Today

A federal officer in the United States has shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Officials say officers had tried to stop a car to arrest the man and opened fire after two people attacked one of them with a “snow shovel and broom handle”.

Protests broke out in the city after the incident.

Wednesday’s shooting comes exactly a week after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed local resident Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis during an immigration raid.

What happened?

In an X post on Wednesday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote that at 6:50pm (00:50 GMT on Thursday), federal law enforcement officers were stopping “an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by [former President] Joe Biden in 2022”.

The DHS added that the man had tried to evade the officers, crashing his car into another parked car and then fleeing on foot. It said one of the officers caught up with the immigrant on foot “when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer”.

The department’s post said that while the immigrant and the officer were struggling on the ground, two people came out of a nearby apartment and began to strike the officer with a snow shovel and a broomstick. It further said, “The original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.”

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” the DHS wrote.

It added that the immigrant and the two people who had come out of the apartment ran back inside the apartment and barricaded themselves in.

The immigrant and officer who was attacked were taken to hospital, and the other two people who attacked the officer are in custody, DHS wrote.

Who was Renee Nicole Good and what happened to her last week?

On the morning of January 7, Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer, fatally shot Good while she was in her car in Minneapolis.

Local officials said Good, 37, was acting as a legal observer during protests against US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Legal observers are usually volunteers who attend protests to watch police-demonstrator interactions and record any confrontations or possible legal violations.

Good’s killing sparked outrage and protests in Minnesota and nationwide.

In a joint statement released after she was shot dead, Minneapolis City Council President Elliot Payne and council members wrote: “Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government. Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

After Good was shot, the Republican Trump administration clashed with local authorities, including Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

Trump and administration officials claimed that Good had deliberately hit the ICE officer with her SUV and he had shot her in self-defence.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism”.

She said Good had refused to obey orders to get out of her car, “weaponise[d] her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over the officer. Minnesota officials disputed Noem’s account, citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.

Footage from the incident shows Good’s car slowly reversing and then trying to move forwards. As the car moves forwards, an agent is seen walking around in front of it. He opens fire while standing in front of the driver’s side of the SUV.

Speaking about the shooting on Wednesday, Trump told the Reuters news agency: “I don’t get into right or wrong. I know that it was a tough situation to be in. There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers.”

What have local authorities said about the latest shooting?

Walz wrote in an X post on Wednesday that state investigators have been to the scene of the shooting.

“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz wrote.

“But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”

In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, Frey wrote: “No matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”

He added that there are 600 local police officers working in Minneapolis, and the Trump administration has sent in 3,000 federal officers.

“I have seen conduct from ICE that is intolerable. And for anyone taking the bait tonight, stop. It is not helpful. We cannot respond to Donald Trump’s chaos with our own chaos.”

What is ICE doing in Minnesota?

The DHS launched Operation Metro Surge, which includes Minneapolis, in December. The Trump administration said the operation aims to root out and arrest criminals and undocumented immigrants.

The Trump administration escalated its immigration operation in Minneapolis on January 6. In an X post, ICE announced it planned to deploy 2,000 additional agents to the northern Midwestern city.

“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities – our largest operation to date,” the post said, referring to Minneapolis and the adjacent city of St Paul.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told local news media that ICE is “surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal illegal aliens”.

On Monday, the state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the operation is an unconstitutional “federal invasion”.

The population of Minnesota is more than 5 million people, and according to numbers from the Migration Policy Institute from 2023, the number of undocumented immigrants in the state is 100,000.

Republicans have made disparaging remarks particularly targeting the state’s Somali population.

Noem said on Tuesday that Trump intends to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for some Somali nationals in the US.

“Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said in a statement. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”

In December, ICE launched a raid in Columbus, Ohio, which also has a large Somali population. In late November, ICE agents were deployed in New Orleans, Louisiana. Similar raids were launched in Charlotte, North Carolina, the same month.

How many Venezuelan immigrants are in the US?

As of 2023, there were about 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, making up just under 2 percent of the country’s 47.8 million foreign-born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The institute estimated that in 2023, 486,000 Venezuelan immigrants were not authorised to be in the US, accounting for 4 percent of a total of 13.7 million unauthorised immigrants.

Since 2014, about 7.7 million Venezuelans, comprising 20 percent of the population, have left the country, mostly to seek better opportunities abroad as the economy has faltered and the government has cracked down on the political opposition. While the vast majority have moved to neighbouring countries, some have gone to the US.

On January 3, US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration describes as a “narcoterrorist”. He currently faces charges related to weapons and drug trafficking in New York.

During a national address on January 3, Trump stated: “Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang, Tren de Aragua, to terrorise American communities nationwide.”

However, several US intelligence agencies have rejected the claim that Trump has repeatedly made that Maduro controls Tren de Aragua. In an April memo, the agencies said Maduro’s government “probably does not” cooperate with the gang or direct it to carry out operations in the US.

A White House social media post misleadingly links deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro with the US fentanyl crisis.

The X post includes a video highlighting parents who lost children to fentanyl overdoses thanking President Donald Trump for capturing Maduro.

“Angel Families thank President Trump for saving lives & capturing Maduro – the kingpin flooding America with deadly fentanyl,” the White House’s January 5 X post said. “Justice is being served.”

US troops abducted Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their Caracas home in the early hours of January 3. The two pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges on January 5 in New York federal court.

The White House post isn’t the first time the Trump administration has blamed Maduro for trafficking fentanyl to the US. Trump has cited the potent synthetic opioid that is responsible for most US drug overdose deaths to justify pressure on Venezuela in the months before Maduro’s capture.

But neither Venezuela nor Maduro plays a role in smuggling fentanyl to the US. The majority of US fentanyl comes from Mexico and is made with chemicals from China, according to US government reports and drug policy experts.

The White House did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.

Vice President JD Vance addressed fentanyl in a January 4 X post, the day before the White House’s post, saying cocaine is “the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela,” and, “Yes, a lot of fentanyl is coming out of Mexico. That continues to be a focus of our policy in Mexico and is a reason why President Trump shut the border on day one.”

Drug experts previously told PolitiFact that Venezuela acts as a transit country for some cocaine trafficking in part because its neighbouring country, Colombia, is the world’s main cocaine producer. However, most of the cocaine that enters the US doesn’t go through Venezuela.

Government reports say fentanyl does not come from Venezuela

The Drug Enforcement Agency’s annual National Drug Threat Assessment reports for years have pointed to Mexico and China as the countries responsible for illicit fentanyl in the US. None of the agency’s reports from 2017 to 2025 list Venezuela as a fentanyl producer or trafficker.

Most illicit fentanyl entered the US via the southern border at official ports of entry, and 83.5 percent of the smugglers in fiscal year 2024 were US citizens.

“There is no evidence of fentanyl or cocaine laced with fentanyl coming from Venezuela or anywhere else in South America,” David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who studies violence in Venezuela, told PolitiFact in September.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report also points to Mexico as the country of origin for the most fentanyl seized in the US.

US fentanyl overdose deaths recently have dropped. From May 2024 to April 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 43,000 synthetic opioid deaths, most of which were from fentanyl, down from nearly 70,000 in the previous year.

“The United States has been suffering an enormous overdose crisis driven by opioids and fentanyl in particular in recent years,” John Walsh, director for drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, a group advocating for human rights in the Americas, previously told PolitiFact. “I would say it has zero to do with anything in South America or the Caribbean.”

The Justice Department first indicted Maduro in 2020 for alleged drug-related actions dating to 1999. A newly unsealed and updated indictment filed in the Southern District of New York charges Maduro and two co-defendants with narcoterrorism conspiracy and him, Flores and the four other co-defendants with cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machineguns.

The indictment calls Maduro an illegitimate leader who transported cocaine under Venezuelan law enforcement protection, enriching his family and cementing power.

The 25-page document does not mention fentanyl or fentanyl trafficking.

Our ruling

The Trump White House described Maduro as “flooding America with deadly fentanyl”.

Drug experts and official government and international reports point to Mexico and China as the countries primarily involved in producing and trafficking the illicit fentanyl that reaches the US. The majority of fentanyl in the US comes from Mexico, is made with chemicals from China, and is smuggled by US citizens via official ports of entry at the southern border.

The US Justice Department indicted Maduro on charges related to cocaine. The indictment does not mention fentanyl.

We rate the statement False.

In two years at Seattle, Durde and head coach Mike Macdonald have transformed the Seahawks’ defence.

It is the first time Durde has worked with Macdonald – also a defensive coach – so his first season was “a year of real growth, understanding and adapting” in which the new coaching regime “built a foundation, we got on the right path”.

Seattle finished the 2024 season with a 10-7 record and missed out on the play-offs on a tie-breaker. In hindsight, it may have been a blessing in disguise, giving them an extra year to build.

