she would fight the High Court ruling in the Court of Appeal, said in February that supporting Palestine Action was not the same as supporting the Palestinian cause.

Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring has since ordered that hundreds of related prosecutions be paused until after that appeal is heard.

Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested for holding signs in support of the group, contributing to a 660 percent rise in UK “terrorism” arrests in the year to September 2025, Defend Our Juries said.

On the day of the High Court ruling, about 150 people held the same placards outside the court and not a single person was arrested.

The scale of the crackdown has drawn sharp international criticism, including from the UN.

When the ban was first imposed, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said it appeared “disproportionate and unnecessary”, warning it risked criminalising the legitimate exercise of free expression.

In January, US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers told the news platform Semafor that “censoring that speech does more harm than good”.

Amnesty International, which intervened in the court case, said thousands had been “arrested for something that should never have been a crime.”

Eight activists linked to the group staged a lengthy hunger strike in prison, with four held on remand for 15 months before being bailed in February. Four others remain imprisoned.

Earlier this week, Al Jazeera reported that released detainees are now pursuing legal action against the prisons over alleged mistreatment.

Defend Our Juries has called a mass sign-holding event, titled Everyone Day, at Trafalgar Square on April 11, as the government’s appeal heads to court.

Saturday’s arrests took place as the rest of the city was filled with demonstrators who came out to march against the far right.

The B-2 Spirit has done what no other asset can do during the war with Iran — flying into dangerous airspace to release heavy weapons capable of penetrating even the most hardened targets. While B-1Bs and B-52Hs have forward deployed to the United Kingdom for their missions over and near Iran, the B-2s have flown smaller numbers of missions from their home at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. At this time, there is no evidence that B-2s are operating out of Diego Garcia or anywhere else for the war effort. Still, they are delivering punishing blows, as represented in art on at least one of their gear doors. Beyond mission markings, some new features that just appeared along the aircraft’s huge leading edges are puzzling to say the least.

We spotted these white rectangles with black borders that are sealed onto the B-2’s leading edges in images released today by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), showing a pair of the stealth bombers about to launch from Whiteman on another global airpower mission to Iran on March 17, 2026. The rectangles mirror themselves near the upper and lower leading edges and appear to use the typical tape method of sealing to keep the jet’s radar cross-section as low as possible.

The white squares are very loosely reminiscent of test marks the B-2 has worn at different times during its first decade of flying, when it was deep in trials. Why anything like that would be present on a combat mission, and on two separate aircraft, is puzzling. The possibility that they augment and mask the B-2’s radar signature is also worth bringing up, but the aircraft has other ways of doing that and why would B-2s fly missions without their stealth benefit, especially all the way from the United States, when other platforms are forward deployed for those applications? Delivering the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in permissive airspace is one potential reason, but again, why go through all the trouble when the aircraft can just hit its targets in standard configurations? The threat of losing signature data to threat systems is always a possibility, but whether it would drive such a modification is unclear.

It’s also possible that this is some kind of new sensor or electronic warfare installation, and that these are small apertures for whatever lies beneath. Enhancing the B-2’s ability to sense threats in its combat environment and react in real time to them, including by avoiding, attacking or jamming them, would be very important to its survivability over future battlefields. Also, making the Spirit more capable of communicating with assets even while keeping as stealthy as possible would be key. All these kinds of upgrades are important to making sure the B-2 remains relevant for the rest of its service life.

The byproducts of a new coatings upgrade for the Spirit are another possibility. The B-2’s radar-absorbent material (RAM) coatings are absolutely critical to its success, but are also one of the major drivers of its immense operating costs. Improvements to the coating’s materials and processes of applying them have been constant throughout its life as the USAF seeks to increase its availability rate and lower its cost per flight hour. This has changed the appearance of the B-2 over the decades. New technologies from the B-21 Raider program, for instance, are being applied to the B-2 in order to help address these issues.

So, we just don’t know what these new features are for, or if they will remain a staple on B-2s that receive them going forward.

Also of interest is the aforementioned mission markings on one of the B-2’s nose gear doors. It shows 15 bombs. While we cannot say for certain what exactly this represents, it’s more likely that it denotes combat missions rather than individual weapons dropped. That still seems like way too many long-range strike flights from this operation for this aircraft, especially considering the image was taken a week ago, but it probably includes combat missions from last year, as well.

Another possibility some may raise is that it could denote how many GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) this B-2 has dropped, but again, this number seems like far too many. In fact, it is not even clear if any MOPs have been employed in this campaign, and 15 would equal more than the total dropped by all the B-2s involved during Operation Midnight Hammer last June.

Like so many things Spirit, we just don’t know what we are looking at. The aircraft is an American icon and has now entered the backend of its operational career, with its successor and legacy, the B-21 Raider, waiting in the wings. At the same time, much about the B-2 remains a secret and likely will for years after it finally flies its last operational sortie.

This is also something of an abstract indicator of just how far ahead of their time Northrop’s engineers were when they gave birth to the world’s first stealth bomber, an aircraft that is more prized now as a national asset than anytime in its three-decades-long career.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

Interior minister says ‘vigilance at high level’, after police arrest suspect before setting off explosive device outside US bank’s headquarters.

French authorities have opened an investigation into a foiled ⁠attack targeting Bank of America’s Paris headquarters after police detained one suspect who was allegedly attempting to ignite an explosive device outside the building.

In a social media post on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the swift intervention by police had “thwarted a violent terrorist attack” in the French capital the previous night.

French newspaper Le Parisien cited a police source as saying the suspect was arrested at about 3:25am local time (02:25 GMT) outside the bank’s local headquarters in the city’s 8th arrondissement as he tried to light a device consisting of a five-litre (1.3-gallon) container filled with an unidentified liquid and an explosive charge made up of about 650 grams (23 ounces) of powder.

The suspect was taken into custody, while a second individual who was present fled the scene and remains at large. The device was taken to the Paris police’s forensics lab for full analysis.

The National Terrorism Prosecution Office told the Reuters news agency the suspected offences included attempted destruction by fire or other dangerous means in connection with a “terrorist plot”, as well as ⁠the making, possession ⁠and transport of an incendiary or explosive device with intent ⁠to carry out dangerous damage.

The probe ⁠also includes a ⁠charge of participation in a “terrorist” criminal association, covering potential ‌links to accomplices or a broader network, it said.

“Vigilance remains at a very high level,” said Nunez on X, thanking “security and intelligence forces, who are fully mobilised under my authority” in what he called the “current international context”, seemingly with reference to the escalating situation in parts of the Middle East amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Earlier in the week, Nunez had said that authorities had stepped up the personal protection of some figures from the Iranian opposition and increased security around sites that risked being targeted, including sites linked to US interests and to the Jewish community.

A spokesperson for Bank of America told Reuters the organisation was “aware of the situation” and “communicating with the authorities”.

Demonstrators are hitting the streets of cities across the United States for the first “No Kings” protest since the joint US and Israeli war against Iran began one month ago.

