today

A key nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia has expired today, creating the potential for significant changes in U.S. force posture. This could include loading more warheads into Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), restoring nuclear weapons capability to dozens of B-52 bombers, sending Ohio class ballistic missile submarines on patrol with extra Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), or fielding all-new capabilities. There are reports that American and Russian officials are negotiating a voluntary commitment to leave the two countries’ nuclear arsenals as they are, but this would be a temporary measure that could still leave open the door to a new arms race if a more permanent agreement cannot be reached.

U.S. and Russian Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START Treaty in 2010, and it entered into force the following year. The terms of the deal included a provision for a one-time five-year extension, which U.S. and Russian Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to in 2021. Russia formally suspended its participation in the treaty in 2023, citing U.S. actions in relation to the war in Ukraine, but said it would voluntarily continue to abide by the imposed limits. The agreement now sunsets for good today. Years of U.S.-Russian negotiations have so far failed to produce a follow-on treaty.

New START limited each country to 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers (700), 1,550 total strategic nuclear warheads, and 800 relevant deployed and non-deployed launchers. For purposes of the treaty, strategic missiles were defined as ICBMs and SLBMs. Each reentry vehicle inside a single ICBM or SLBM, as well as each nuclear-capable heavy bomber, counted as a single warhead. Bombers, along with silos and mobile transporter-erector launchers for IBCMs and SLBM launch tubes on submarines, were all treated as individual launchers.

Axios has reported that U.S. and Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates have been working to finalize a non-legally-binding voluntary commitment to stick to the New START limits at least for another six months. Delegations from the United States and Russia were already in the Middle Eastern country for talks regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Those meetings have separately produced an agreement to re-establish a high-level U.S.-Russian military-to-military dialogue for the first time since 2021.

The Kremlin had released a statement yesterday that, in part, reiterated a call Putin first made last September for both parties “to commit to voluntary self-limitations to keep the quantitative ceilings on the relevant weapons specified in the Treaty for at least one year after the termination of the agreement.” It’s not clear how this would be verified without the inspection provisions that were central to New START.

“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” President Trump wrote today on his Truth Social platform. However, he did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a temporary voluntary arrangement in the interim.

“Not to my knowledge,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a routine press conference today when asked about whether a temporary agreement to continue abiding by the New START limits had been reached.

Regardless, in the absence of a formally binding agreement, the U.S. government does now technically have a free hand to make major changes to the state of America’s nuclear force posture for the first time in decades. There has been talk for years already about potential near-term steps the U.S. military might take if a more permanent deal did not emerge to follow New START’s sunset.

“A one-year extension would not prejudice any of the vital steps that the United States is taking to respond to the China nuclear build-up,” Rose Gottemoeller, a long-time American diplomat who served as the lead negotiator for New START, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee just this week. “The period will buy extra time for preparation without the added challenge of a Russian Federation, newly released from New START limitations, embarking on a rapid upload campaign. This would not be in the U.S. interest.”

Loading more warheads into LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs could be one option. Each of those ICBMs is currently tipped with a single warhead in line with the New START limits. However, the missiles were originally designed for a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration with three warheads. Even with New START in force, Minuteman IIIs have still sometimes been fired as part of routine testing with multiple unarmed reentry vehicles, demonstrating that this remains an available capability.

Minuteman III Test Launch 4 Aug 2020 Vandenberg AFB, CA

“I do believe that we need to take serious consideration in seeing what uploading and re-MIRVing the ICBM looks like, and what does it take to potentially do that,” now-retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, then head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee back in 2024.

There are questions about how long it might take to ‘upload’ more warheads onto any portion of the 400 Minuteman IIIs currently sitting in silos spread across five states, and what that would cost. At least a portion of the deployed LGM-30Gs would also need to be refitted with MIRV-capable payload buses.

The number of warheads inside deployed Trident IIs, which also have a MIRV configuration, could also change in the future. These SLBMs can carry up to 14 individual warheads, depending on their exact type, but are understood to have often not had maximum loads to keep in line with New START’s provisions.

Under the terms of the treaty, the U.S. Navy also sealed off four of the 24 tubes on each of its 10 Ohio class ballistic missile submarines. In the past, Russian officials had complained about the extent (or lack thereof) of those modifications, which also involved the removal of certain internal components, and raised concerns about being able to regularly verify that the changes had not been reversed. Still, it is unclear exactly how much effort might be required to reactivate those tubes in the future.

There is also the matter of restoring nuclear capability to dozens of B-52 bombers that were modified to only be capable of employing conventional weapons as part of New START. Russia also previously raised concerns about the reversibility of those changes, which that country said involved “removing the nuclear code enabling switch and interconnection box, mounting a code enabling switch inhibitor plate, removing applicable cable connectors, [and] capping applicable wire bundles.” Nuclear-capable B-52s are readily identifiable today by antennas mounted on either side of the rear fuselage.

There has been some public disagreement in recent years about the cost and complexity of re-nuclearizing the B-52s, something TWZ has explored in the past. In the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2025 Fiscal Year, Congress did give the U.S. Air Force authority to pursue this course of action after New START came to a close. However, the provision in the NDAA, which was signed into law in December 2024, did not explicitly compel the service to do so.

There could be additional downstream impacts on the U.S. nuclear arsenal if a more formalized follow-on to New START does not emerge. This might include a MIRVed configuration for future LGM-35A Sentinel ICBMs, expanded orders for nuclear-capable B-21 Raider stealth bombers, and changes to the expected loadout of the forthcoming Colombia class nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

The U.S. Air Force is already looking to ramp up B-21 production, with the possibility that this could lead to an increased overall fleet size in the future. American officials have been supportive of buying additional Raiders beyond the currently stated acquisition target of 100 aircraft. The possibility of purchasing 145 or more of the bombers has been raised in the past. The Air & Space Forces Association’s internal Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies think tank is set to release a new white paper next Monday that calls for a future fleet of at least 200 B-21s (as well as 300 F-47 sixth-generation fighters).