“I’m not going to lie, we wanted to get in,” said Durde. “But once the season’s over, you self-scout, work out how you improve, and we went through that process.”

In 2023, Seattle’s defence was ranked second-worst against the run game and third-worst overall. In Macdonald and Durde’s first season they climbed to mid-table in both.

This season the Seahawks’ defence is ranked third-best against the run and has conceded the fewest points (17.2 per game).

“There’s a lot of defences that are middle of the table in the run game and still play excellent defence, they still stop points,” said Durde.

“But if you’re really trying to create an identity, a style of play, and you want to make it hard for everything [your opponents] do, it all starts with stopping the run.

“That’s been a focus point since we got here, and it’s been a stacking process as we go through.”

U.S. forces were prepared to destroy three airfields if it appeared that fighters belonging to the Venezuelan Air Force were attempting to scramble and intercept the force sent to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. Planners were also concerned that as many as 75 air defense sites might sit between American forces and their objective. These and other new operational details are contained in a heavily redacted legal memo the U.S. Department of Justice released earlier this week.

The memo was written by T. Elliot Gaiser, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, and is dated December 23, 2025. Its primary purpose is to address questions of the legality of the mission, which was nicknamed Operation Absolute Resolve and ultimately carried out on the night of January 2-3. President Donald Trump’s administration has argued that capturing Maduro and his wife was a law enforcement action with military support and that, by extension, it was not constrained by various U.S. and international laws surrounding the employment of American forces and armed conflict more generally. The legal justifications remain a controversial topic subject to much debate.

It is important to note that the operational planning details contained in the memo, per Gaiser, were as of December 22. It has been reported that the Trump administration had originally planned to launch the operation on Christmas Day, but that it was delayed in deference to unrelated strikes targeting ISIS terrorists in Nigeria. The memo notably says that Maduro was assumed to be the only target of the operation. The unredacted portions indicate his wife – described in a footnote as being “‘known to be more aggressive and combative’ than her husband” – was expected to be with him, but not captured. What else may have changed plan-wise between December 22 and January 3 is unknown.

“The War Department has identified three airfields that may be destroyed should it appear that fighters are being assembled there to intercept the assault force,” the memo says. “The airfields will not be struck otherwise as they are dual use for military and civilian purposes.”

There are no clear indications that Venezuela’s Russian-made Su-30MK2V Flankers or U.S.-built F-16s made any real attempt to respond to the American operation. Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base in Caracas, also known as La Carlota, in Caracas, as well as Higuerote Airport, which lies on the coast east of the capital, were targeted, but more likely due to the presence of air defense assets on the ground. Neither of these facilities is known to host fighters.

“The War Department had advised that Maduro spends considerable time at Fort Tiuna [Fuerte Tiuna], a fortified location at the southern end of Caracas, [redacted],” the memo also explains. “It is expected that U.S. forces will face heavy resistance on the approach.”

In the memo, Gaiser says that “the intelligence community has suggested that – notwithstanding his public posturing – Maduro may not currently have the capacity to engage in the kind of ‘significant armed resistance’” and that there are “questions about whether the Venezuelan army is also less than entirely loyal.”

However, “throughout our discussions, there has never been a suggestion that forces within Fort Tiuna will do anything other than go down fighting” and “it is indisputable that if Fort Tiuna were in the United States rather than Venezuela, there would be a sufficient threat of armed resistance,” he added.

On top of that, “there may be as many as 75 anti-aircraft battery sites along the approach route to Fort Tiuna,” the Assistant Attorney General wrote.

“Moreover, we have been orally advised that there are estimated to be [redacted],” the memo continues. “These weapons, [redacted] are capable of downing the helicopters carrying the assault and retrieval force.”

Well before Operation Absolute Resolve was launched, TWZ did a deep-dive into Venezuela’s relatively limited air defense capabilities and the very real threats they could still present, including to a heliborne assault force. In particular, prior to the mission, Venezuelan forces claimed to have access to some 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S (SA-24 Grinch) shoulder-fired heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). MANPADS, in general, pose a significant danger to low and slow-flying helicopters, compounded by their ability to pop up with little, if any, prior warning. The location of MANPADS can also be very hard to pin down and then plan around prior to an operation. We have previously highlighted how larger road-mobile surface-to-air missile systems in Venezuela’s arsenal could present similar complications, as well.

IGLA- S /SA-24 Grinch- Manpads en Venezuela

“As of December 22, 2025, the proposed assault force will include approximately [redacted] within Venezuelan territory; [and] an [redacted] assault force carried by helicopters [redacted],” according to the memo. “Before the assault force arrives at Fort Tiuna, approximately [redacted] aircraft comprising [redacted] will serve as an escort and clear emplaced anti-aircraft batteries as needed.”

The apparent reference to a clandestine force in place in advance is notable. It has been widely reported now that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had infiltrated operatives weeks ahead of the mission, but their role has been largely framed as having been to monitor Maduro’s movements and establish his so-called “pattern of life,” as well as to gather other intelligence. Elements of the Department of Justice, including FBI agents, also took part in the operation, but are not understood to have been present in the country beforehand.

Otherwise, the details here align with what has already emerged about the final Operation Absolute Resolve force package, which included a 200-strong force of special operations led by elements of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force. MH-60 Black Hawk and MH-47 Chinook helicopters from the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, better known as the Night Stalkers, carried that force to and from Fuerte Tiuna. Some of the MH-60s were configured as gunships, also known as Direct Action Penetrators (DAP), and provided close air support for the main force.

Footage from helicopters over Venezuela show what appear to be CH-47 Chinooks and MH-60 Black Hawks. Given available pictures, shapes are overall consistent with versions also flown by special operations units. Rocket strike may suggest presence of other types as well. pic.twitter.com/YxipAqSpAy

— Christoph Bergs (@MilAvHistory) January 3, 2026

Approximately 150 total aircraft, fixed-wing and rotary, crewed and uncrewed, participated in the operation. Beyond the Night Stalker helicopters, this included F-22, F-35, and F/A-18E/F fighters, B-1 bombers, EA-18G and EC-130H electronic warfare aircraft, E-2 airborne early warning and control planes, and RQ-170 Sentinels stealth drones. Navy warships offshore, including the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford also played key roles.

Post-operation imagery from Venezuela shows that U.S. forces fired AGM-88-series anti-radiation missiles and AGM-154C Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) precision-guided glide bombs at Venezuelan air defenses, particularly Russian-made Buk-M2E surface-to-air missile systems. Venezuela’s air defense network ultimately played a minimal role in responding to Operation Absolute Resolve, with subsequent reporting raising questions about the degree to which those assets were even operational at the time.

Bellingcat identified weapon remnants that struck an apartment building in Catia La Mar, Venezuela killing one civilian, during the US operation as a US AGM-88 series missile. The apartment was about 500m away from a military area housing Buk-2ME air defense systems that was hit. pic.twitter.com/mYxbYumdHP

— Trevor Ball (@Easybakeovensz) January 7, 2026

Overall, “the expected duration of the operation within Venezuelan territory is [redated] hours,” the Department of Justice memo says. “In order to minimize casualties, the strike will take place at 0100 am (local time) on a date when a maximum number of Venezuelan military [personnel] would be on leave for the holidays.”

The last part here may be a reference to the original reported plan to launch Operation Inherent Resolve on or around Christmas Day. In the end, it did come the weekend after New Year’s, when many individuals may still have been on leave.

“Moreover, kinetic operations will be preceded by non-kinetic action,” the memo also notes. “Power at Fort Tiuna will be disrupted for a lengthier period of time because [redacted] the War Department will aim pre-assault fire is the local power switching station.”

There have been many reports that a cyber attack helped ‘turn out the lights’ in Venezuela during the mission. At the post-operation press conference on January 3, Gen. Caine had also mentioned “different effects provided by SPACECOM [U.S. Space Command], CYBERCOM [U.S. Cyber Command], and other members of the interagency [sic] to create a pathway,” but did not elaborate. Electronic warfare attacks from the EA-18Gs and EC-130Hs would also fall into the category of “non-kinetic action.” There have been speculations and rumors since Maduro was captured that other secretive non-kinetic capabilities may have also played a role, but there remains no hard evidence to support any of that, as of yet.

As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said during the White House’s recent press briefing on Operation Absolute Resolve, this was a “powerful demonstration of America’s Joint Force.” Listen to his full remarks here: https://t.co/PWdrkZuwJK pic.twitter.com/cN59N9JLM6

— U.S. Space Command (@US_SpaceCom) January 5, 2026

The section of the Department of Justice memo on operational planning closes with the statement that “risks to the mission are significant” and “success will depend on surprise,” at least from what is unredacted. It also notes that “the level of risk will depend, in part, on Maduro’s precise location within the Fort at the time of the attack.”