Saturday’s marches and rallies mark the third round of nationwide “No Kings” protests since President Donald Trump took office for a second term.

According to the “No Kings” website, more than 3,300 events are planned across all 50 states, with large crowds expected in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Parallel events are happening internationally in cities such as Rome, Paris, and Berlin.

Organisers, however, are aiming to rally voters outside of the US’s major metropolises, in areas that tend to skew conservative. They say that roughly two-thirds of participants are expected to take part in events outside of major city centres.

“The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilisation is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,” said Leah Greenberg, cofounder of the progressive nonprofit Indivisible, which started the “No Kings” movement last year.

The main event, however, is set to take place in the Minneapolis-St Paul area of Minnesota, known as the Twin Cities.

The midwestern state became a focal point for Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown in December, when he launched Operation Metro Surge.

That operation saw more than 3,000 of federal immigration agents descend on the Twin Cities, where they were accused of using excessive force to conduct deportation raids.

In January, agents shot and killed two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, prompting nationwide outrage and calls for reform. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed as a result of the operation, which was wound down in February.

Saturday’s protest will commemorate those deaths in Minnesota, with speeches, concerts and appearances from activists, labour leaders and politicians.

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders is expected to address attendees, and rock icon Bruce Springsteen will perform at the event, along with folk singer Joan Baez.

Already, early on Saturday, marchers in Washington, DC, gathered around landmarks such as the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, holding signs and waving papier-mache effigies of the Trump administration.

The previous two “No Kings” marches took place in June and October and drew millions of people. Trump responded to the October protest by posting an AI-generated video depicting himself dumping faeces on the protesters.

The US is currently in the midst of campaigns for its pivotal midterm elections in November, which will see Trump’s Republican Party seek to defend its majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Senegal parade AFCON trophy at Stade de France ahead of friendly against Peru, despite being stripped of the title.

Senegal, who won the Africa Cup of Nations title in a controversial final against hosts Morocco in January – only to be stripped of their victory weeks later – have paraded the trophy ahead of a friendly against Peru at the Stade de France in Paris.

Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly and his teammates came out onto the pitch with the AFCON trophy on Saturday for a lap of honour after a pre-match concert by Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour.

Koulibaly and goalkeeper Edouard Mendy went up to the stadium’s presidential box to place the trophy there in front of Abdoulaye Fall, the president of the Senegalese Football Federation, among others.

Only hours earlier, Morocco had declared the case for the trophy closed, following the Confederation of African Football (CAF) ruling that Senegal’s 1-0 win in January’s final was to be overturned following the mid-game walk-off by their players.

CAF’s appeals panel awarded Morocco a 3-0 win and with it, the title.

Senegal and Morocco set to remain locked in AFCON dispute

Senegal have said they will take their own appeal back to CAF and to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which could take a year to rule.

The Senegalese government has called for an independent international inquiry into CAF’s decision, alleging corruption should also be looked into.

Senegal’s players left the field in normal time during the final in protest at a penalty awarded to Morocco, which – upon the Senegalese return after a 14-minute delay – was missed.

The match on the day was settled by Pape Gueye’s strike in extra time. Morocco immediately appealed the result, but were initially rebuffed by CAF.

Senegal turn Paris into AFCON trophy celebration

A crowd of 70,000 was expected for the match at 16:00 GMT on Saturday. Thousands of Senegalese supporters, sprinkled with Peruvian fans, were already in the Stade de France by the time the players showed off their trophy.

Earlier, nearly 200 Senegal supporters gathered in front of the nearby Basilica of Saint-Denis before making their way to the Stade de France to the sound of traditional drums and percussion.

Bally Bagayoko, the newly elected mayor of Saint-Denis, briefly joined the procession.

“Welcome to Saint-Denis,” said the mayor. “I wanted to thank everyone who organised this wonderful initiative.

“You are the pride of the residents of working-class neighbourhoods. We have often been discriminated against, often looked down upon.

“You are showing that you are capable, at such an important moment, of coming together. Today, Africa is united. Everyone behind Senegal.”

The friendly against Peru was due to be the Lions of Teranga’s first match since the Africa Cup of Nations final.

They are preparing for the World Cup, where they have been pitted in a group with France, Norway and either Bolivia or Iraq.

Their squad on Saturday was almost identical to the one that competed in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Short-range kamikaze drones operated by an Iran-backed militia appear to have successfully targeted a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and a critical air defense radar at an American base in Iraq. This is the first known example of a successful attack of this kind on a U.S. military aircraft. It’s also not the first time we have seen evidence of these kinds of drones zipping over the same installation in recent weeks.

The incidents underscore the reality of the threat posed by small drones in the Middle East, where a wide variety of nefarious players have already employed these systems for surveillance and attacks against U.S. forces on multiple occasions, for years now. It is also a preview of what the U.S. could end up facing on its own homefront as it grapples with constant and sometimes highly perplexing drone incursions over sensitive bases and facilities. Even since the war began, there have been very alarming drone incursions over one of America’s most important bases that houses nuclear weapons and B-52 bombers that carry them. You can read all about these developments here.

One of the videos that began circulating yesterday, filmed from a first-person view (FPV) drone, shows a pair of Black Hawk helicopters sitting in a compound, protected only by a low blast wall. The video feed cuts out just before detonation, on or close to the main rotor, but the assumption is that one of these helicopters (at least) was struck.

The location has been identified as the Victory Base Complex (VBC), a cluster of U.S. military installations surrounding Baghdad International Airport close to the Iraqi capital.

As for the helicopter, this appears to be a medical evacuation (medevac) configured HH-60M, emphasized by the video editing, in which it seems the prominent identification panels marked with red crosses have been obscured.

Whether the helicopter was damaged or even destroyed by the drone is unclear at this point, but most significant is the fact that such a target was able to be engaged by a relatively simple, low-cost threat. The same goes for the second video, where the extent of the damage is much clearer.

The target in this case is a container-based AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar, a system used to alert and cue short-range air defense (SHORAD) weapons, including the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The radar is in operating mode, its antenna clearly rotating.

A video showing a U.S. Army AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar in action with the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade:

Sentinel Radar

This footage includes the perspective from another drone, which confirms that the radar was hit, after which it is seen burning.

While it’s clear that more than one drone was in the vicinity of the radar during the attack, there have also been unconfirmed reports that the militia used some kind of swarming tactics, or at least multiple kamikaze drones to perpetrate this attack, with some degree of coordination.

Reportedly, the attacks on the Black Hawk and Sentinel radar occurred yesterday. In both cases, it is apparent that there is no degradation in the video feeds as they drop very low over the ground, even behind structures. This might be the result of the drones having been launched very close to their targets, or that they used fiber-optic control links. Both those scenarios are alarming, but a fiber-optic FPV drone would explain why passive sensor systems would not have detected them as they approached the base.

The drone strikes are notable for a number of other reasons.