Future U.S. developments could also extend to categories of nuclear weapons not currently in the American arsenal. The Air Force has at least explored the idea of a nuclear-armed hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Charles Richard, who served as head of STRATCOM from 2019 to 2022, issued a new call for the U.S. military to develop a weapon of this kind at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. This is a capability already in service in Russia, at least to a degree. China has also been pursuing nuclear-capable weapons of this type, if they have not fielded them operationally already. The Russian and Chinese armed forces have also been working on other novel nuclear weapon capabilities, including space-based systems, which could influence future U.S. planning going forward.

It is worth noting here that any efforts to increase the total size of America’s stockpile, rather than field new capabilities that replace existing ones, would require significant investments on various levels. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the current slate of U.S. nuclear modernization efforts would cost nearly a trillion dollars, in total, between 2025 and 2034. The U.S. military is also now pushing ahead with the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, which is also expected to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars and will otherwise impact the strategic landscape.

China, which is in the midst of a massive buildup of its nuclear arsenal, has been a central factor in discussions to date about a follow-on strategic arms control agreement to New START. U.S. officials have pushed to include the Chinese in any future agreement, something authorities in Beijing have repeatedly balked at. China’s current nuclear arsenal is still much smaller than those of either the United States or Russia. The U.S. government has assessed that China’s total stockpile could go from approximately 600 nuclear warheads today to 1,000 by 2030, and then to 1,500 by 2035. As noted, the U.S. and Russian governments were each allowed 1,550 strategic warheads under New START. Both countries have even more nuclear weapons that were never covered by New START, to begin with, and more are in development now.

“The President’s been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile,” Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said during a press conference yesterday in response to a question about New START.

SECRETARY RUBIO: The President has been clear that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China — because of their vast & rapidly growing stockpile. pic.twitter.com/FiYVUsBAVb

— Dylan Johnson (@ASDylanJohnson) February 5, 2026

New START’s expiration has fueled already growing concerns about the prospect of a new global nuclear arms race, which would not necessarily be limited to the United States, Russia, and China. The treaty’s sunset follows the steady collapse in recent years of a series of other arms control agreements between the United States and Russia, as well as other treaties intended to promote general transparency in military affairs. The U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, in 2019 over complaints about Russian violations has already had a notable impact on the development and fielding of new nuclear and conventionally-armed missiles in both countries.

The end of New START presents a “grave moment for international peace and security,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement yesterday.

Whether or not a temporary voluntary moratorium on the expansion of stockpiles on both sides leads to a new agreement, and one that might include China, is still an open question. Altogether, it remains to be seen now whether the New START limits continue to hold in the United States or Russia in the absence of a binding agreement.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

An amnesty law that would provide clemency to political prisoners in Venezuela has passed an initial vote unanimously in the National Assembly, stirring hopes among the country’s opposition.

On Thursday, members of both the governing socialist party and the opposition delivered speeches in favour of the new legislation, known as the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence.

“The path of this law is going to be full of obstacles, full of bitter moments,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the National Assembly.

But he added that it would be necessary to “swallow hard” in order to help the country move forward.

“We ask for forgiveness, and we also have to forgive,” Rodriguez said.

But critics nevertheless pointed out that the text of the bill has yet to be made public, and it offers no clemency for individuals accused of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, corruption or human rights violations.

Instead, media reports about the legislation indicate that it focuses on charges often levelled against protesters and opposition leaders.

What does the bill say?

The bill would grant amnesty to individuals accused of crimes like treason, terrorism, rebellion, resisting authorities, instigation of illegal activities, and spreading hate, if those crimes were committed in the context of political activism or protest.

Opposition leaders like Maria Corina Machado would also see bans on their candidacy for public office lifted.

In addition, the legislation specifies certain events that would qualify for amnesty, including the demonstrations that unfolded in 2007, 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2024.

That period stretches from the presidency of the late President Hugo Chavez, founder of the “chavismo” movement, through the presidency of his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro.

Both Chavez and Maduro were accused of the violent suppression of dissent, through arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killings.

But on January 3, the administration of United States President Donald Trump launched a military operation in Venezuela to abduct Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They have since been transported to New York City, where they await trial on charges related to drug trafficking.

While members of Venezuela’s opposition have cheered the military operation as a long overdue move, experts have argued that the US likely violated international law as well as Venezuela’s sovereignty in removing Maduro from power.

Weighing Maduro’s legacy

Images of Chavez were a common sight during Thursday’s debate at the National Assembly, which has been dominated since 2017 by members of the chavismo movement.

That year, Venezuela’s top court dissolved the opposition-led National Assembly and briefly absorbed its powers, before re-establishing a legislature stacked with Maduro supporters.

In 2018 and again in 2024, Maduro claimed victory in contested elections that critics say were marred by fraud.

In the July 2024 vote, for instance, the government refused to release voter tallies, as was previously standard practice. The opposition, however, obtained copies of nearly 80 percent of the tallies, which contradicted the government’s claims that Maduro had won a third six-year term.

After Maduro’s abduction last month, the remnants of his government remained in power.

Within days, his vice president — Delcy Rodriguez, the sister of the National Assembly leader — was sworn in as interim president.

She used her inaugural speech to denounce the “kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores”.

Rodriguez has nevertheless cooperated with US demands, including by supporting a bill to open Venezuela’s nationalised oil industry to foreign investment.

On the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday, her brother Jorge raised a photo of Chavez holding a crucifix while he spoke. Maduro’s son, National Assembly member Nicolas Maduro Guerra, also presented remarks.

“Venezuela cannot endure any more acts of revenge,” Maduro Guerra said as he appealed for “reconciliation”.

Venezuela’s opposition reacts

Still, opposition members in the National Assembly expressed optimism about the bill.

National Assembly representative Tomas Guanipa, for instance, called it the start of a “new, historic chapter” in Venezuelan history, one where political dissidents would no longer be “afraid to speak their minds for fear of being imprisoned”.

Nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent decades, fleeing political persecution and economic instability.

But there have been lingering concerns about the human rights situation in Venezuela in the weeks following Maduro’s abduction — and whether it is safe to return home.

President Rodriguez has pledged to release political detainees and close the infamous prison El Helicoide, where reports of torture have emerged. But some experts say the number of people released does not match the number the government has reported.

The human rights group Foro Penal, for instance, has documented 383 releases since January 8.

That figure, however, is lower than the 900 political prisoners the government has claimed to have released. Foro Penal estimates 680 political prisoners remain in detention.