By all accounts, from a tactical perspective, the final execution of Operation Absolute Resolve was highly successful. U.S. forces are assessed to have killed between 75 and 100 people, a plurality of whom are understood to have been personnel guarding Maduro. Cuban authorities have acknowledged the deaths of 32 officers from their military during the operation. At least seven American service members were wounded in the course of the mission, including the pilot of a Night Stalker MH-47 that sustained significant damage, but managed to remain airborne.

The unredacted details in the Department of Justice memo underscore that the success of the operation was in spite of considerable potential risks from air defenses and other threats. More details are still likely to come about those dangers and how they were surmounted.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

On a sunny morning in October 2025, 42-year-old Fatima Ibrahim walked into the outpatient department of the Adamawa Specialist Hospital in Yola, northeastern Nigeria. Fatima had been vomiting for days and felt increasingly weak. She said she believed going to the hospital was the safest option; however, her consultation with the doctor was brief. After asking a few questions and checking her vitals, the doctor gave her a handwritten prescription and asked her to collect her medication from the hospital pharmacy. Fatima moved from one pharmacy desk to another within the hospital, each pharmacist struggling to read the illegible handwriting.

Eventually, one pharmacist examined the prescription for a moment and told her, “This prescription is not clear. You will have to go back to the doctor.” Exhausted, Fatima turned back toward the consulting room. As she walked under the midday sun, she became unsteady. A few metres from the hospital entrance, she suddenly lost her balance and fell. A passerby rushed to help her up and guided her to a bench until she was stable.

“I felt very light-headed,” she recounted. “My body was already weak, and the back-and-forth movement made it worse.”

After resting briefly, she went back to see the doctor, who clarified the prescription he had written only minutes earlier. She then returned to the pharmacy for the second time. By 2:30 p.m., nearly four hours after she first arrived at the hospital, she finally received her medication.

Handwritten prescriptions are common in many Nigerian hospitals, especially in Adamawa State. Moses Mathew, a medical doctor at Specialist Hospital in Yola, told HumAngle that on busy days, prescriptions are often written hurriedly due to long patient queues. “All prescriptions are handwritten,” he noted. “After consulting with the patient, I write the diagnosis in the case file and then write the prescription on a card or prescription sheet for the patient to take to the pharmacy.”

Emmanuel Somtochukwu, a pharmacist, said he’s familiar with patients returning to consultation rooms because of illegible prescriptions. 

“Illegibility remains one of the most common challenges with handwritten prescriptions. In most cases, they are quite difficult to interpret and dispense,” Pharm. Emmanuel said, adding that prescriptions also frequently arrive with missing details on dosage, strength, duration, or frequency of medication intake. 

Dr Mathew acknowledged that while this does not happen often, it can occur on extremely busy days, and the patient may need to return for clarification. “Sometimes it is because the handwriting is not clear. It happens, but it is not usual,” he said.

Recent studies conducted separately in hospitals across northern and southern Nigeria have consistently identified illegible prescriptions as the leading prescriber-related error, leading to incorrect drug dispensing and, in some instances, death. 

Pharm. Emmanuel, however, reiterated that the back-and-forth due to illegible writing is common where he works. He claimed that “about one in every ten patients is sent back to the consulting room due to unclear handwriting or missing clinical information, though this often depends on the department or the attending clinician”. 

Patients, he noted, often carry handwritten prescriptions from one unit to another, dealing with unclear instructions, queues, and repeated walks within the same facility, even when they are already unwell. These interruptions, Dr Mathew noted, also affect clinical workflow. 

“When patients return for clarification, it interrupts consultations,” he said. “Time spent rewriting prescriptions or answering pharmacy queries reduces the number of new patients that can be seen in a day and adds to fatigue.”

A troubling system failure

In August 2025, Aisha Bello, who was pregnant, visited Cottage Hospital in the Girei area of Adamawa State for a routine check-up. She said that the pharmacist could not read the doctor’s instructions and could not dispense her tablets without confirmation.

“I was told I must go back,” she recalled. “I was tired. My legs were aching.”

When she returned, one of the prescribed medications was out of stock. She was asked to take the same handwritten note to a different pharmacy outside the hospital.

“When drugs are unavailable in one unit, patients may experience lost time, delayed commencement of therapy, or even abandon treatment altogether,” Pharm. Emmanuel explained.

What Fatima and Aisha experienced was a system failure; the problem was not the diagnosis but the process they had to follow to receive treatment. In many hospitals in Nigeria, medical care depends heavily on paper moving between disconnected units, forcing patients, many of them weak, pregnant, or elderly, to carry their own medical information. 

“Without easy access to a patient’s previous prescriptions, allergies, or medical history, decisions are made with incomplete information,” Dr Mathew noted. “You rely heavily on what the patient remembers or what is written in the paper file. This increases the risk of drug interactions, repeated medications, or prescribing something a patient may be allergic to.”

He suggested digital public infrastructure (DPI) as a solution, enabling health facilities to share information seamlessly with patients. He argued that a digital prescribing system could entirely change patients’ negative experience with handwritten prescriptions. 

“Prescriptions would be clear and instantly accessible to pharmacists,” he said. “Doctors would also be able to see past prescriptions, allergies, and drug availability. It would save time and ultimately make care safer and more efficient for patients.”

DPI refers to shared digital systems that enable governments, service providers, and institutions to securely share information and work together efficiently. In healthcare, the infrastructure enables prescriptions, medical histories, insurance status, and laboratory results to move electronically between units, without requiring patients to act as messengers.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) defines DPI as “interoperable, reusable and privacy-respecting digital systems” that enable both public and private actors to deliver services at scale and with greater efficiency. According to UNDP, countries that invest in these shared digital foundations are better able to expand access to healthcare, social protection, and financial services without duplicating effort or excluding vulnerable populations.

Digital identity is often the starting point for effective DPI in healthcare, experts said, noting that when patients are reliably identified across systems, their records, insurance coverage, and entitlements are easily linked and verified instantly. In Nigeria, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) reports that over 120 million National Identity Numbers (NINs) have been issued as of 2024, serving as a major building block for integrated public services, including health insurance and electronic medical records. 

Lessons from other countries

Countries with interoperable digital health systems have demonstrated what is possible. Estonia’s health system allows doctors and pharmacists to access patient prescriptions and records through a shared digital platform, reducing prescription errors and wait times. In India, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission links digital health IDs, electronic prescriptions, and insurance claims across public and private facilities, enabling near-instant verification for millions of patients. 

According to Asor Ahura, a Nigerian-based AI engineer and digital health expert, electronic medical record (EMR) systems, a digital version of a patient’s paper medical file used within a health facility, have become standard globally because of the efficiency they bring to health facilities and digital prescribing. Asor added that these systems improve speed, accuracy, and the integrity of clinical decisions in ways paper-based processes cannot match.

Across Nigeria and other parts of Africa, private health-tech startups are attempting to close the digital divide. One such company, Helium Health, says it has digitised operations for more than 500 healthcare providers in Nigeria and Kenya. However, these efforts remain fragmented, and the broader challenge of system-wide integration persists.

Why Nigeria’s health sector struggles with interoperability

Nigeria’s health sector is undergoing digital reform, but interoperability remains largely aspirational rather than operational. Most public hospitals still rely on paper records or isolated digital tools that do not communicate with one another. Handwritten prescriptions remain vulnerable to legibility errors, while paper records degrade over time. Digital records, by contrast, can be preserved, duplicated securely, and retrieved instantly.

“Physicians are not known for great penmanship, which leads to the legibility issues associated with paper-based prescriptions that often cause pharmacists to dispense wrong regimens to patients. Furthermore, paper is relatively more destructible than digital information; even with careful handling, the former erodes in quality while the latter can persist indefinitely,” Asor noted.

In 2024, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare launched the Nigeria Digital in Health Initiative (NDHI), which is designed to create a national digital health backbone that supports interoperable electronic medical records, shared data standards, and secure health information exchange across public and private providers. However, the initiative is still in its early stages. Many state hospitals, including those in Adamawa, are yet to benefit from the infrastructure, funding, training, and governance structures required to make interoperability routine in daily clinical practice.

According to NDHI, scaling digital health systems requires coordination across federal and state governments, regulators, technology vendors, and health workers. Asor argues that a key missing shift is the adoption of hospital-wide EMR systems, noting that digitising prescriptions alone, without integrating laboratories, radiology, and clinics, still results in poor patient experiences and care.

Another major barrier to interoperability is the slow development and enforcement of national standards and legal frameworks for digital health. While Nigeria has articulated a vision for digital health transformation, binding requirements for interoperable systems, electronic prescribing, and patient data portability are still evolving.