First, there is no sign of air defenses attempting to engage the incoming drones.

Of course, a response to the drones in the form of electronic warfare and cyber warfare, or other ‘soft-kill’ options, is a possibility. In regards to other counter-drone capabilities, there is no indication that the limited number of directed-energy weapons the U.S. has were deployed to this facility, while surface-to-air interceptors are not generally suitable for engaging such small drones. Other options would include gun-based systems, as well as drone-based systems, like the Coyote, and the laser-rocket-slinging VAMPIRE. On the other hand, we also know there is a chronic scarcity of many of these systems.

Video footage shows Block 2+ Coyote drones engaging drones in an undated demonstration:

Raytheon Missiles & Defense proves counter-UAS effectiveness against enemy drones

It should also be noted that, for all their relative simplicity and low cost, FPV drones are very hard to spot and target, especially when they are moving quickly at very low level. In many cases, they will evade detection by traditional radars, while even microwave radars, tailored for counter-drone work, can provide sporadic coverage at very low altitude.

The apparent vulnerability of the Victory Base Complex is all the more surprising since this is not the first time that the same installation has been targeted by FPV drones.

Earlier this month, videos emerged showing drones purportedly belonging to the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group.

There have been suggestions that all of these various videos may have been recorded during the same (complex) attack, although the latest footage appears to come from a separate attack on a different date.

Thirdly, the threat posed by drones of this kind, while proliferating significantly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has been recognized long before that.

Last year, we reported on how U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had created a new task force specifically to counter the growing threats posed by small drones at home and abroad.

“There’s no doubt that the threats we face today from hostile drones grow by the day,” Hegseth stated at the time. “Emerging technologies — we see it in battlefields, in far-flung places, and we see it on our own border in small unmanned aerial systems. [These drones] target and bring harm on all warfighters, our people, our bases, and frankly, the sovereignty of our national airspace.”

Hegseth said the Pentagon “must focus on speed over process” when it came to new counter-drone efforts. 

Clearly, the U.S. military desperately needs a more potent counter-drone plan after years of incidents in which its assets at home and overseas have faced small drone incursions, many of which were of publicly unknown origin. TWZ was the first to report about drones flying over Langley Air Force Base in December 2023, as well as incursions last year over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Picatinny Arsenal, and many others in the U.S., and four bases in England. And these are just the tip of the iceberg: drone swarms have also harassed U.S. Navy ships off the coast of California, and other drones have been detected flying over nuclear energy plants and other sensitive areas, such as military training areas and airports.

Once in a conflict zone, the threat posed by small drones is even more glaring.

While there have been various regulatory barriers that have prevented the fielding of more robust drone defense of key installations and assets in the United States, this is not such a problem in Iraq, and especially in the course of a regional conflict.

It is notable, too, that there have been reports that some type of quadcopter-type drones may have been used for surveillance ahead of the Iranian strike on a U.S. logistics operations center in Kuwait on March 1. That attack led to the deaths of six U.S. service members, and more were wounded.

The incidents also underscore the very real risk faced by military infrastructure in the United States, a point that TWZ has repeatedly raised in the past. In particular, near-field attacks like these pose a huge threat and one that is hard to stop. Compared to a combat theater, something like this could be far more successful at home, where there are fewer defenses and more limited surveillance. As in Iraq, aircraft parked on the ground and radars are highly vulnerable, and the same threat even extends to traditional air defenses.

Operation Spiderweb, a Ukrainian drone attack that targeted multiple bomber bases deep in Russia, showed the world something that we had predicted for years.

On June 1, the Security Service of Ukraine carried out a brilliant operation— on enemy territory, targeting only military objectives, specifically the equipment used to strike Ukraine. Russia suffered significant losses.

In total, 117 drones were used in the operation – with a… pic.twitter.com/PeD1lTx9Nw

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 2, 2025

We have reached out to U.S. Central Command for more information about exactly what happened at the Victory Base Complex, and what kind of defensive measures are in place there.

As we wait for more details to emerge, to paint a fuller picture of these attacks on American assets in Iraq, it is clear that there are still questions to be asked about the resilience of the U.S. military in the face of kamikaze drones and similar threats.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Kyiv has sought to leverage its expertise in downing Russian drones to help Gulf nations.

Qatar and Ukraine have signed a defence agreement seeking joint expertise on countering threats from missiles and drones, according to Qatar’s Ministry of Defence, as Iran continues attacking its Gulf neighbours.

The agreement was made on Saturday during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Doha, following his stop in the UAE earlier in the day.

Earlier on Saturday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates had also agreed to cooperate on defence, a day after signing a deal with Saudi Arabia during his visit to the kingdom on Thursday.

Kyiv has sought to leverage its expertise in downing Russian drones to help Gulf nations and has deployed anti-drone experts to the three countries Zelenskyy visited during his diplomatic tour.

Tehran insists it is targeting only US assets in the Gulf in retaliation for the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the assaults have upset relations as Gulf nations say civilians are being put at risk.

During the Ukrainian leader’s visit to Doha on Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman bin Hassan Al Thani met Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) Rustem Umerov, and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrii Hnatov.

“The agreement includes collaboration in technological fields, development of joint investments and the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems,” Qatar’s Defence Ministry said in a statement during Zelenskyy’s visit.

The officials discussed the latest security developments. The defence agreement was signed by Qatari Armed Forces Lieutenant General Jassim bin Mohammed Al Mannai, and on the Ukrainian side by Hnatov, in the presence of the other officials.

“Ukraine is offering a cheap way of countering Iranian drones. Ukraine has been doing that for the past three and a half years because Russia has been firing Shahed drones since September 2023 at least, and it’s been downing them nearly every day,” said Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko, reporting from Doha.

“The Gulf has been using Patriot and THAAD missiles primarily so far to down Iranian missiles and drones. Each Patriot missile costs almost $4m, while Ukraine is offering its expertise in downing drones for about $2,000 each.”

Decade-long cooperation

Ukraine has become one of the world’s leading producers of sophisticated, battlefield-proven drone interceptors as Russia has been attacking Kyiv with hundreds of thousands of Iranian drones since the start of its full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country in 2022.

On March 18, Zelenskyy said 201 anti-drone experts had been deployed to the Middle East.

Kyiv has proposed swapping its interceptors for the vastly more expensive air-defence missiles that Gulf countries are using to down Iranian drones. Kyiv says it needs more of them to fend off near-daily Russian missile attacks.

“What we can assume is that Ukraine is primarily interested in funding,” said Medvedenko.

He said that the US-Israeli war on Iran is “costing so many Patriot missiles”, which concerns Ukraine as its stocks will decline.

The Patriots are “a much better solution” for countering Russia’s ballistic missiles, he said.

Carlos Mendoza Potellá is an economist and university professor with vast experience and expertise regarding the Venezuelan oil industry. In this exclusive interview with Venezuelanalysis, Mendoza Potellá offers his analysis on the recent reform of the Hydrocarbon Law, the longstanding influence of Western conglomerates over Venezuela’s energy sector, and the struggle for sovereignty.