Opposition figures also allege that the government continues to intimidate and harass those who voice sympathy for Maduro’s removal and other opinions that run contrary to the chavismo movement.

Still, the head of Foro Penal, Alfredo Romero, applauded the initial passage of the amnesty law as a step forward.

“Amnesty is the framework that will ensure… that the past does not serve to halt or derail transition processes,” Romero told the news agency AFP.

A second vote is expected to be held on Tuesday next week.

Directly addressing Epstein’s victims, he said: “I am sorry, sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you. Sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him and sorry that even now you’re forced to watch this story unfold in public once again.”

Even as the U.S. and Iran are scheduled to hold talks in Oman on Friday in hopes of defusing tensions between the two nations, Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran are all preparing for what could be a very violent future conflict. With the talks widely seen as a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avoid another war, the buildup of U.S. military capabilities in the region is continuing.

“While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in history,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House Thursday afternoon.

Her comments followed those made Thursday morning by President Donald Trump, who continued his verbal pressure campaign against Iran.

“They’re negotiating,” Trump said during the 74th National Prayer Breakfast. “They don’t want us to hit them. You know, we have a big fleet going over there.”

“U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, currently in Abu Dhabi, are expected to travel to Qatar to consult with Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani ahead of the talks in Oman,” according to the Jerusalem Post. At the moment, the U.S. and Iran are scheduled to talk about Tehran’s nuclear programs. Under the proposed framework for an agreement, Iran would commit to zero enrichment of uranium for three years, Al Jazeera reported.

“After that, it would agree to limit enrichment of uranium to below 1.5 percent,” the publication explained. “Its current stock of highly enriched uranium – including about 440kg (970lb) that has been enriched to 60 percent – would be transferred to a third country. The proposed framework goes beyond Iran’s nuclear program with mediators proposing that Iran should agree not to transfer weapons and technologies to its regional, non-state allies.”

BREAKING: Al Jazeera claims to have obtained the US-Iran deal framework proposed by Turkey, Qatar and Egypt:

1. Iran agrees to commit to zero uranium enrichment for 3 years, and then agrees to under 1.5% enrichment after that

2. Its stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium would be…

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) February 5, 2026

A wide gap, however, remains about the ultimate outcome of these talks. While Iran wants to limit them to just its nuclear program, the Trump administration has a more comprehensive range of issues that need to be addressed.

“At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage, and has always been prepared to engage with Iran,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.  “For talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles. That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region. That includes the nuclear program. And that includes the treatment of their own people.”

SECRETARY RUBIO on IRAN TALKS:
They will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles, their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region, the nuclear program, the treatment of their own people.pic.twitter.com/i9i97giQSe

— Dylan Johnson (@ASDylanJohnson) February 4, 2026

Trump’s initial threats against Iran came as information trickled out about the nation’s brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests that have seen upwards of 30,000 killed, according to some estimates. The unrest began in Iran on Dec. 28 over rising prices and a devalued currency that saw the rial crater now to basically nothing, as well as a devastating drought.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his country is working hard to prevent U.S.-Iran tensions from tipping the Middle East into a new conflict.

“Speaking to reporters on a return flight from a visit to Egypt, Erdogan added that talks at the level of the U.S. and Iranian leadership would be helpful after lower-level nuclear negotiations due in Oman on Friday,” Reuters reported, citing a transcript of Erdogan’s comments shared by his office on Thursday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Ankara was doing its utmost to prevent tensions between the United States and Iran from dragging the region into a new conflict.

Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Egypt, Erdogan said diplomacy remained… pic.twitter.com/A63xLbI6QJ

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 5, 2026

Regardless of diplomacy, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday threatened Israel, America and the nations hosting U.S. military bases.

“When Americans threaten to attack us, they should know our first target would be the Zionist entity,” said IRGC General Hossein Daghighi, using the term Iran refers to when discussing Israel. “It is well within the range of our missiles. It is America’s weak spot in the region.”

“The enemy’s return to negotiations – the Americans’ return to negotiations – is a sign that they fear the capabilities of the Iranian people,” Daghighi added. “If attacked, we will immediately target all U.S. bases in the region. The countries and governments of the region are our brothers. We have no problems with them, but we will target the U.S. bases in these countries. If America wants to go to war with us, it should evacuate all its bases in the region and leave the region altogether. This is our objective. Our main goal is to drive America out of all the countries in the region.”

IRGC General Hossein Daghighi:

Our main goal is to drive America out of the region; if the U.S. attacks Iran, we will strike Israel first and target all American bases. Washington returned to negotiations out of fear of the Iranian people’s capabilities. pic.twitter.com/nsog54sw7X

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 5, 2026

Iran’s Army spokesman said the U.S. bases in the region are easy targets to attack.

“We are ready to defend, and it is the American president who must choose between compromise or war,” said Amir Akraminia. “Our access to US bases is easy, and this issue has increased their vulnerability.”

US military bases are within Iran’s reach, the army spokesman said on Thursday, warning President Donald Trump to choose between compromise and war.

“Our access to US bases is easy, and this has increased their vulnerability,” Amir Akraminia said. “We are ready to defend… pic.twitter.com/vDBoDV8W5O

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 5, 2026

Perhaps in anticipation of a new attack on its nuclear facilities, satellite images show Iran burying the entrance to the Isfahan site, which was one of three attacked during last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran did something similar prior that operation when it covered entrances to the Fordow facility with dirt to prevent an Israeli commando raid.

👀👀👀

Iran is burying the entrances to its nuclear facilities once again.

Satellite imagery analyzed by @TheGoodISIS shows dirt is being placed at the entrance to the Esfahan nuclear site that was hit during operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER in June of last year. https://t.co/JlmbrgZsQY

— TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) February 5, 2026

Israel, which has vowed that Iran will never get nuclear weapons, remains a large wildcard in the current situation.

While Jerusalem has been urging Trump to attack Iran, has been told it has to “refrain from any unilateral military action” against its archenemy, Sky News Arabia stated. “Ahead of the talks, which are to be held on Friday in Oman, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth described the coordination between Israel and the United States as ‘very close.’ Senior Israeli officials pointed to the frequent visits by military and intelligence officers between the two countries.”