Ridwan Oloyede, a tech policy consultant and Co-founder of Tech Hive Advisory, said the digital health services bill seeks to address some of these gaps by defining rules around digital health platforms, data protection, system accreditation, and interoperability standards.  Corroborating, Asor noted that countries with seamless data sharing rely on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a global standard for storing and exchanging medical data. He said Nigeria would need to adopt a national implementation guide and mandate FHIR compliance to avoid creating new digital silos. 

For patients like Fatima and Aisha, the absence of interoperability is not an abstract policy/implementation gap. It translates into longer waiting times, repeated walks across hospital compounds, delayed treatment, and increased physical strain, especially for pregnant women, the elderly, and those already unwell.

“Personnel training is key,” Asor added. “Basic digital skills are a must for all health facility personnel if the benefits of digitisation are to be realised. Government needs to implement recurrent training of its staff along with provision of infrastructure, including computers, internet and local network connectivity as a precursor to the implementation of the EMR.”

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

US President Donald Trump says he wants to buy Greenland from Denmark and is not taking ‘no’ for an answer. 

Ilulissat, Greenland – In the Arctic town of Ilulissat, perched beside an ice fjord in western Greenland, fisherman Joel Hansen says he is “terrified” about the prospect of a United States takeover of his home.

“One way or another”, US President Donald Trump has said, Greenland will become part of the US, and he is not ruling out military force to achieve that goal.

While the Trump administration argues that Greenland is geographically within the North American region and is vital for US security, observers say the US is equally interested in the island’s vast mineral wealth.

Hansen, who is half Inuit and half Danish, has been fishing among the towering icebergs in the waters off Ilulissat for the past 14 years and says he desperately does not want his life to change.

“I am terrified to be American,” he tells Al Jazeera. “I have seen Alaskan Inuits – how hard they are living.”

Despite the often tricky relationship between Greenland and Denmark, which began colonisation of the island in 1721, he is one resident who believes it might be better to be Danish after all, he says.

“I love Greenland because, when I’m fishing, we have freedom to work for ourselves.”

Rich in resources

While Greenland gained “home rule” in 1979 and then greater autonomy via the Self-Government Act of 2009, it remains part of Denmark and, therefore, politically part of Europe. But, geographically, it is in the region of North America.

Because the island is so remote and inhospitable, its rich deposits of zinc, iron, uranium and graphite are largely untapped. It is, however, believed to be home to the world’s eighth-largest deposits of much-sought-after rare-earth elements.

When processed, these have magnetic and electro-chemical properties which are vital for producing components of modern tech, such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, smartphones, missile systems and fighter jets.

The military applications are of particular concern to the US, it says, because China has about 60 percent of the world’s rare-earth elements – and processes 90 percent of them.

Greenland itself has only two operating mines, but Greenlanders believe they could build their own capacity to process minerals. “We have a lot of minerals in Greenland, so we can be a nation if we want,” says Hansen. “We don’t need money from Trump.”

‘We are totally different’

The prospect of the US descending on Greenland to tap its minerals has struck fear into Inuit communities around Ilulissat, which welcomed back the sunrise this week after near constant darkness during the polar night of the past two months.

In advance of a meeting between the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers with US US state secretary Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance in Washington on Wednesday, Inuit Greenlander Karl Sandgreen, head of the Ilulissat Icefjord visitor centre, told Al Jazeera, “My hope is that Rubio is going to have some humanity in that talk.”

His fears are for the Inuit way of life. “We are totally different. We are Inuit, and we’ve been living here for thousands of years. This is my daughter’s and my son’s future, not a future for people who are thinking about resources.”

Ukraine struggles to restore heat, electricity as temperatures plummet to -19 degrees Celsius.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that a state of emergency is being declared for Ukraine’s energy sector, as repeated Russian attacks have left thousands of homes without heat and electricity amid freezing winter conditions.

Zelenskyy’s announcement came as temperatures dropped to -19 degrees Celsius (-2.2 Fahrenheit) in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, where hundreds of apartment buildings remain without heat following a massive Russian attack last week.

“The consequences of Russian strikes and deteriorating weather conditions are severe,” said Zelenskyy in a post on X late on Wednesday, adding that “repair crews, energy companies, municipal services, and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine continue to work around the clock to restore electricity and heating”.

Zelenskyy also said he had asked his government to review curfew restrictions during “this extremely cold weather” and that the country was working to increase its electricity imports to try to alleviate the dire situation.

In Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, 471 apartment buildings remained without heat on Wednesday, almost a week after a Russian attack left thousands of apartments without heat, electricity and water, according to city officials.

The attack, which began last Thursday night, prompted Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko to urge people to leave the city, saying that “half of apartment buildings in Kyiv – nearly 6,000 – are currently without heating because the capital’s critical infrastructure was damaged by the enemy’s massive attack”.

Energy supply has been a frequent target during Russia’s war on Ukraine, with Moscow and Kyiv launching attacks on oil refineries, gas pipelines, pumping stations and nuclear and thermal power stations, which are powered by coal, oil and gas.

Russian-appointed local official Yevhen Balitsky said on Telegram on Wednesday that a Ukrainian attack had left more than 3,000 people without electricity in Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhia.

Black Sea attacks

The frequent attacks on energy supply during Russia’s war with Ukraine have also expanded beyond both countries’ borders, including to oil tankers in the Black Sea.

In recent months, a number of oil tankers have come under attack from drones in the Black Sea, prompting concerns from neighbouring countries, including Turkiye and Kazakhstan.

On Tuesday, drones struck two oil tankers in the Black Sea, chartered by United States oil giant Chevron, according to the companies involved. The ships were sailing towards a terminal on the Russian coast, with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday blaming the attacks on Ukraine, which had yet to publicly comment.

Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that three oil tankers were hit in the attack and that they were heading to a Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal, where an oil pipeline from the central Asian country ends.

The ministry urged the US and Europe to help secure the transport of oil.

“The increasing frequency of such incidents highlights the growing risks to the functioning of international energy infrastructure,” it said.

Ukraine has declared a state of emergency in the country’s energy sector, with a particular focus on Kyiv, as ongoing Russian strikes continue to leave thousands of residents without power.

President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of deliberately exploiting the harsh winter conditions as part of its war strategy, with overnight temperatures in Kyiv recently dropping to around -20C.

The declaration comes as Zelensky’s US counterpart Donald Trump said he was holding up efforts to secure a peace deal to end nearly four years of war with Russia.

He told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Ukraine “is less ready to make a deal” than Russian president Vladimir Putin.

When asked why peace talks have not yet resolved the conflict, Trump responded: “Zelensky”.

The two leaders are both expected to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland next week, although Trump suggested no formal plans were arranged for them to meet.

In recent weeks, Russian attacks on Kyiv have left thousands of homes without regular power, heating or running water. After one particularly heavy night of missile and drone attacks last week, 70% of the capital was left without power for several hours.

Following a special cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Zelensky said a round-the-clock task force would be set up to fix damage caused by Russian strikes and worsening weather conditions.

He said the new measures would include procuring vital energy equipment and resources from abroad to replace damaged installations.

“The First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Energy of Ukraine has been assigned to oversee work supporting people and communities under these conditions,” he wrote on X.

He also ordered an increase in the number of emergency help points around Kyiv to provide heat and power for residents, a move which could see a relaxing of current midnight curfew in the capital.

Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have not been limited to the capital.

Last week, Ukrainian officials said that more than one million people in south-eastern Ukraine spent hours without heating and water supplies as a result of Russian air strikes.

DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy provider, is living in permanent crisis mode because of Russian attacks on the grid, its CEO, Maxim Timchenko, told the BBC last month.

As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, Timchenko said Russia had repeatedly targeted DTEK’s energy grid with “waves of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles” and the company had found it difficult to cope.

He added that the intensity of strikes had been so frequent “we just don’t have time to recover”.

DTEK currently provides power for 5.6 million Ukrainians.

Even as flight tracking data shows an apparent exodus of aircraft from the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East ahead of a possible new conflict with Iran, Trump on Wednesday said the rationale for an attack may be subsiding. The president claimed that the killings of anti-regime protesters, which sparked his repeated threats against Iran, seem to be ending. His comments have created confusion in military, political, and diplomatic circles about what he intends to do about Iran.

You can catch up with our previous coverage of the unfolding events here.

“We were told that the killing in Iran is stopping and stopped – stopping, and there’s no plan for executions or an execution or executions,” Trump stated. “So I’ve been told that on good authority. We’ll find out about it.” 

Asked if that meant an operation against Iran was off the table, Trump said: “We will watch and see how the process develops. However, we have received a very good — very good — statement from people who know the situation well.”