In late January, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved a reform of the Hydrocarbon Law. What are your views on the new law?

In broad terms, it is the relinquishing of our condition as a sovereign nation, plain and simple. We are not a nation anymore. We are a territory with some delegate administrators implementing decisions made abroad. Who decides? Emperor Trump, who has his proconsul Marco Rubio.

The approved law meets the maximum demands that the Venezuelan right and the oil conglomerates have been making for at least the last 25 years. The 2002 coup against Chávez was to impose something like this, the return to the old concession model. It is the fulfillment of all the dreams of the old “meritocratic” leadership of [state oil company PDVSA], the people who did everything to minimize the fiscal contributions to the country, whether that meant buying 37 refineries abroad or other disasters that wrecked the country.

The reform is a victory for international oil capital, alongside a discourse that hands over the destiny of the industry to major corporations and diminishes national participation as some unproductive “rentierism.”

The Venezuelan oil industry has gone through various stages, with varying degrees of influence from major transnational corporations, whether that is the period prior to the formal nationalization in 1976 or the Oil Liberalization (Apertura Petrolera) of the 1990s. How do we situate the new law within that context?

I believe this is a step backward beyond the apertura or the pre-nationalization period –perhaps it’s a return to 1832! In 1829, Simón Bolívar issued a decree transferring the Spanish crown’s mining rights to Gran Colombia. This, in turn, was based on old medieval law, essentially establishing that mines were the property of the sovereign, the king. In fact, that is where the term “royalty” comes from –as a tribute to the king. And in 1832, when Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia, that decree ratified the nation’s ownership of its mines. 

Obviously, oil didn’t emerge until 30 or 40 years later, but by 1866 concessions were already being granted. For a time, people spoke of “material that comes from the subsoil,” even though everyone already knew it was oil.

Our first boom was with asphalt. In 1883, Guzmán Blanco granted the Lago Guanoco concession to his buddy Horacio Hamilton, who later transferred it to the New York & Bermúdez Company, a subsidiary of the US firm General Asphalt. The asphalt boom lasted 50 years, and with it, streets and highways were built all over the United States.

But the example of New York & Bermúdez is significant because when Cipriano Castro came to power in 1899, he found out that the company had not paid taxes and attempted to collect them. What did the corporation do? It financed the so-called Revolución Libertadora led by Manuel Antonio Matos, a banker from La Victoria, which was ultimately defeated after two bloody battles. It was the first instance of foreign hydrocarbon interests seeking to control national politics. And it was always linked to the United States.

In the 1920s, then-dictator Juan Vicente Gómez tasked his minister, Gumersindo Torres, with drafting a hydrocarbons law, but the foreign companies did not like it. And Gómez told them, “Well, then, write the law yourselves!” Later, in 1936, the López Contreras administration drafted a very good law, but since it wasn’t retroactive, the companies did not mind because they already had their concessions granted.

When do we start seeing the first steps toward Venezuelan oil nationalism?

It was precisely in 1941 that Medina Angarita took office and commissioned a massive dossier on all the concessions in the country, informing the US government that Venezuela was aware of the importance of its oil. This was during World War II, and the oil companies were haunted by the specter of the 1938 Mexican nationalization under the government of Lázaro Cárdenas.

What was [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s response? He sent a delegation from the State Department, not to intercede on behalf of the oil companies, but to convince them to accept Medina’s reform, because Venezuelan oil was vital to the war effort. The law passed in 1943 was quite progressive. Its first article stated that hydrocarbons are a matter of national public interest, and as such, concessions were granted for a maximum term of 40 years. Eighty percent of the concessions were granted at that time, to expire in 1983.

Venezuelan production grew through the 1970s, but as the end of the concessions approached, the transnational corporations began implementing policies to somewhat ease the hostility toward foreign investment.

Thus, a policy of “Venezuelanization” of the industry’s management was put into effect. That is why, when the so-called nationalization took place (1976), companies such as Shell and Creole, a subsidiary of Standard Oil-Exxon, had Venezuelans serving as president or vice president. These executives later assumed leadership of the newly created national companies. Their passports were Venezuelan, but their hearts belonged to foreign corporations!

Historically, how was the relationship between foreign corporations and Venezuelan authorities? And how did they respond to the 1976 nationalization?

The corporations grew accustomed to the idea of an industry tailored to their interests. I mentioned how they were the ones who drafted the first Hydrocarbons Law. Oversight bodies, such as the Technical Office of Hydrocarbons, were constantly undermined in their efforts to regulate oil activities. And so the companies could extract oil without paying royalties, violate technical standards for field exploitation, or export gasoline instead of fuel oil.

The 1970s were a turbulent time for the oil sector, marked by geopolitical tensions and the 1973 crisis in the Arab countries. In 1973, James Akins, the Nixon administration’s Director of Energy at the State Department, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Oil Crisis; This Time the Wolf Is Here.” He argued that Venezuela could be key to reducing dependence on the Middle East, and that in the face of growing oil nationalism, it was necessary to cede some ground and consider other models of participation, while maintaining control over critical areas such as refining and commercialization.

Put differently, it was possible to offer some token concessions to the nationalist aspirations of oil-producing countries like Venezuela. And that rhetoric spread to the transnational corporations. The president of Shell said at the time, “Venezuela is going to have to take action regarding its oil industry,” while the head of Creole spoke of “the Venezuelans’ oil”!

There were growing signs of how the nationalization would take shape and how the transnationals were restructuring. A good example is the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (CVP), created in 1960. Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, whom I consider a visionary and a deeply nationalist figure, had conceived it as a company that would develop until the time came for the state to take over production. But the governments did not let it grow; they did not assign concessions it was entitled to, and by the time of nationalization, the CVP was simply one more operator among 13 or 14. 

In contrast, [Petróleos de Venezuela, SA] PDVSA, created with the nationalization, did have a very clear vision from the start. I remember hearing senior PDVSA executives talking among themselves, discussing how one came from the “Exxon culture,” which was more vertical, and the other from the “Shell culture,” which was more horizontal. And these were the managers! They were the leaders of the Venezuelan oil industry, which had very little “Venezuelan” about it. What we are seeing now is the reconstitution of all these things.

Circling back to the current reform, we have seen that sovereignty is a central issue. How is it affected on different fronts?

For me, a fundamental issue is the return of concessions. Because that means going back decades, handing control back to transnational conglomerates. With taxes and royalties, the problem is not whether the rate is 30% or 15%; that flexibility existed in the past. But now it is the transnational corporations that tell the government what their operating costs are and how much goes to the Venezuelan state. There is no oversight body to verify this; instead, the company says, “I need you to lower royalties to this level” for the project to be profitable.

The return of international arbitration is also a brutal setback, because it means that disputes are not settled in Venezuelan courts, but in other bodies that have a history of defending corporate interests. There is no role left for the Public Solicitor’s Office (Procuradoría General), which is essentially the nation’s attorney. 