“The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding a meeting with the heads of the security services on Thursday to discuss the tensions with Iran,” Sky News Arabia added.

It should be noted, of course, that Israel attacked Iran last June in what became known as the 12-Day War even as Washington was negotiating with Tehran.

Israeli officials said that the US has asked Israel to refrain from any unilateral military action against Iran, coinciding with the scheduled negotiations between Washington and Tehran. https://t.co/ZQMK6octb4

— Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) February 5, 2026

In addition to being concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel is worried about its ability to produce ballistic missiles, of which Iran already has thousands.

“With help from China…and other countries, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zami has warned that it could increase its ballistic missile production to 300 per month, and within a few years, dwarf its prior ballistic missile totals,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “At 6,000, 8,000, and 10,000 missiles in 2027-2028, analysts worry that even Israel’s awesome multi-layer defense shield would find it hard to keep up.”

Amid all the rhetoric, Israel is bracing for war.

“The Air Force, and especially you, must continue to maintain a high level of alertness,” Israeli Air Force commander, General Tomer Bar, said during a visit to an Iron Dome air defense battery on Thursday. “Every day, we are strengthening our readiness and our defensive and offensive capabilities. The reserve forces present at this battery, in the air defense system, and in all units of the Air Force and the Israel Defense Forces, are the central element of our power and of the State of Israel. Your mission and the heavy responsibility you have carried since the beginning of the war and on all fronts, together with the families who support you, are truly inspiring. The professionalism, dedication, and motivation you demonstrate here give me complete confidence that the Air Force is capable of confronting any challenge that lies ahead of us.”

“As we understand the situation, we are on a thin line between preparedness and attack,” an Israeli security official said. “A dramatic weekend awaits the region.”

Visiting a reserve Iron Dome battery in northern Israel, Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar says the military continues to “strengthen preparedness and capabilities in both defense and offense,” amid the ongoing tensions with Iran.

“The air force, and you in particular,… pic.twitter.com/NYHeFkwLP0

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) February 5, 2026

The stream of U.S. Air Force cargo jets to the region, however, is continuing at a brisk pace. Online flight trackers estimate that well over 100 aircraft have arrived in the Middle East over the past few weeks, bringing additional forces, including additional Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems for increased protection from any Iranian attack.

While that may seem like a large number of flights, remember that last year, when the U.S. wanted to bolster its forces in the Middle East ahead of a potential conflict with Iran, it took 73 C-17 loads to move one Patriot air defense battalion across the globe. That is just one example of how hard-pressed U.S. military transport logistics are in a time of a major conflict that would require massive movements — in the air and at sea — of materiel.

2/5 AM Air Defense Move Update

Flights carrying air defenses have continued to stream into the Middle East overnight with more leaving Texas for Europe.

I have logged 50 flights since 1/23 total with 10 still in progress and no final destination is known yet. For context, last… pic.twitter.com/WlvFep7TEC

— TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) February 5, 2026

As part of the effort to handle all these aircraft movements, the U.S. base at Spangdahlem, Germany, is now operating around the clock, the BBC noted. In addition, it appears another E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) jet is now in the region.

“A third US Air Force E-11A aircraft departed from Chania International Airport on the Greek island of Crete yesterday. It touched down about four hours later at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.”

Separately Spangdahlem Air Base, a large Nato facility in Germany operated…

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) February 5, 2026

The U.S. has already deployed additional F-15E Strike Eagles, E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare jets and A-10 Thunderbolt close support aircraft to the region, where some F-15Es and A-10s were already located. The U.S. Navy also has squadrons of F-35C stealth fighters, F/A-18E-F Super Hornets and Growlers embarked aboard the Lincoln. However, as we have frequently pointed out, there still does not appear to be enough tactical jets for the U.S. to maintain a sustained operation, even of limited scope, against Iran.

A flight of Air Force F-35A stealth fighters, used in the raid to capture Maduro, is still stuck in Rota, Spain, according to online flight trackers. The jets, reportedly bound for Jordan, became marooned there after a KC-46 mishap at Moron Air Base, some 50 miles to the northeast, shut the runway for days. While the Moron runway has since been reopened, it remains unclear how many flights have been launched. We have reached out to the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command and U.S. Air Forces Europe-Air Force Africa (USAFE) for details.

We have not seen any major movement of strategic bombers yet either and there does not appear to be any major increase of assets on Diego Garcia, a U.S. base in the Indian Ocean. Last year, ahead of rising tensions with Iran, the U.S. sent a large force of bombers and other supporting assets to Diego Garcia, which TWZ was first to report on.

Though Trump on Thursday mentioned that the U.S. has a “big fleet” heading to the Middle East, there have been no ship movements today, a U.S. Navy official told us. There are still 10 ships in the U.S. Central Command region, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three of its Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer escorts. There are also two Arleigh Burke class ships in the eastern Mediterranean as well, the official added.

In a veiled message to Iran, CENTCOM released a time-lapse video showing the launch and recovery of jets from the Lincoln.

On the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, what looks like a random rush of jets and people is actually a well-orchestrated routine. Sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are trained to work as a team to launch and recover safely and on time, every time. pic.twitter.com/64ubKaG1wC

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 5, 2026

Iran is no match for American military forces, the Navy’s highest-ranking active-duty officer said this week.

“Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told hundreds of sailors at an all-hands call Wednesday that although he doesn’t take Iranian posturing lightly, U.S. forces overmatched Tehran’s threats ‘significantly’ when it comes to capabilities,” Stars and Stripes reported. “We have a very good approach of providing the president of the United States military options. Iran knows this. So, the fact that we have that type of capability is a strong deterrent.”

Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told hundreds of sailors at an all-hands call that although he doesn’t take Iranian posturing lightly, U.S. forces overmatched Tehran’s threats “significantly” when it comes to capabilities.https://t.co/onC0T1tj5L

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) February 5, 2026

As CENTCOM was showing off the Lincoln, the IRGC on Thursday claimed it seized two oil tankers with their foreign crews in Gulf waters for “smuggling fuel,” the official Iranian Tasnim news agency reported.

“More than one million liters of smuggled fuel were discovered on these two violating vessels, and 15 foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities for legal proceedings,” Tasnim added. It was not immediately clear what flags the tankers were carrying, nor the nationalities of the crews.