Before Trump’s White House statements, it was reported that Wednesday’s planned execution of Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old protester who has become the face of imperiled demonstrators, was postponed.

On Tuesday, Trump put out a message on his Truth Social platform, urging continued protests against the regime, adding a perceived promise of action that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

In an exclusive story later in the day, NBC News reported that “Trump has told his national security team that he would want any U.S. military action in Iran to deliver a swift and decisive blow to the regime and not spark a sustained war that dragged on for weeks or months.” The network cited a U.S. official, two people familiar with the discussions and a person close to the White House.

“If he does something, he wants it to be definitive,” one of the people familiar with the discussions told NBC.

“But Trump’s advisers have so far not been able to guarantee to him that the regime would quickly collapse after an American military strike, the U.S. official and two people familiar with the discussions said,” the story continued, “and there is concern that the U.S. may not have all the assets in the region it would need to guard against what administration officials expect would be an aggressive Iranian response.”

President Donald J. Trump has told his national security team that he would want any U.S. military action in Iran to deliver a “swift and decisive blow” to the regime and not spark a sustained war that dragged on for weeks or months, according to a U.S. official who spoke to NBC… pic.twitter.com/kMku3M52WH

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 15, 2026

Trump’s comments on Wednesday have reportedly left diplomats bewildered about what will happen next. In a post on X, Wall Street Journal reporter Laurence Norman reported that there is “Utter confusion, uncertainty about what’s going on now with #Iran among various senior diplomats.”

Utter confusion, uncertainty about what’s going on now with #Iran among various senior diplomats.

— laurence norman (@laurnorman) January 14, 2026

Still, there were signs potentially indicating impending military action. The Pentagon ordered some personnel at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to evacuate the facility.

Later on Wednesday, as we pointed out earlier in this story, U.S. military aircraft appeared to be leaving that facility in numbers.

The U.S. Embassy in Qatar advised personnel to “exercise increased caution and limit non-essential travel to Al Udeid.”

Qatar: Given ongoing regional tensions, the U.S. Embassy in Doha has advised its personnel to exercise increased caution and limit non-essential travel to Al Udeid Airbase. We recommend U.S. citizens in Qatar do the same. The U.S. Mission to Qatar continues to monitor the… pic.twitter.com/wGXYW8uF0G

— TravelGov (@TravelGov) January 14, 2026

In Kuwait, the U.S. Embassy instructed mission personnel to halt movements to military bases in that country.

“‘Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkey, that U.S. bases in those countries will be attacked if the U.S. targets Iran,” Reuters reported. We saw a similar pattern in June, just days before Trump ordered the Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, when the Air Force evacuated many of its aircraft from bases near the Persian Gulf in order to save them from a potential barrage.

There have also been peculiar aircraft movements to Hawaii, though the reason is not clear. The Hawaii Air National Guard (HANG) is holding Sentry Aloha, a large training exercise involving fighter aircraft, airborne early warning jets and refueling tankers. This could account for some of the activity, but that even kicked off today and usually participating aircraft do not show up the night before such an exercise.

It also should be remembered that the Pentagon purposely made sure flight trackers could see the movements of what appeared to be a large group of B-2s over the Pacific ahead of Midnight Hammer in what became a very effective information operation. In reality, the real strike force was heading east without being tracked, over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, before making their way to strike their targets in Iran.

“At midnight, Friday into Saturday morning, a large B-2 strike package comprised of bombers” left the United States, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained during a press conference following Midnight Hammer. “As part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise, part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy, a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.” 

Whether there is any connection between what we are seeing in Hawaii and any attack on Iran is something we will only really know after the fact, just like Midnight Hammer. But aside from prepositioning refueling assets, this seems less likely at this time.

As far as Navy assets, a handful of unconfirmed reports state the U.S. is ordering the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group (CSG) to the Middle East. This would mark the first major movement of Navy assets to the region since massive protests against the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei broke out across the country last month. There are currently no U.S. aircraft carriers in the region.

US MILITARY HARDWARE MOVING TO THE MIDDLE EAST AMID TENSIONS WITH IRAN:

The U.S. is moving a carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the CENTCOM area of responsibility, a source with knowledge tells me @NewsNation

That will take a week or so to complete.

— Kellie Meyer (@KellieMeyerNews) January 14, 2026

“A US official tells Al Jazeera: The USS Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group…will move from the South China Sea to the Middle East,” the news outlet reported on Telegram Wednesday afternoon. While The War Zone cannot independently confirm that, such a movement fits in with our assessment earlier today that the Lincoln CSG would be the most likely choice for a carrier deployment should the Pentagon decide to plus-up its Navy presence in the region. We will continue to monitor this situation for updated information.

Earlier today, a Navy official told us that there were six ships in the CENTCOM region – three Areligh Burke class destroyers, USS McFaul, USS Mitscher and USS Roosevelt, as well as three Littoral Combat Ships, the USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara and USS Canberra.

In comparison, at the time of the Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, the Vinson Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the region as well as two Arleigh Burke class destroyers, according to USNI’s Fleet and Marine Tracker. An additional three Arleigh Burkes were on station in the Eastern Mediterranean, well within range of Iran for its long-range missiles. There are currently no U.S. warships in that body of water, the Navy told us this morning.

Wednesday morning, Adm. Daryl Caudle, Chief of Naval Operations, addressed questions about whether he was concerned no carriers are now in the CENTCOM region.

While those deployments provided far more punch than exists now, we have previously pointed out that other capabilities can fill-in for a carrier strike group, at least to a degree. This includes land-based aircraft and additional land-based air defenses, although we have seen no indication of major movements of those capabilities, either. It’s also worth noting that there is a sizable U.S. force deployed to the Middle East at any given time.

“So we can show up pretty much anywhere in the world and provide options right away [but] it’s about risk,” he told reporters, including from The War Zone, at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium. “This is risk. This is risk to mission. It can be risk to force and certainly risk to objectives if combatant commanders don’t have the forces they need.”

Regardless of Trump’s comments or U.S. military movements, the region remains on edge. The British closed their embassy in Tehran while India ordered its citizens to leave the country.  

BREAKING: British Embassy has been closed in Tehran

A government spokesperson said: “We have temporarily closed the British Embassy in Tehran, this will now operate remotely. Foreign Office travel advice has now been updated to reflect this consular change.”

— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) January 14, 2026

Meanwhile, Israel seems to be preparing for a major event, though officials are trying to maintain an element of calm.

“The IDF says it has stepped up its defensive posture and is closely monitoring developments amid reports of a possible US strike on Iran and Iranian threats of retaliation against Israel, while urging the public to rely only on official updates and avoid spreading rumors,” the Times of Israel reported.

A senior IDF official told us that he is seeing mixed signs of preparation.

“I have just returned from the Kirya base, the IDF’s main headquarters,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. “I did not observe anything out of the ordinary there. At the same time, I continue to hear ongoing directives instructing units to maintain a high level of readiness for any possible scenario.”

“I am aware that aircraft are armed and on immediate standby, and that all active missile defense systems are fully operational and prepared,” he added.

Jerusalem is also preparing for attacks from the Houthi rebels of Yemen and the Hezbollah insurgents of Lebanon. Both groups are Iranian proxies that have had frequent conflicts with Israel.

🚨 CHANNEL 12 | IDF PREPARES FOR MULTI-FRONT THREAT

Channel 12 News reports that the Israel Defense Forces is preparing for the possibility that Houthi movement forces in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon could also take part in attacks against Israel.

The assessment reflects… pic.twitter.com/SpEWeSMcYv

— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) January 14, 2026

The German airline Lufthansa told employees to immediately prepare to leave Israel, which is at a high state of alert for an attack on or from Iran.

The German flagship carrier Lufthansa has told employees to immediately prepare to leave Israel and will cancel all flights to and from the country beginning Thursday, due to heightened tensions in the region related to Iran. pic.twitter.com/5xfIxE0lmu

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 14, 2026

As for the situation inside Iran, it remains extremely difficult to assess what is really taking place. The scope of any ongoing protests remains unclear.

Iran, as we previously noted, has largely shut down the internet and telephone service, including attempting to jam Starlink terminals. An exact number of deaths since the protests began on Dec. 28 over rising prices, devalued currency that saw the rial crater now to basically nothing, a devastating drought, and brutal government crackdowns, is hard to pin down. On Wednesday, the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) reported that more than 2,400 protesters have been killed so far. A day earlier, CBS News stated that the death toll was at least 12,000 and possibly as high as 20,000.

The events in and around Iran remain highly fluid and we will continue to provide updates when warranted.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Morocco overcome Nigeria on penalties, after the match finished 0-0 after extra time, to reach AFCON final.