For months we were told we were ready to confront imperialism, but the truth is that everything is being imposed on us. Even the National Assembly is castrating itself. It has enacted a law stating that oil projects no longer require the parliament’s approval; they need only be notified. And on top of all that, there is also the constitutional issue. The reform conflicts with Articles 1, 12, 150, 151, and several others of the Constitution. But this is not merely a constitutional violation; it is a total surrender. A surrender of sovereignty that calls into question our status as a republic.

One of the issues under debate is the distinction between a country that owns oil and a country that produces oil. How should we understand the difference?

Of course, that’s fundamental. A country that owns oil simply collects royalties, and it does so according to its political capabilities. At the moment, Venezuela’s capabilities are limited, because the military cannot confront the enemy, and allies like Russia and China have not shown themselves willing to take any risks. So, there is little room to impose conditions on the US.

But this is a country that has grown used to the multinational corporations having free rein over its oil sector. Unfortunately, there are many people, within the industry itself, who believe that “the foreign conglomerates developed this and therefore have a right to these privileges.” Curiously, that is the same rhetoric Trump uses! 

This struggle for sovereignty is fundamental in oil-producing countries. We have seen this with the countries of the Middle East, which try to assert themselves but remain highly dependent on the United States. Obviously, they have the advantage of not being as close as we are. But in my opinion, historically we have lacked nationalism on this issue.

One of the arguments in favor of reforming the Hydrocarbon Law was the need to attract investment to so-called “green fields,” on the grounds that when the previous law was passed in 2001, there were many mature fields ready for development and this is no longer the case. However, major corporations have not shown much enthusiasm. What is your reading on this?

Those are fantasies about oilfields that have always been unviable; it is the obsession with the Orinoco Oil Belt. Humberto Calderón Berti, minister of mines in the 1980s and a major proponent of PDVSA’s internationalization, was already talking about green fields back then. By the way, Calderón Berti is now talking about the possibility of fracking in Lake Maracaibo, which would make the lake’s environmental disaster even worse.

The idea that an avalanche of investment is coming is an illusion, and the oil companies themselves know it. Trump talks about investments of $100 billion, but transnational corporations like ExxonMobil use the word “uninvestable.” With market volatility, no one is thinking about investing in oil with extremely high production costs. There is a study that concludes that increasing production to 2.6 million barrels per day based on the Orinoco Belt would require US $90 billion in investments and $122 billion in operating expenses over the next 10 years to drill 13,000 new wells! In other words, it is completely unfeasible.

On top of that, OPEC’s forecasts for oil demand over the coming decades aren’t particularly ambitious. (1)

So who stands to benefit from this new landscape? On the one hand, small “rogue” companies that can take on a well here and there. But above all, the conglomerates that are already here, like Chevron, which know the lay of the land and can expand their operations or make their current operations more profitable. The same goes for Eni and Repsol, which have some crown jewels, like the offshore Perla natural gas field. The corporations that come will be betting mostly on conventional fields, not the Orinoco Belt.

It is very commonplace to hear about US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico that are built to receive Venezuelan crude. That is true, but it is not oil from the Orinoco Belt! It is oil from the Oriente (East) and Occidente (West) oil-producing regions.

Let us stay for a moment on the Orinoco Oil Belt, since that is where the talk of the “largest oil reserves on the planet” centers, as well as the prospects for a massive increase in production. What are the myths and realities surrounding these deposits?

The Orinoco Belt is a geological miracle. Eighty million years ago, 10–15 percent of all life that existed on the planet was fossilized north of the Orinoco River. It is something to cry out to the heavens. But that is not exploitable oil. It is extra-heavy crude, a sticky mess that needs to be upgraded. First it must be converted into liquid petroleum so it can flow through pipelines, and then taken to be refined and turned into gasoline. 

In the 1970s, the United States saw the energy crisis coming and asked, “When conventional oil runs out, where can we find oil around the world?” In three places: the Soviet Union, Canada, and Venezuela. And where in Venezuela? In the Orinoco Oil Belt. Pérez Alfonzo spoke of the belt as “something for the future,” but the United States wanted to accelerate exploitation and sent a delegation in 1971 to convince President Rafael Caldera to begin the process. In fact, the name was changed from “Tar Belt” to “Oil Belt” to make it more attractive.

The US Geological Survey estimates that there are 513 billion barrels of “technically recoverable” oil. But that is absurd, because there is no capacity. What makes a reserve recoverable has to do with economic ability, the market, and the available technology. Nevertheless, the Orinoco Belt has been at the center of grandiose projections over the past few decades, alongside the highly lucrative business of certifying reserves.

The oil reform took place in a specific context, following years of economic sanctions that have left PDVSA in a very difficult situation. What would be an alternative path? How can the industry recover without surrendering sovereignty?

There are no magic solutions, obviously. We are facing imperialism in the Trump era; we see all its destructive potential. It is a phase where the US, paradoxically, recognizes its weakness and is entrenching itself in its “backyard.” But we must be aware that the industry’s current course is one of total capitulation.

Whether we can recover, whether it is possible or not, we must think about it rigorously, in a sovereign manner. And above all, we must have a serious plan; we cannot be dreaming of 5 or 6 million barrels a day.

There are 17,000 conventional oil wells, with the capacity to produce, abandoned around the country. Of the 35,000 wells in Venezuela, only half are currently producing. The others require investment, though not particularly large ones. And what kind of oil will these wells produce? Crude grades ranging from 20 to 30 degrees. But we need a plan, to examine wells one by one. These are wells that will produce 20, 50, or 100 barrels a day, but it is light and medium crude—the “classic” Venezuelan oil.

So, from a nationalist perspective, what does the future hold for Venezuela’s oil industry? 

The future is to build a post-oil Venezuela. This was already being discussed by theorists such as Francisco Mieres and Pérez Alfonzo in the 1970s. Then, in recent years, many began talking about a post-oil or post-rentier country, but mostly to cover up their incompetence and inability to maintain production levels.

There is no magic solution, and the oil industry will have to play an important role. But the current situation is dire. We are in a new phase of absolute political dependence. It’s not just about oil, or that the US controls revenues, imposes concessions, and so on. It is that the country has lost the ability to make its own decisions.

There are also expectations of the people, who to a large extent have become accustomed to the idea that their oil will last forever. That creates the illusion that things can improve very quickly. The path will be slow, but it has to start with regaining sovereignty.

Note

(1) The interview was conducted before the launch of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Morocco believe their successful appeal against their 1-0 defeat by Senegal means the case of the AFCON crown is closed.

Senegal may still possess the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy and have launched a legal battle against the decision to strip them of it, but as far as new champions Morocco are concerned, the case is closed.

Although the Atlas Lions lost 1-0 in the January final, the Confederation of African Football awarded them a 3-0 victory last week because of several Senegal players leaving the pitch in protest at the award of a penalty.