BREAKING:

Iranian IRGC terrorists claim they have captured two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf carrying around 1 million liters of diesel fuel.

Fifteen foreign crew members were detained. pic.twitter.com/LbUcrTlkVQ

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 5, 2026

The seizures, part of an ongoing Iranian effort in the Gulf, came just two days after an F-35C from the Lincoln shot down an Iranian drone. In a separate incident that day, IRGC forces harassed a U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed merchant vessel lawfully transiting the Strait of Hormuz. “Two IRGC boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached M/V Stena Imperative at high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker,” Col. Tim Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesperson, said in a statement to TWZ. “Guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul (DDG 74) was operating in the area and immediately responded to the scene to escort M/V Stena Imperative with defensive air support from the U.S. Air Force.”

We will keep you up to date with new developments in this fast moving story.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

The January 3 US strikes in Caracas have no historical precedent, not only for Venezuela but for all of South America. It was the first US military attack against a capital in this part of the world in our history as independent nations. 

To understand the underlying motivations behind such an outrageous bombing of Caracas, and going beyond the professed US interests in the country’s natural resources, we have to understand the position, the ideas, and the role played by elites in shaping key areas of national interest, including the concept of sovereignty, the nation’s resources, the model of state, and Venezuela’s foreign relations – in their own image, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This meant the imposition of a political thought and socioeconomic model that ended up, above all, benefiting the Spanish-descendant or Creole oligarchy, which had been known in colonial times as the mantuanos.

Venezuela emerged from the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest as what is known in Venezuelan historiography as the “colonial-implanted society” (1), that is, a settler formation. At its zenith, it was a Creole elite with ample economic privileges but with a highly restricted political reach, limited to participation in municipal town halls (“cabildos”). This privileged sector was the dominant political class in colonial society for three centuries, with deep Hispanic cultural roots, a notion of superiority towards the popular classes alongside a complex of inferiority towards peninsular Spaniards who controlled the political and administrative affairs of the colony.

Between 1810 and 1816, the Creole elite played a leading role in the national independence struggle. Later, during his Caribbean tour of Jamaica and Haiti, the Liberator Simón Bolívar managed to pierce through his social and ideological class blinders, thus evolving from a mere mantuano military chief to become the revolutionary leader of the process of Venezuelan and South American emancipation. The historic step was taken through the decree issued in July 1816, in Ocumare de la Costa, with the momentous incorporation of enslaved people into the independence struggle, promising freedom, land, and citizenship to all those who answered the patriotic call. This revolutionary act, like many others in Bolívar’s life, would provoke splits and internal conflicts among military leaders and patriotic politicians, which would later lead to the separation of Gran Colombia in 1830 and the creation of Venezuela as an independent state. Likewise, the founding of the new Venezuelan republic in that same year by the Creole elites was essentially based on anti-Bolivarian political and ideological foundations, and it would undergird the model of the state and the socioeconomic system to be maintained until the end of the twentieth century. (2)

The main political positions assumed by Bolívar during his lifetime certainly did not please certain social sectors within independent America. His clear vision of a centralist government in contrast to the federal model adopted in the United States; his desire to grant freedom to enslaved Black people so that they could become citizens with full rights; his ideal of Colombian unity and the creation of a confederation of independent American states under a model of regional integration –all these plans became factors of discord and internal disagreement among the Venezuelan elites who, together with seditious elements in New Granada and Quito, ultimately brought about the disintegration of Gran Colombia.  

At the same time, in 1823, a geopolitical doctrine emerged from the United States that would mark the history of US interventionism in the hemisphere to this day. Known as the Monroe Doctrine, it proclaimed US hegemony over political, economic, and military affairs in the hemisphere, against any intervention from outside the region and in favor of US capital, exacting a horrific toll on the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean over the last two centuries.

In Venezuela, the entire first century of republican life was marked by struggles between liberal and conservative elites. Conservative sectors launched political campaigns against liberal factions with the hidden intention of handing the country over to foreign interests while securing their own economic benefits. Once the republic was established, internal strife prevented the Venezuelan political class from even diplomatically agreeing on the border limits with Colombia, eventually leading the country to lose vast territories due to external interference before the borders with our neighbors were ultimately settled. (3) Later, amid the post-1858 crisis, Conservative Creole elites even promoted the creation of an English protectorate in Venezuela, with Pedro Gual and Manuel Felipe Tovar appealing to the then United Kingdom chargé d’affaires in Venezuela, Edward St. John, for British intervention in order to prevent the Liberal Party from coming to power with the support of the African-descendent masses. It was this ongoing political hostility between these two parties for almost three decades that, over time, inevitably degenerated into the so-called Federal War or Long War, between 1859 and 1864, the last episode of civil war in the country.

Thus, throughout the nineteenth century, Venezuela lost all the political power it had gained during independence, all the accumulated military power that had led it to victory across the continent, and all its productive and economic capacity. It became trapped in a monoculture agricultural dependency based on coffee and cocoa crops. In addition, during these times of neglect, the country became a republic without the material capabilities needed to institutionalize a central state that did not even have its own infrastructure until 1873, when the first part of the Federal Legislative Palace was finally built. 

Later, at the end of the nineteenth century, during the government of General Cipriano Castro, a military chief from the southwestern Andean state of Táchira who put an end to the struggles between liberal and conservative elites, the country once again fell victim to imperialist designs on the national wealth. In 1899, in the so-called Paris Arbitration Award, Venezuela was stripped of a significant part of its eastern territory when it lost Guayana Esequiba to the British Empire, thanks to the legal assistance of Russia, acting as judge, and the United States, as the supposed defender of Venezuelan interests before the international courts.  

A few years later, in 1902, Venezuela was once again the target of imperialist threats through diplomatic siege and international media campaigns against the government by the UK, Germany, and Italy. Under the pretext of collecting debts acquired by the Venezuelan state, the European powers imposed a naval blockade and took over the ports of La Guaira and Maracaibo. These events were clearly acts of intervention intended to trigger a military invasion of the country, supported by elite sectors in favor of the presence of imperialist forces in the country.