Yassine Bounou saved ‍two penalties, and Youssef En-Nesyri netted the decisive spot kick as hosts Morocco secured a 4-2 shootout victory over Nigeria following their 0-0 draw in a tense Africa Cup of Nations semifinal in Rabat.

Morocco, seeking their first continental title in 50 ⁠years, will face 2021 winners Senegal in Sunday’s decider in Rabat, while Nigeria take on Egypt in ​the third-place playoff a day before.

The 120 minutes before the shootout on Wednesday had few ‍clear-cut chances for either side, but it was Morocco who created the greater opportunities, though they were denied by some fine saves from Nigeria goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali.

Nigeria had the best scoring record in the competition coming into the semifinal, ‍but offered very ⁠little going forward in a limp display.

And when Samuel Chukwueze and Bruno Onyemaechi saw their tame penalties saved in the shootout, they were left to reflect on a performance that showed little ambition.

Morocco were workmanlike and efficient as they have been all through the competition, even if they are still to find their best form.

They are on the brink of a first continental crown since 1976, but their biggest challenge awaits in an impressive ​Senegal side who beat Egypt 1-0 thanks to Sadio Mane’s winner in ‌the first semifinal in Tangier earlier on Wednesday.

The first half hour in Rabat was devoid of goalmouth chances until Achraf Hakimi’s corner was headed into the path of Ayoub El Kaabi five yards from goal.

But he was caught in two ‌minds whether to turn and shoot or try an overhead kick, and in the end did neither as the chance was lost.

Morocco dominate chances as Nigeria fail to fire

Morocco’s Ismael ‌Saibari showed excellent skill to work a shooting chance, but Nwabali ⁠was equal to his effort.

He was by far the busier keeper in the game, but Morocco were mostly reduced to long-range efforts that proved comfortable enough to save.

Nigeria had few opportunities, and when talisman Victor Osimhen did receive a pass in ‌the box, his touch was poor, and the rare chance was lost.

Nayef Aguerd’s header from a corner hit the outside of the post as the hosts went close, but penalties seemed inevitable well ‍before the 120 minutes were up.

And following Bounou’s saves, En-Nesyri struck the decisive spot-kick to send his side into their first final since a 2004 loss to Tunisia.

Though there are currently no aircraft carriers in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) region, the Navy’s top admiral said he would seek alternatives to extending the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (CSG) for any potential operation against Iran. The strike group, which most recently took part in the Operation Absolute Resolve mission to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, is currently in the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) region. It has been away from home since leaving its homeport of Norfolk on June 24, 2025. Extending deployments has a cascading effect on the ability to maintain ships and on the lives of the sailors who operate them.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), discussed the status of Ford and her escorts with a small group of reporters, including from The War Zone, today at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.

“I think the Ford, from its capability perspective, would be an invaluable option for any military thing the president wants to do,” Caudle explained. “But if it requires an extension, it’s going to get some push back from the CNO. And I will see if there is something else I can do.”

Caudle did not provide specific options, but emphasized that there is a price to be paid for the strike group after being away from homeport for more than 200 days under often intense conditions.

As for what is in the CENTCOM area of operations today, six U.S. Navy warships including three Arleigh Burke class destroyers, USS McFaul, USS Mitscher and USS Roosevelt are present, as well as three Littoral Combat Ships, the USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara and USS Canberra. This is a much smaller array of vessels than what was present during the war between Israel and Iran in June. If a carrier is requested, the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group would be the one that would likely respond.

Lincoln is currently operating in the South China Sea. There are no other carriers on cruise at the moment. But it’s also worth noting that a carrier is not a prerequisite for dealing with contingencies or even offensive operations in the region. The U.S. can fold in other resources to help make up for the naval presence gap. Where it may be felt most is in missile and drone defense, especially considering multiple Aegis-equipped surface combatants were tasked with defending Israel during the war. This was in addition to the need to defend U.S. and other allies’ facilities in the region.

As for the Ford, its strike group left Norfolk for a “regularly scheduled deployment” to the Mediterranean 11 days before the start of the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran and two days before the U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Last October, the strike group was ordered by President Donald Trump to move to the SOUTHCOM region in response to the growing tensions with Venezuela, which you can read more about here. Arleigh Burke class destroyers USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan remain on station with the Ford to continue operations under Operation Southern Spear, the effort to counter drug trafficking in the region and maintain pressure on Venezuela.

“The fact that the Ford is currently operating in the Southern Command’s area of operations is fine with me,” Caudle posited. “It is the extensions that bother.”

“I am a big non-fan of extensions, and because they do have significant impact,” Caudle explained. “Number one, I’m a sailors-first CNO. People want to have some type of certainty that they’re going to do a seven-month deployment.”

“When it goes past that, that disrupts lives,” Caudle added. “It disrupts things like funerals that were planned, marriages that were planned, okay, babies that were planned, you know, so the human element of extension, I’m not a big fan of obviously.”

Beyond affecting people, extensions also have a detrimental impact on the ships.

“To the financial and readiness aspects, we have maintenance agreements and contracts that have been made with yards that are going to repair the ships that are in that strike group, including the carrier itself,” Caudle explained. “And so when those are tied to a specific time, the yard is expecting it to be there. All that is highly disruptive.”

Extending the deployment of the Ford and its carrier group would also add stress “to the workforce, to the balance on that yard, and to how we actually conduct that maintenance, even more so if it goes into the next fiscal year,” Caudle said. “The financial aspects of an extension can be quite disruptive when we burn the ships hotter – more than planned. That does have detrimental effects on the work package.”

“So now, when the ship comes back, we expected the ship to be in this level of state in which it was used during that seven-month deployment, when it goes eight, nine-plus months, those critical components that we weren’t expecting to repair are now on the table,” Caudle pointed out. “The work package grows, so that’s disruptive.”

Yesterday, the Navy highlighted concerns about how heavy work loads interfere with one aspect of ship maintenance, rust, but there is a much larger scope of work that needs to be done to keep a carrier strike group operational.

Extending ships’ cruises repeatedly can cause cascading effects that deeply impact the future readiness of the force. This can result in critical power projection capabilities not being available in the future. It’s very much a steal from Peter to pay Paul kind of scenario.

You can read all about these issues and how they can manifest across the fleet in this past special feature of ours.

The constant presence needed in the Red Sea, and multiple other contingencies in the Middle East over the last few years, have also taken their toll on the fleet.

Though on a voyage approaching an eighth month, the Ford strike group’s current deployment is still far shorter than the one undertaken by the USS Nimitz strike group in 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nimitz embarked what would become a 341-day deployment, returning home in March 2021. It marked the longest such deployment since the Vietnam War, Navy Times noted.

Regardless of any concerns about what it would mean to the ships and crews of the Ford CSG, Caudle said they will be ready for whatever mission Trump orders.

“I like to tell people the Navy can be anywhere in two weeks,” Caudle proffered. “We are, by our very nature, mobile, expeditionary, quick response option available. And so if the president needs options in the Middle East, you know, we can go build out what that looks like for him. And with the right planning and coordination with the, you know, the respective combatant commanders the Navy will be ready to provide options.”

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Teaching international law has always required disciplined idealism. For those of us in the academy who reject the conceit of a benign American imperial order, it is an exercise in professional candour. One must teach rules while explaining, without euphemism, that the most powerful states do not feel bound by them and no longer bother to conceal it.

Consider the present moment. The President of the United States can announce designs on foreign territory such as Greenland not through treaty, referendum, or any lawful process, but by blunt invocation of “US interests,” accompanied by the warning that force remains available if persuasion fails. He can order the seizure of a sitting foreign head of state, Nicolás Maduro, from Venezuelan territory and then publicly boast that Venezuela’s oil will be redirected for American benefit. This has long been the practice of the United States in substance, but no previous president has been so candid about the premise. Donald Trump has stated openly that he does not consider himself bound by international law, that the only constraint on American power is his own sense of morality, a position he articulated on January 8 in an interview with the New York Times. What earlier administrations cloaked in the language of norms, necessity, or exceptionalism, he dispenses with altogether.

Intellectual honesty in the academy requires that this be taught for what it is: an explicit threat and a completed act of aggression, the very offence defined at Nuremberg as the supreme international crime. On that standard, Donald Trump is no less answerable in The Hague than Vladimir Putin, and no less than Western leaders such as George W Bush and Tony Blair should have been for the invasion of Iraq. This is not subtle. It is not a matter of contested interpretation. It is classical aggression and coercion, unembellished and undisguised, stripped of even the pretence of diplomatic restraint.

Yet much of the American mainstream media and pundit class does not describe such conduct for what it plainly is: a clear and unambiguous violation of international law. Instead, the debate is displaced. The question posed is not legality but prudence. Will this alienate allies? Is it strategically wise? Law disappears, replaced by a technocratic discussion of optics. When legality becomes a footnote to strategy, the legal order is debased.