Morocco drew 1-1 against Ecuador on Friday in a friendly in Madrid, in their first match since the final and the controversial decision to punish Senegal.

It was new coach Mohamed Ouahbi’s first game at the helm, just three months out from the 2026 World Cup.

After becoming the first African side to reach the final four in Qatar in 2022, expectations are high for Morocco, and they are looking to the future, despite Senegal’s outrage.

“We’re focused on what’s to come and not getting into that [topic],” Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou told reporters.

“The answer from us [about whether the decision was fair] would be what our federation said, and that’s all … we’re looking forwards.”

Thousands of Morocco fans, many draped in their country’s flag and tooting vuvuzelas, are convinced justice was served.

“If someone says there are regulations, you have to follow them,” said Yassine el-Aouak, 35, a Morocco supporter who travelled to the game from Italy.

“I think we will bring the trophy home [eventually] – we know that we deserve it.”

Before being awarded victory against Senegal, Morocco had won the Africa Cup of Nations only once, in 1976.

“The rules are the rules … they are so clear, you go outside the pitch without any reason, you lose 3-0,” said another Morocco supporter, Taha El Hadiguy, 22.

“It’s very different to winning on the night of the final, to win two months later, but a win is a win. We have one more star on our shirt.”

Like the players, the Moroccan media was more concerned with the upcoming World Cup and Ouahbi’s tactical approach than whether Senegal are right to feel aggrieved.

Ecuador’s coach Sebastian Beccacece said his were satisfied with a draw against the “African champions”.

Ouahbi’s team are now technically unbeaten in 25 matches, despite falling 1-0 on a dramatic night in Rabat against Senegal in the AFCON final.

They lacked precision in attack against Ecuador, but Ouahbi, who led Moroccan youngsters to Under-20 World Cup glory last year, highlighted the strength of his team.

“I don’t talk in terms of weaknesses. They’re not weaknesses. We are a top-level team – the Ecuadorian coach reminded us of that,” Ouhabi told reporters.

“If you are a top-level team, ranked eighth in the world and World Cup semifinalists, you don’t have weaknesses.

“You only have strengths, and then any qualities we’re missing, areas where we’re not performing, we have to make up for collectively.”

Morocco will face record five-time World Cup winners Brazil in their first game at the tournament this summer on June 13, one of the most intriguing match-ups of the group phase.

Before then, the Moroccan Federation’s lawyers may have to defend their status as African champions against Senegal’s case, but Ouahbi and his players are only looking forward to the summer, when they have a chance to win another trophy, this time on the pitch.

The Army’s revamped system for getting gear and weapons to the fight faster has already been put to work in support of the war the U.S. is waging on Iran, a service leader said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., Brig. Gen. David Phillips, deputy portfolio acquisition executive for Maneuver Air, revealed the Army was trying to innovate in real time as the conflict approaches the end of its first month.

“As I look back on the past 30 days in Operation Epic Fury, we had some immediate requests from the field in the first week,” Phillips said. “Those immediate requests in the field returned on a requirements document with the [Army Future Capabilities Directorate] and [Army Transformation and Training Command] in about 48 hours, who turned on a contract in about 72 hours. And I can say that we’ve had soldiers out training and testing the capabilities they’re going to deploy with in real time in the past 10 days. So we’ve got industry fully engaged.”

Phillips did not go into detail on what capabilities were sourced or needs identified in that short timeframe. Notably, the Pentagon has shown willingness to deploy new tech to the fight from day one, debuting the Low Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a reverse-engineered American version of the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, in the initial barrages.

On Tuesday, the Army formally announced the creation of an “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Marketplace” in partnership with Amazon Web Services and the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency that purports to be a “digital one-stop shop” for procuring drones fast for Army units and their allies.

Phillips urged defense industry members, as well as academics and units currently in the field, to tell leaders what was working in the fight and what needed to change.

“We want your engagements. We want your feedback at PAE Expanded Maneuver Air, and we want to have you as a part of our team. Because we know we don’t bend the metal, we don’t really go out and talk to the sub-tier suppliers as much as you all do, but we need this to be a team sport,” Phillips said. 

In a panel discussion helmed by Phillips, Army leaders who have worked with Ukraine and with mobile brigade combat teams within the 101st Airborne Division did exactly that, discussing needs and vulnerabilities with rare candor. 

Col. Burr Miller, a former innovation advisor with the Army-led Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, warned that U.S. systems were sometimes not strong enough to sustain attacks on position, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities. These are technologies that aid in navigation, like GPS, that are absolutely essential to modern warfighting. 

“The PNT environment is incredibly corrosive,” Miller said, adding that he had observed many U.S. systems that “did not survive first contact” with a Russian adversary. “… In the same kind of tenor, we do not test a representative environment in the United States; nowhere can we test what the representative environment is … That’s not only a government responsibility, vendors; that’s your responsibility.”

What Miller did find effective, but said he hadn’t seen much Army action on, was fiber-optic drones, which were largely impervious to electronic warfare defenses and, when moving fast to a target, were hard to bring down with a kinetic kill shot.

“The Russians and the Ukrainians use mass,” he said. “We have forgotten how to fight mass.”

Leaders with the 101st Airborne added concrete numbers to the picture. For a company to attack and defeat an enemy platoon, it had to be able to take down 20 attack drones per day; accordingly, a brigade needed to be able to take out 200, or 1,000 per week, said Col. Ryan Bell, commander of the 101st’s 3rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team. For that reason, he added, the Army was beginning to issue roughly 30 reusable drones to each company training at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., allowing them to simulate the mass they’d need to be competitive in a fight.

“We need drones that are good enough to work, but not exquisite,” Bell said. “We have to get them fast. They have to be cheap enough that they compete with artillery and economies of scale; that’s the challenge. I’m shooting 1,000 of these a day. I am looking at these munitions like they are artillery racks, and I have to resupply them like artillery racks, and that is a change in how we’ve been treating them.”

Bell said his units are also working to combine effects – for example, using Starlink-connected ground intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance robots for all-weather sensing to determine when best to employ AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions. 

A company commander, he said, might have his unit modify Skydio reconnaissance quadcopter drones to execute a breach before sending in ground robots.

“And he can also protect his rifleman, if he has to modify the [drone] to deliver a breaching charge, an aerial breaching charge,” Bell said. “And then using two ground robots as a tertiary mechanism with 28 pounds of C4 to open up the breach before that first rifle squad makes contact.”

Col. Duke Reim, commander of the 101st’s 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, also described innovating in training by pairing the Army’s small medium-range reconnaissance (MRR) drones with loitering munitions in operations to shrink down the time lag between scouting a target and raining steel down on it.

“The battlefield today doesn’t have time for eventually, and what we’re doing now by pairing these systems is quickening the pace at a rate that we’ve never seen before,” he said. “Our enemy is adapting. They can move quicker, they can hide and, heaven forbid, they can shoot just as fast as we can. So we’ve got to be able to take this initiative and continue to evolutionize it.”