There has thus been a clear continuity in the servility of the Creole oligarchy to imperial powers since the nineteenth century, with the appeal for an English protectorate, followed by whitening immigration policies, territorial dispossession, and a naval blockade. In the twentieth century, the subordination took the form of oil concessions, with petroleum becoming a key battleground for class struggle. Fast forward to the present, over the past 27 years, Venezuela under the Bolivarian Revolution, has been the target of relentless US-led hybrid warfare, with traditional manutano elites like María Corina Machado openly calling for a US military intervention. 

These internal and external efforts to dismantle the sovereign national project and seize the country’s vast wealth and resources finally culminated in the January 3 US bombing of Caracas and kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, bringing two centuries of republican history full circle.

Notes

1. The term “colonial-implanted society” was coined by Venezuelan historian Germán Carrera Damas to explain the long and ongoing process of the establishment of Venezuelan society, which began in the 1500s and can be approached theoretically and methodologically as a historical continuity that extends to the present day. By the 19th century, the socioeconomic elites would promote policies to position Venezuela as a mere supplier of raw materials for the global capitalist system, while guaranteeing their economic privileges. This sociopolitical dynamic, institutionalized through national projects, would continue until the end of the twentieth century. 
2. Not only in Venezuela, but the separatist oligarchies of Quito and New Granada, after their separation from Gran Colombia, also imposed political and administrative models contrary to Bolivarian ideas, establishing federal republics in the US style and opposed to Bolívar’s centralist model. 
3. The Pombo-Michelena dispute between the governments of Venezuela and Colombia, which lasted from 1833 to 1840, led to diplomatic conflicts between the two countries that were ultimately settled by Spain in an 1891 arbitration, with Queen Regent Maria Christina of Habsburg as the decision-maker. This award significantly harmed Venezuela, granting extensive territories to Colombia, such as La Guajira, the plains of Casanare, and the regions of the Meta, Guainía, and Vichada rivers.

The Insurgent History column features Venezuelan historians who explore key episodes of the country’s nineteenth and twentieth century history and their relevance for the present.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Christian E. Flores G. (Caracas, 1974) holds a bachelor’s degree in History from the Central University of Venezuela and MSc. in Venezuelan History from the National Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE). He currently serves as Director of Research and Historical Advisory Services for the Venezuelan National Assembly, Professor of Critical History of Puntofijismo (1958-1999) and Critical History of the Bolivarian Revolution at UNEARTE. He’s a researcher with more than 20 years of experience, and some of his published books are: 4F: Collapse of the Puntofijista Parliamentand 1815-2015, bicentennial of the Letter from Jamaica, in addition to articles and papers in Venezuelan and international publications.

Friedrich Merz said concerns about a further escalation with Iran have dominated his trip to the Gulf region.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned of the threat of a military escalation in the Middle East before talks between Iran and the United States in Oman on Friday.

Speaking in Doha on Thursday, Merz said that fears of a new conflict had characterised his talks during his trip to the Gulf region.

“In all my conversations yesterday and today, great concern has been expressed about a further escalation in the conflict with Iran,” he said during a news conference.

Merz also urged Iran to end what he called aggression and enter into talks, saying Germany would do everything it could to de-escalate the situation and work towards regional stability.

The warning came in the run-up to a crucial scheduled meeting between officials from Tehran and Washington in Muscat.

Mediators from Qatar, Turkiye and Egypt have presented Iran and the US with a framework of key principles to be discussed in the talks, including a commitment by Iran to significantly limit its uranium enrichment, two sources familiar with the negotiations have told Al Jazeera.

Before the talks, both sides appear to be struggling to find common ground on a number of issues, including what topics will be up for discussion.

Iran says the talks must be confined to its long-running nuclear dispute with Western powers, rejecting a US demand to also discuss Tehran’s ballistic missiles, and warning that pushing issues beyond the nuclear programme could jeopardise the talks.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said the US is eager for the talks to follow what they see as an agreed-upon format.

“That agreed-upon format includes issues broader than what the US understands Iran is willing to discuss in this initial set of talks,” she explained.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that talks would have to include the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, its support for armed groups around the Middle East and its treatment of its own people, in addition to its nuclear programme.

A White House official has told Al Jazeera that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key figure in his Middle East policy negotiations, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, have arrived in the Qatari capital, Doha, in advance of the talks.

Halkett said that Qatar is playing an instrumental role in trying to facilitate these talks, along with other regional US partners, including Egypt.

“We understand, according to a White House official, that this is perhaps part of the reason for the visit – to try and work with Qatar in an effort to try and get Iran to expand and build upon the format of these talks.”

Pressure on Iran

The talks come as the region braces for a potential US attack on Iran after US President Donald Trump ordered forces to amass in the Arabian Sea following a violent crackdown by Iran on protesters last month.

Washington has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East, as well as an aircraft carrier, other warships, fighter jets, spy planes and air refuelling tankers.

Trump has warned that “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on Iran.

This is not the first time Iranian and US officials have met in a bid to revive diplomacy between the two nations, which have not had official diplomatic relations since 1980.

In June, US and Iranian officials gathered in the Omani capital to discuss a nuclear agreement, but the process stalled as Israel launched attacks on Iran, killing several military leaders and top nuclear scientists, and targeting nuclear facilities. The US later briefly joined the war, bombing several Iranian nuclear sites.

Volker Turk appeals for $400m after cuts to operations in 17 countries.

The human rights chief of the United Nations says his office has been pushed into “survival mode” as he appealed for $400m to cover its funding needs this year.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Thursday that budget cuts last year reduced operations in 17 countries, including Colombia, Myanmar and Chad.

Turk warned the cuts are undermining global human rights monitoring as he outlined his agency’s funding needs after the United States and other major Western donors last year reduced their humanitarian spending and support for UN-linked agencies.

“These cuts and reductions untie perpetrators’ hands everywhere, leaving them to do whatever they please,” he told diplomats at his office’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. “With crises mounting, we cannot afford a human rights system in crisis.”

While the US government under former President Joe Biden was the top single donor to Turk’s agency in voluntary contributions at $36m in 2024, the current administration under President Donald Trump halted its contributions in 2025.

“I am thankful to our 113 funding partners, including governments, private and multilateral donors, for their vital contributions,” Turk said. “But we are currently in survival mode, delivering under strain.”