READ: ICC rejects Israel’s appeal as arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant remain in force

The indulgence is selectively dispensed. The two most militarily assertive powers, the United States and Russia, employ force with a settled expectation that nothing consequential will follow. When American aggression is at issue, condemnation is typically muted or purely ceremonial. Accountability exists largely as abstraction. The lesson conveyed to students is unmistakable. Power confers immunity.

Nowhere is this starker than in the treatment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Genocide is not assessed on the basis of legal definition or evidentiary threshold, but on political permission. If the United States does not wish the word to be used, it becomes unsayable. Language itself is subject to veto. This is not law. It is deference, fear, and self-interest masquerading as restraint.

European governments, meanwhile, are preoccupied with their own security anxieties and therefore reluctant to challenge Washington’s vision of the world. Their caution is understandable. Their silence is not. In moral terms, they have yet to escape the gravitational pull of their colonial pasts. The suffering of Palestinians is viewed through a different lens from that applied to Ukrainians, not because of scale or intensity, but because of race, proximity, and historical comfort. The disparity is glaring.

To sustain this imbalance, Western governments have inverted reality itself. A Zionist settler colonial project is presented as a liberal democracy, while every rule governing occupation, self-determination, and proportionality is bent or ignored. Words are redefined. Violence is reclassified. Victims are rendered abstract.

READ: UN chief warns of referring Israel to International Court of Justice over UNRWA

The same indifference is evident in the United States’ violations of the UN Headquarters Agreement through the denial of visas to officials it disfavors. These are not technical breaches. They strike at the basic functioning of the international system. Yet there is no meaningful pushback. The international community absorbs the insult and moves on.

Nor is this confined to the use of force. The United States has unilaterally torn through trade agreements, destabilising the global trading regime it once championed. But trade disputes, serious as they are, pale beside the ultimate crimes. Aggression, genocide, apartheid and crimes against humanity are not marginal infractions. They are the apex offences of the international legal order. Yet the lesson delivered by practice is stark. When committed by the powerful or their allies, nothing follows.

This is the intellectual terrain on which international law must now be taught. Students are not naïve. They see the contradiction. They understand that rules proclaimed as universal are enforced selectively, if at all. The challenge for the teacher is not to sell illusions, but to explain why law still matters when its breach carries so little consequence.

International law today stands exposed as moribund. It survives less as a constraint on power than as a record of its abuse. Teaching it honestly requires acknowledging that the system was never designed to discipline empires, only to civilise their language. That is a bleak conclusion. It is also preferable to a dishonest syllabus.

If international law is to command authority, it will not come through pious reaffirmations by those who violate it most frequently. It will come through the insistence that legality is not contingent on alliance, race, or convenience. Until then, teaching international law remains a demanding exercise in explaining not only what the law says, but why it is so often ignored by those who wrote it.

OPINION: Never again, except for Palestinians: The moral realignment

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

In just 17 days, protests in Iran which began over the economy have snowballed into its worst unrest in years. Tehran says violence has been fomented by foreign powers, while Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened US military action. Here’s how we reached this point.

Caracas, January 14, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Two Venezuela-bound China-flagged oil supertankers have made U-turns in the Atlantic amidst a US-imposed naval blockade against the Caribbean country.

According to Reuters, the very large crude carriers (VLCC) Xingye and Thousand Sunny were headed Venezuela to load crude cargoes. The ships, which had made several trips to Venezuela in recent years, were anchored for weeks before turning back. China was the main destination of Venezuelan crude in recent years, with part of the cargoes used to offset debt.

The aborted shipments came in the wake of the Trump administration’s claims to take control of Venezuelan oil sales. US forces bombed Caracas and surrounding areas on January 3 and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Since December, the US has also seized five oil tankers for allegedly carrying Venezuelan crude as its navy set up a blockade aimed at strangling Venezuela’s most important revenue source and strong-arming the government.

US officials have reportedly filed “dozens” of court warrants to seize tankers allegedly involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.

Senior Trump administration officials, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have claimed that revenues from Venezuelan oil sales will be deposited in accounts run by the US government. 

The agreement is set to begin with 30-50 million barrels that Venezuela had in storage as a result of the naval blockade, though White House officials have claimed it will extend for an indefinite period. Washington issued an executive order last week shielding Venezuelan oil proceeds in US accounts from creditors.

US President Donald Trump held a meeting with Western oil executives on Friday, urging investment in Venezuela’s oil sector and vowing that corporations will “deal” with the US directly, rather than Venezuelan authorities. Energy companies have been reluctant to pledge any major commitments to Venezuela.

Commodities traders Vitol and Trafigura have received licenses to transport Venezuelan crude and have reportedly begun moving it to Caribbean storage hubs ahead of exports to final destinations. According to reports, the two firms have transported a combined 4.8 million barrels of Venezuela’s Merey 16 blend and have offered them to customers in the US, India and China with an $8.50 discount per barrel compared to ICE Brent.

US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have claimed that US-controlled Venezuelan oil revenues will only be used for imports from US manufacturers, including inputs for the energy sector and the electric grid. Vitol is set to deliver 460,000 barrels of US-sourced naphtha to Venezuela in the coming days, as reported by Argus Media. Caracas requires diluents such as naphtha to turn its extra-heavy crude into exportable blends, and the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on their purchase from US suppliers in 2019.

The Venezuelan government has not commented on the specifics of the new arrangement for oil sales. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said the country remains committed to “diversified economic and geopolitical relations.” Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has confirmed “negotiations” to ship crude cargoes to the US.

For its part, Russia’s Roszarubezhneft stated that it will not relinquish its assets in Venezuela. The state-owned company is a minority partner in multiple joint ventures with PDVSA, including crude upgrader Petromonagas. Roszarubezhneft took over from Rosneft after the latter was hit with US secondary sanctions in 2020.

Venezuela’s oil industry has been under US unilateral coercive measures since 2017. The US Treasury Department has targeted the oil sector with financial sanctions, an export embargo, secondary sanctions, and a bevy of other measures that aimed to choke off Venezuela’s most important income source.

Washington’s recent naval blockade likewise had an immediate impact on production as PDVSA began to run out of storage space, including offshore. The latest OPEC monthly report recorded Venezuela’s December output at 896,000 barrels per day (bpd), as measured by secondary sources. The figure is 60,000 bpd lower than the previous month’s.

For its part, PDVSA reported a smaller decline, from 1.14 to 1.12 million bpd. Direct and secondary data have slightly differed over the years due to disagreements over the inclusion of natural gas liquids and condensates.

The Venezuelan state oil company has begun reactivating wells that were shut down as a consequence of the US blockade, according to Reuters.

A protester who was shot in the face with a non-lethal round has been blinded in one eye and suffered skull fractures. Demonstrators had gathered outside an immigration service building in California when federal police opened fire at close range with paintball style weapons.

United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East has announced the launch of the second phase of a US-brokered plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Steve Witkoff said in a social media post on Wednesday that Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan is “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction”.

The second phase will establish a transitional administration to govern over the bombarded Palestinian territory and the “full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza”, Witkoff said.

“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage. Failure to do so will bring serious consequences,” he said.

Israel has violated the US-brokered ceasefire nearly 1,200 times since it came into effect in October, killing more than 400 Palestinians and blocking critical humanitarian aid from entering the enclave.

More to come…

Shaun Wane has stepped down from his position as England coach, nine months before the Rugby League World Cup.

Former Wigan coach Wane, who succeeded Wayne Bennett in February 2020, was in charge for a home World Cup in 2022. England were knocked out in the semi-finals, losing to Samoa in golden-point extra time.

England won home series against Tonga and Samoa in the following two years but then lost all three Ashes Tests to Australia on home soil last autumn.

After that series defeat, Wane said there was “no question” that he was the right person to lead his nation into the 2026 World Cup.

England’s opening pool match at the tournament is against Tonga in Perth on 17 October, with games against France and Papua New Guinea to follow.

More to follow.

“Somaliland, Puntland, Jubaland, all of them had some level of support from UAE.” Somalia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told Al Jazeera that “external elements” are responsible for separatist divisions his country faces.

A U.S. plane with a civilian-style outward appearance and the ability to launch munitions from within its fuselage carried out the first controversial strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat, according to multiple reports. Questions have been raised about this line of reporting. However, there are very real discreet munition launch options available for aircraft that can retain a distinctly civilian outward appearance, enabled heavily by one specific system called the Common Launch Tube (CLT).