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

Peter Alexander, who covered Washington for NBC News for more than a decade, is leaving the network to join MS NOW, according to people familiar with his plans.

Alexander, 49, will serve as an anchor and chief national reporter for MS NOW. He will have a weekday program and also handle breaking news coverage throughout the day.

A 22-year veteran of NBC News, Alexander served as chief White House correspondent and co-host of the Saturday edition of “Today” with Laura Jarrett. He is among the most familiar faces in the White House briefing room.

Alexander told viewers at the end of his Saturday broadcast that he is departing NBC News but did not mention his new job. A representative for MS NOW declined comment.

MS NOW is the progressive-leaning cable channel formerly known as MSNBC. The network changed its name after it was spun off from Comcast into a new company called Versant.

After the split, MS NOW ended its relationship with NBC News. Journalists who worked on both MSNBC and NBC News had to chose which entity they would work for going forward.

Correspondents Jacob Soboroff and Ken Dilanian switched from NBC News to MS NOW. Data guru Steve Kornacki decided to stick with NBC News as he also has assignments at NBC Sports. Willie Geist, a co-host on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” is an exception as he continues to anchor NBC’s “Sunday Today.”

Alexander is the first NBC journalist to cross over to MS NOW since the split. His deal with Versant also gives him the opportunity to contribute to sports coverage on the company’s other cable properties, USA Network and the Golf Channel.

Alexander will anchor the 11 a.m. Eastern hour on MS NOW, succeeding Ana Cabrera, who is leaving the network when its daytime programming changes take effect in June.

Alexander joined NBC News after serving as an anchor on the network’s Washington station WRC.

He was White House correspondent from 2012 to 2014 during President Obama’s second term and returned to the assignment in 2018 to cover President Trump.

An aggressive questioner, Alexander has been chastised by Trump publicly over news conference questions that made him unhappy.

On this episode of TWZ: Special Access, Jamie Hunter visited TacAir to learn about their heavily upgraded F-5AT fighters and how they replicate enemy aircraft to keep U.S. fighter aircrews sharp.

Tactical Air Support, better known as TacAir, is a Reno, Nevada-based private ‘red air’ commercial adversary support contractor that aims to efficiently simulate enemy capabilities to better prepare U.S. and allied aircrews for future conflicts. They support all branches in various training and testing events, but they’re most known for the contract they fulfill out of NAS Fallon in Nevada, where Topgun is based and where air wings spin-up for deployments.

TacAir’s fleet is made up of ex-Jordanian and Saudi F-5E/Fs airframes that have been equipped with tailored upgrades to create a “4th generation adversary platform with 3rd generation economy,” as described by the company. The latest configuration includes an AESA radar, datalink, Garmin wide-area display open architecture avionics, Scorpion helmet mounted display, and internal IRST. You can read more about TacAir and their F-5ATs here: https://www.twz.com/category/tac-air

Watch the full video here:

Private F-5 Adversary Jets Taking The Fight To Navy Fighter Pilots

Contact the host: Jamie.Hunter @teamrecurrent.io

Pakistan’s Naseem Shah under fire for slamming politician’s presence at start of closed-doors PSL game in Lahore.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has attacked fast bowler Naseem Shah for criticising a politician’s presence at the start of the opening game of the Pakistan Super League, which is being played behind closed doors.

Fans are barred from attending games at the country’s premier domestic tournament, which was originally scheduled for six venues but now reduced to just two — Lahore and Karachi.

The Middle East conflict has resulted in exorbitant fuel hikes in the region, and Pakistan’s government is urging people to restrict travel and to work from home.

Chief Minister of Punjab Maryam Nawaz was invited to Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium on Thursday, along with other dignitaries, and was introduced to officials of the eight franchises and players ahead of the opening game of the tournament between defending champion Lahore Qalandars and first-timers Hyderabad Kingsmen.

Shah commented on a tweet about the opening game by the PCB, with the bowler saying on X, “Why is she treated like the queen at Lord’s?” in an apparent reference to Nawaz’s presence at the stadium. He deleted the post soon afterwards and later said his account had originally been hacked.

The PCB said in a statement that Shah had been issued a notice for violating the terms of his central contract as well as media policy and regulations.

“The show-cause notice has been served in accordance with the PCB’s disciplinary framework,” the PCB said. “Naseem Shah is required to provide a response within the stipulated time. Upon receipt and review of his response, the PCB will decide on any further action in line with the regulations.”

Last year, Pakistan all-rounder Aamer Jamal was slapped with a fine of $4,000 for displaying a slogan in favour of cricket great Imran Khan, Pakistan’s imprisoned former prime minister.

Shah is scheduled to play for new PSL franchise Rawalpindi Pindiz in Saturday’s game against Peshawar Zalmi, led by former Pakistan all-formats captain Babar Azam.

Shah, a right-arm fast bowler, has taken a total of 152 wickets while representing Pakistan in 20 Test matches, 34 one-day internationals and 37 T20 games.

Protesters in Yemen took to the streets to voice support for Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon amid ongoing US and Israeli attacks. Houthi representatives expressed their readiness to intervene militarily.

Four weeks into the war on Iran, the White House continues to confuse the public and the press with constant pivots and contradictions.

Now the administration faces even more pressure as many of its own supporters have started to turn against it. This war has split up the MAGA movement, with an intriguing debate currently happening outside the mainstream and in the midst of their own media sphere.

Contributors:
Jamal Abdi – President, National Iranian American Council
Jude Russo – Managing editor, The American Conservative
Ben Lorber – Senior research analyst, Political Research Associates

On our radar

This week, the Israeli parliament approved the first vote on a bill that introduces a mandatory death penalty by hanging. This applies to any Palestinian convicted of killing Israelis in attacks defined as “terrorism” or motivated by “hatred”. Ryan Kohls reports on how this bill has been promoted in the media.

Memes, trash talk and AI – the online war between Washington and Tehran

The propaganda war in the ongoing war on Iran has taken a new form.

Beyond the traditional tactics, both the US and Iran are increasingly using memes and trash-talk mockery of the adversary through AI-driven animations, designed with virality in mind. We look at the strategies behind the different messaging coming out of Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran.

Featuring:
Meredith Clark – Professor, University Of North Carolina
Roger Stahl – Documentarian and author, Militainment, Inc.
Marc Owen Jones – Associate professor, Northwestern University In Qatar

Luka Doncic’s 41 points against Nets was soured by his 16th technical foul of the season, triggering a one-game ban.

Luka Doncic had a game-high 41 points and eight rebounds while also picking up his suspension-triggering 16th technical foul during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 116-99 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night.

Austin Reaves scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, while the Lakers finally pulled away from the young Nets to secure their 11th victory in 12 games. LeBron James added 14 points and eight assists for the Lakers in their return from a 5-1 road trip that has put them in third in the Western Conference standings.