Trump has repeatedly said the UN has potential but has failed to live up to it. During his time in office, the US has withdrawn from UN bodies such as the World Health Organization and UNESCO and cut funding to dozens of other agencies.

Last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a letter sent to all UN member nations that the world body faces “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues.

Last year, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had appealed for $500m in voluntary contributions but received $257m. It received $191m through the regular budget, about $55m less than initially approved, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Saudi Arabia has launched a project to issue passports for camels, in a move seen as a “qualitative step” to regulate the sector and strengthen the kingdom’s credibility in local and international markets, the government said on Wednesday, Anadolu reports.

A statement by the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture said Deputy Minister Mansour bin Hilal Al-Mushaiti inaugurated the camel passport project Tuesday evening.

The initiative is designed to organize the camel sector, document identity and improve service efficiency while enhancing market trust domestically and internationally, the ministry said.

The project seeks to record camels’ data, ownership and breeds and link them to verified health and regulatory information, making the passport an officially recognized reference that supports more efficient services, the statement added.

READ: Saudi minister denies claims of refusal to receive UAE’s deputy ruler

The camel passport serves as a comprehensive identification document, containing a microchip number, passport number, the camel’s name, date of birth, breed, sex, color, place of birth, and date and place of issuance, as well as photographs of the animal from both sides to ensure accurate identification, the ministry said.

It also includes a dedicated vaccination table that clearly documents veterinary immunization records, certified by the name, signature and stamp of the veterinarian, according to the statement.

The ministry said the passport will help regulate sales and trading by tightening controls over camel sales, transport and official documentation.

In a census released in June 2025, the ministry said the total number of camels in the kingdom reached 2,235,297 heads.

Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top camel-owning countries, with an estimated 80,000 owners, according to unofficial figures.

READ: Saudi Arabia: Citizens can invite Muslim friends abroad for Umrah on new visa

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to reveal the vetting process used by the ruling Labour Party to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States in December 2024 after new revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files about the relationship between the diplomat and the billionaire sex offender.

For one, the latest release of files relating to the investigation of Epstein by the US Department of Justice showed that Mandelson maintained his relationship with Epstein after Epstein served a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. But chief among the claims against Mandelson now are the suggestions he received payments from the late financier and may have shared market-sensitive information with him that was of financial interest to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison by suicide in 2019 before his trial stemming from his second prosecution for sex offences, including allegations of trafficking dozens of girls, could take place.

On Thursday, Starmer apologised to victims of Epstein for appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to the disgraced financier.

“It had been publicly known for some time that Mandelson knew Epstein, but none of us knew the depth and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said.

“I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him.”

Who is Peter Mandelson and what is he accused of?

Since the release on Friday of the latest tranche of Epstein files, including emails between Epstein and Mandelson, UK media have widely reported that the government suspects Mandelson may have illegally shared market-sensitive information with Epstein 15 years ago.

The newly released files include more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

As a life peer, Mandelson, 72, was a member of the House of Lords before he resigned this week. He was a veteran Labour politician who served in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. After Labour swept back into power after 14 years in the opposition in 2024, he was appointed ambassador to the US, taking up his post on February 10 last year.

He resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday.

“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter reported by British media.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.”

Alleged leaks of sensitive information by Mandelson took place in 2009 when he was serving as the UK’s business secretary in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is not the first time that Mandelson has been embarrassed by his friendship with Epstein. On September 11, the UK fired Mandelson as ambassador to the US over emails between the two men, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

On Tuesday, UK police launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson over suspected misconduct in public office linked to his relationship with Epstein.

Misconduct in public office is punishable in the UK with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Besides his sacking as ambassador, Mandelson has previously been forced to resign from ministerial posts for alleged misconduct on two occasions – in 1998 and 2001.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein was a billionaire financier born and raised in New York who was known for socialising with celebrities and politicians.

Criminal investigations indicated he may have abused hundreds of girls over the course of his high-profile career. He was arrested in 2019 on federal criminal charges relating to alleged exploitation of underage girls dating back two decades. He died in prison before he could come to trial.

He also was previously accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 2005 after her parents made a report to the police. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in relation to a single victim.

He spent 13 months in prison on a work-release programme, which allowed him to leave jail to go to work during the day and return at night.

The US attorney in Manhattan also prosecuted Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell as a coconspirator in his sexual abuse scheme. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, which she received in 2022.

What do we know about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein?

When Mandelson was fired as ambassador to the US in September, the FCDO wrote: “In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador.

“The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”

These particular emails were obtained and published by the UK’s Sun newspaper in September. In them, Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced in 2008.

“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told Epstein before his sentence began.

“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain,” Mandelson wrote. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can.”

It is now clear from the latest tranche of Epstein files that Mandelson continued his friendship with Epstein for some time after the financier had been convicted of sex offences.

What do the new Epstein files reveal?

From 2003 to 2004, bank records indicated that Epstein made three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts connected to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said he does not recall receiving any such funds and has pledged to examine whether the documents are genuine.

According to these documents, in 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds ($13,607, or $20,419 today after inflation) to pay for an osteopathy course. This week, Mandelson told The Times of London: “In retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgement for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”

Emails revealed in the latest tranche of files from the US Justice Department also shine a light on the close friendship between the two men.

In October 2009, Epstein wrote in an email to Mandelson: “You can marry princess beatrice, the queen would have a queen as a grandson,” referring to the daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince whose royal titles were stripped last year over his own links to Epstein and allegations of the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, who successfully sued Mountbatten-Windsor.

“does that make it incest, how exciting,” Epstein wrote.

In 2010, Lesley Groff, known to have been Epstein’s long-term executive assistant, emailed his boss: “Mandelson’s holiday plans arc still being sorted out. They hope to be in touch soon.”

In 2013, Epstein emailed Mandelson, saying he knew Mandelson was visiting St Petersburg, Russia. Mandelson described the city as “a rave”, to which Epstein asked whether “its for gays”. Mandelson responded, “Er no, tastey [sic] models and dancing.”

But the emails also suggested Mandelson passed sensitive information to the financier.