The New York Times was first to report yesterday on the use of the civilian-looking aircraft, which it also described as a “secret” capability, in the strike on the boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2, 2025, citing anonymous sources. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal published additional reports today, again citing unnamed sources, on the involvement of this as-yet unidentified plane.

“It is not clear what the aircraft was. While multiple officials confirmed that it was not painted in a classic military style, they declined to specify exactly what it looked like,” according to the story from the Times. “The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.”

“Its transponder was transmitting a military tail number, meaning broadcasting or ‘squawking’ its military identity via radio signals,” that report added.

It was “a secretive military aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane,” according to the Post‘s report. “The munitions were fired from a launch tube that allows them to be carried inside the plane, not mounted outside on the wing.”

“The Pentagon has told lawmakers that it chose an aircraft painted in civilian colors to carry out a lethal Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean because the unit could be the quickest ready for the operation,” per the Journal. That report also included statements from the Pentagon and the White House that did not expressly confirm or deny the use of a civilian-looking plane.

All three pieces discuss whether the use of an armed aircraft with a civilian-style appearance may have violated international law in this instance, something that remains very much open for debate. The September 2 strike, which killed 11 people, has already been a subject of particular controversy over the decision to hit the boat twice, and whether doing so constituted a crime. Since then, the U.S. military has attacked dozens of boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean, all alleged to be involved in drug smuggling, and this campaign has faced intense legal scrutiny and criticism. MQ-9 Reaper drones and AC-130J Ghostrider gunships are known to have participated in those subsequent attacks.

Much debate had already erupted about the details in The New York Times‘ piece after it was initially published. Many questioned whether the unnamed sources may have been confused about the aircraft in question and/or its appearance. Around the time of the September 2 strike, online flight tracking data had shown a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane in the area, which is primarily painted white rather than a more typical military gray and is based on a version of the Boeing 737 airliner. P-8As can carry munitions in an internal bay in the rear of the fuselage, as well as under their wings. It may potentially have the ability to dispense small munitions from inside the fuselage. We will come back to all of this later on. The Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps, fly a number of other variations of the 737, primarily as transports, under the C-40 designation.

A truly secretive 737 with a civilian-type paint scheme is said to have been in the general area at the time of the strike, but is not known to be armed in any way, although that means little in this case. This particular aircraft, which is covered in unusual antennas, currently has the U.S. civil registration number N235JF. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) public database shows the jet has been registered to “GWP LLC TRUSTEE”, which looks to be a shell company, since 2023, but it has been linked to the U.S. military since then. It notably appeared last year directly alongside one of the U.S. Air Force’s AC-130Js and a Navy P-8A at a known U.S. forward operating location in El Salvador.

One of the U.S. Air Force’s P-9A surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, also referred to by the nickname Pale Ale, is said to have been in the vicinity, as well. The P-9As wear overall white paint schemes and carry civilian registration numbers. They are based on the de Havilland Canada DHC-8 (or Dash-8), versions of which are also in service as airliners. They are also not known to be capable of employing munitions.

It’s HIGHLY likely that a P-8 was mistaken as a civilian paint job, as one was out on the day in question and likely was involved in the strike. P-8s historically also go very close to the water, and its not uncommon for them to be mistaken as 737s: https://t.co/b9spRbqKHC pic.twitter.com/KNb4NEDOYN

— TieDye Intel (@TieDyeIntel) January 13, 2026

What other aircraft may have been present during the strike on September 2 last year is unknown. Not all aircraft that are flying at any one time, civilian and especially military, are visible via online flight tracking sites.

What we do know is that companies in the United States openly offer ways to discreetly arm a host of crewed fixed-wing aircraft, especially smaller turboprop-powered types, with precision-guided munitions. All of this has been made easier by the advent of the aforementioned CLT. Each one of these tubes can accommodate payloads up to 42 inches in length and 5.95 inches in diameter, and that weigh up to 100 pounds. Payloads can be fired forward or ejected backward, depending on their design. GBU-44/B Viper Strike and GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition (SGM) glide bombs, AGM-176 Griffin missiles, and ALTIUS 600 drones are just a few of the payloads known to be launchable via CLT. The tube’s flexibility makes it extremely probable that even more options exist in the classified realm.

It is worth noting here that The Washington Post previously reported that the September 2 boat strike involved the use of GBU-69s and AGM-176s. The P-8A is not known to be capable of employing either of these munitions, lending further credence to the new reporting that another aircraft was used, though not necessarily to it having had a civilian-like appearance. In the past, TWZ has laid out a case for turning the Poseidon into a multi-role arsenal ship with CLT launchers and other capabilities.

Originally developed by Systima Technologies, which was acquired by Karman Missile & Space Systems in 2021, CLTs have been in U.S. service for years now. Munitions launched via CLTs are part of the armament package for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunships, and this had also been a feature on the now-retired AC-130W Stinger IIs. The U.S. Marine Corps’ Harvest Hawk armament kit for its KC-130J tanker-transports also includes a CLT launch system. U.S. MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones are also capable of employing payloads via CLT using launchers loaded on pylons under their wings. As mentioned earlier, AC-130s and MQ-9s are among the aircraft known to have been involved in strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats since September 2 of last year.

The CLT’s diminutive size opens up a host of options for launching whatever payload is inside from somewhere within the internal structure of a wide swath of aircraft. Launchers can be readily set up to fire through parts of the fuselage. AC-130Js have an array of CLT launchers built into the upper portion of the aircraft’s rear cargo ramp. The latest iteration of the Marine’s Harvest Hawk kit has a so-called “Derringer Door” with two launchers that replaces one of he rear paratrooper doors on the KC-130J. This took the place of a launch system strapped to the aircraft’s rear cargo ramp, which had to be open for it to be employed, found on earlier iterations of Haverst Hawk.

Internal CLT launcher arrays are known to be available for Dash-8s and Cessna Model 208 Caravan fixed-wing aircraft, as well as MD Helicopters’ Explorer series helicopters, among many other types. The Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) losing entry in the Air Force’s Armed Overwatch competition was a heavily modified version of the Polish PZL M28 Skytruck, dubbed the MC-145B Wily Coyote, which would have come with eight CLT launchers in its main cargo bay, among other features, as you can read more about here.

Generally speaking, they could be adapted to fit onto pretty much any aircraft large enough to accommodate them, and do so in a very discreet way, only needing a small aperture for their weapons to exist the aircraft from.

CLT launchers mounted internally are typically reloadable in flight, offering magazine depth benefits and giving the crew more flexibility to select the most appropriate payload for the task at hand, as well as to just launch multiple payloads in relatively rapid succession. With launchers built into doors, it is also easier to add or remove this capability, as desired. This, in turn, can enhance its discreet nature, as the launchers might only be installed right before a mission and removed immediately afterward. In this way, there could be little to no obvious outward signs that an aircraft has this capability during routine movements or other day-to-day activities.

Launch systems built into certain parts of an aircraft might not even be readily apparent, to begin with. One company, Fulcrum Concepts, openly offers a launch system compatible with the CLT that fits into the rear of the engine nacelles on variants of the Beechcraft King Air, which is something the U.S. military has at least tested in the past.

Within the U.S. military, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) publicly operates various fixed-wing aircraft, such as its U-28A Dracos and C-146A Wolfhounds. The U-28As are intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, while the C-146s are light transports. AFSOC has also flown ISR-configured variants of the Beechcraft King Air over the years. Any of these types would be well-suited to these kinds of discreet CLT launcher installations on account of the space available in their main cabins. It’s highly probable that this is an option for some of them already. These planes also often have minimal U.S. military markings. Sometimes they wear civilian-type paint schemes, as is notably the case with the Wolfhounds today and has been observed on U-28s, or related types in U.S. service, in the past.

There are even more secretive aircraft in service in the classified ends of the U.S. special operations world, and with the U.S. Intelligence Community that could align with the descriptions found in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal stories, which might have a discreet ability to employ munitions, especially via internally-mounted CLTs. Covert and clandestine strike capabilities would also be well in line with the missions that those aviation elements are often tasked to carry out. On the military side, many of those aircraft are tied to the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which was involved in the September 2 strike.

All this being said, we still do not have anywhere near enough information to identify the aircraft referenced in the recent reports. At the same time, the versatility of the CLT means that essentially any aircraft can be converted to a strike platform that can be armed with small and highly accurate precision munitions capable, including ones capable of hitting targets on the move. Unassuming aircraft equipped in this way, and with liveries atypical of what is usually seen on military types, would be able to get even closer to their objectives with much less chance of raising suspicions. Equipping transport and/or corporate aircraft, and especially one like a 737 with its jet speeds and long-range, in such a way could allow it to strike, even by executing the preverbal ‘hammer toss’ as it flies over a target, while hiding in plain sight, potentially anywhere commercial aircraft can fly.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com