Josh Minott had 18 points and six rebounds in Brooklyn’s 10th consecutive loss. Nic Claxton and Ziaire Williams scored 16 points apiece while leading the Nets’ lively effort, but both starters were kept on the bench for the entire fourth quarter, along with Noah Clowney.

The young Nets still hung with the road-weary Lakers until the final minutes, erasing an early double-digit deficit and leading in the fourth quarter of their 20th loss in 22 games overall.

Doncic hit five 3-pointers during his 15th 40-point game of the season, but the Slovenian superstar found trouble when he and Williams were whistled for double technical fouls in the third quarter.

Williams was celebrating an offensive foul called against Doncic by gleefully screaming in Doncic’s personal space. When Doncic reached out to shove Williams’ arm, Williams responded with a backhand swipe across Doncic’s face.

Unless Doncic’s technical is rescinded, he will be suspended for a game. He already had a technical rescinded last week after he was whistled for a verbal altercation with Orlando’s Goga Bitadze.

Bronny James played alongside his famous father for the second straight game, with LeBron getting the first father-son assist in NBA history on Bronny’s 3-pointer in the second quarter. Bronny has been limited largely to mop-up action in his first two NBA seasons, but he has earned rotation minutes this week in the injury absence of Marcus Smart.

Bronny and Williams played together in high school at Sierra Canyon School in suburban Los Angeles.

Tensions continue to rise with Iran warning a ‘heavy price’ will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites.

President Donald Trump said he is “very disappointed” with NATO’s response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran, accusing the alliance of failing to support Washington despite years of US military spending on its allies.

Meanwhile, Iran warned a “heavy price” will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites, with Tehran accusing the US and Israel of “playing with fire” by targeting energy infrastructure. Iran also said there was no radioactive leak following attacks on two nuclear facilities.

The warnings come as fighting and tensions continue to escalate across the Middle East, with growing fears of a wider conflict.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• Israel hits Tehran: Israel’s military said it launched attacks on Iranian “regime targets” early Saturday.
• Hopes for Iran talks this week: US envoy Steve Witkoff said he expects meetings with Iran “this week” and is waiting for Tehran’s response to a 15-point peace plan.
• Iran pledges “heavy price” for plant strikes: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would exact a “heavy price for Israeli crimes” after attacks on nuclear sites and two of the country’s largest steel factories.
• Iran feels “forced” into talks: Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said many Iranians believe they are being pushed into negotiations that are not in their favour, with the sense that “the Americans are bombing their way towards a negotiation table.” Rather than relying on US or Israeli promises, he said Iran is relying on “its missiles, its drones, and the resolve of its soldiers”.
• Russia likely aiding Iran with satellite intelligence: Al Jazeera’s Mansur Mirovalev reported Iran is likely receiving data on US military assets from Russia’s Liana spy satellite system, according to a space programme expert.

War diplomacy

• Trump criticises NATO over Hormuz: Trump said NATO allies “weren’t there” when asked to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, despite the US spending “hundreds of billions” protecting them. “I’ve always said NATO is a paper tiger. And I always said we help NATO, but they’ll never help us.”
• Possible Pakistan meeting: Turkiye said talks with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt could take place in Pakistan this weekend as Islamabad mediates between Iran and the US.
• UN nuclear watchdog urges “restraint”: The International Atomic Energy Agency repeated its call for “restraint” in the Middle East war after Israel struck two Iranian nuclear facilities, including a uranium processing plant.
• “Regime change” unlikely: The war is unlikely to lead to “regime change” in Iran, said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “If that’s the goal, I don’t think you’ll achieve it. It’s mostly gone wrong” in past conflicts, he said, pointing to the Afghanistan war.

In the Gulf

• Saudi Arabia intercepts missile: Saudi Arabia said it “intercepted and destroyed” a missile targeting the capital Riyadh. Meanwhile, at least 12 US military personnel were wounded, including two seriously, in an Iranian attack on an airbase in the kingdom, The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies reported on Friday.
• United Arab Emirates: The UAE’s Ministry of Defence reported that air defence systems and fighter jets intercepted and shot down incoming missiles and drones from Iran.
• Kuwait: Though experiencing some slower nights recently, residents in Kuwait say they have grown accustomed to the disruption of alarms sounding throughout the night.

In the US

• US aims to finish war in “weeks”: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington expects to complete its Iran war objectives in the “next couple weeks”, leaving Iran “weaker”.
• US soldiers wounded: More than 300 American soldiers have been wounded since the start of the war on February 28, US Central Command said.

In Israel

• Direct attacks: Israel continues to face significant incoming fire on multiple fronts. Iran launched a missile salvo that struck a busy commercial street in Tel Aviv.
• Man killed: Israeli emergency responders said a man was killed in Tel Aviv on Friday, and several others were wounded across the country after the military reported missiles fired from Iran.

In Lebanon, Yemen, occupied West Bank

• Houthis warn they’ll join the fight: Yemen’s Houthi rebels warned they would enter the war if attacks on Iran continue or if more countries join the conflict. The Houthis have in the past attacked shipping in the Red Sea in response to regional conflicts, but have so far not intervened in this war.
• Israel expands ground war in Lebanon: Israeli troops entered Khiam and clashed with Hezbollah near Tyre as Israel pushes to create a “security zone” up to the Litani River. Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli tanks and fired at a warplane over Beirut.
• Israel cites Hezbollah threat: Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Amman, said Israel is using the threat from Hezbollah in the north to justify expanding its ground incursion into southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah back and create a “buffer zone”.
• Hezbollah escalation: Hezbollah forces have fiercely resisted the Israeli advance, claiming to have carried out 82 operations against Israeli troops within 24 hours.
• West Bank violence continues: Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a 15-year-old boy in Dheisheh refugee camp and two men in Qalandiya.

Oil, food, and gas crises

• Strait of Hormuz: To prevent a “massive humanitarian crisis”, the United Nations has established a new task force led by Jorge Moreira da Silva. It aims to ensure ships carrying fertiliser and raw materials can safely cross the strait, warning that maritime trade disruptions could severely affect global agricultural production and humanitarian needs.
• Egypt imposes business curfew: Egypt has ordered shops, restaurants, and shopping malls to close at 9pm (19:00 GMT) from Saturday, hoping to curb energy bills that have more than doubled because of the Iran war.
• Overnight queues in Ethiopia: Many Ethiopians slept in their cars in hours-long queues for petrol as shortages caused by the war began to take their toll. The Horn of Africa country is particularly vulnerable as it imports all its petrol, primarily from the Gulf.
• Tea stuck in Kenya: Between 6,000 and 8,000 tonnes of tea worth $24m is stuck at Kenya’s port of Mombasa because of the war, trade officials said. About 65 percent of the East African tea market has been affected by the war that began on February 28. This is happening because the war is disrupting shipping routes through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, which are key routes for trade between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

US President Donald Trump said Iran is ‘being decimated’ and signaled that talks are underway, claiming Tehran is seeking a deal while praising the strength of the the US military.