On May 9, 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost compelte [sic].” The next morning, European governments approved a 500-billion-euro bailout for banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Also in May 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying, “Finally got him to go today.” It is believed that Mandelson was referring to former Labour Prime Minister Brown.

Epstein replied to this email: “I have faith, the value of some chapters in your book should now increase.”

Brown announced his resignation just hours after this email exchange.

What has Starmer said?

Under mounting pressure from opposition politicians and within his own party this week, Starmer agreed to release information about the process through which Mandelson was appointed ambassador in 2024.

At a question and answer session on Wednesday in the House of Commons dominated by the Epstein revelations, Starmer admitted that he knew of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein but said Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador”.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party,” Starmer said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

Starmer said he would ensure that “all of the material” is published, except for documents that compromise Britain’s national security, international relations or the police investigation into Mandelson’s activities.

On Tuesday, Starmer told his cabinet he was “appalled by the information” regarding Mandelson and was concerned more details could come to light, according to a Downing Street readout of the cabinet meeting.

Starmer also said he had ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

“The alleged passing on of emails of highly sensitive government business was disgraceful,” Starmer said, adding that he was not yet “reassured that the totality of information had yet emerged”.

How will this affect Starmer?

Members of parliament expressed their dismay and called on him to step down.

Conservative MP Luke Evans said: “At the end of the day, he [Starmer] made the decision to appoint Mandelson to the post of ambassador, so he must explain his decision-making process.”

Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “There is no doubt that the prime minister’s judgement is being called sharply into question at this moment. It is becoming harder to see how any of us can rely on his judgement in future.”

Conservative MP Graham Stuart added: “The fact is that he appointed a person who had already broken all the Nolan Principles before his appointment as well as doing so after it. I think that makes the prime minister’s position untenable.”

The Nolan Principles are a set of ethical standards for all public office holders in the UK.

“I would say that today is the crumbling of Starmer. His judgement is poor, and it is ruining this country and the Labour Party,” Conservative MP Esther McVey said.

What do we know about how Mandelson was approved as US ambassador?

Facing questions from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the House of Commons in September, Starmer maintained that “full due process was gone through” for the purposes of Mandelson’s appointment.

Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, who is said to have nicknamed him “Petie”, had been publicly known for years.

But The Times of London reported that Starmer received just a two-page vetting note from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team about Mandelson’s appointment.

That document suggested that while Epstein was in prison in 2009, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The report also contained a photograph of Mandelson and Epstein together.

This indicated that by late 2024, the UK government had documentation showing Mandelson had remained close to Epstein even after his 2008 conviction.

Food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition exceeded in Darfur’s Um Baru and Kernoi.

Acute malnutrition has reached famine levels in two more areas of western Sudan’s Darfur region, United Nations-backed experts warn, as a civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army has caused widespread hunger.

In an alert issued on Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), global food security experts said famine thresholds for acute malnutrition had been surpassed in North Darfur State’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.

The IPC alert is not a ‍formal famine classification, but it highlights alarming levels of hunger based on the latest data.

In Um Baru, the rate of acutely malnourished children aged under five was ​nearly double the famine threshold with 53 percent affected, the report said.

Nearly a third of children in Kernoi suffered from acute malnutrition, it added.

“These alarming rates suggest an increased risk of excess mortality and raise concern that nearby areas may be experiencing similar catastrophic conditions,” the report said.

Thursday’s alert, based on data available up to February, comes nearly three months after the IPC confirmed famine conditions in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, about 800km (500 miles) to the east.

El-Fasher, long the Sudanese army’s final stronghold in the Darfur region, fell to the RSF in October after 18 months of bombardment and starvation.

Um Baru and Kernoi are near the border with Chad and have received some of the tens of thousands of displaced people who fled el-Fasher when it fell to the RSF. Fighting subsequently has been reported in both locations.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the army and the RSF, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 11 million and driven multiple regions into famine and hunger.

The IPC said 20 more areas in Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan were at risk of famine.

Israeli warplanes conducted more than 50 raids on Lebanon last month amid major surge in attacks, says refugee rights NGO.

Israel is carrying out a “clear and dangerous” surge in air attacks on Lebanon, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said, with its warplanes conducting more attacks on its neighbour in January than in any previous month since the ceasefire.

The humanitarian organisation said on Thursday that Israeli warplanes had carried out at least 50 air raids on Lebanon last month – about double the number of the previous month.

The group said the repeated attacks made a mockery of the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, after more than a year of cross-border attacks and a two-month-long Israeli intensification that killed thousands in Lebanon and devastated civilian infrastructure.

“These attacks – as well as the many ground incursions that continue to happen away from the cameras – have deemed the ceasefire agreement little more than ink on paper,” said Maureen Philippon, NRC’s country director in Lebanon.

The data, provided to the NRC by security company Atlas Assistance, captures only attacks carried out by manned Israeli warplanes and does not include Israeli drone attacks, which regularly result in deaths in Lebanon, or attacks carried out during Israeli ground incursions.

The Israeli attacks have continued in recent days. On Monday, Israeli warplanes targeted buildings in two villages in southern Lebanon, Kfar Tebnit and Ain Qana, after issuing evacuation orders to residents.

Israel’s military claimed the buildings were Hezbollah “military infrastructure” and said it was targeting them in response to what it said were the group’s prohibited attempts to rebuild its activities in the area.

On Wednesday, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of committing an environmental crime after Israeli aircraft sprayed an unknown substance over southern Lebanese towns.

Death and displacement

The NRC said the ongoing attacks have created a climate of fear and instability for residents and were hampering much-needed reconstruction efforts, in a country still reeling from the effects of the conflict with Israel before the ceasefire.

The attacks have struck targets in dozens of cities and villages in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, destroying homes and displacing families in an environment where approximately 64,000 people have already been displaced by the conflict.

“Aid agencies, including NRC, are still dealing with the aftermath and consequences of months of destructive conflict which left much of Lebanon in ruins,” said Philippon.

She said the effect of the attacks was being felt by families and children, citing a school in west Bekaa that had recently been repaired by her organisation, only to be damaged again in a recent attack in the area.

“This means yet another spell of interrupted education for children,” she said.

Philippon called on Israel’s allies to do “everything they can to stop these attacks on civilian areas and villages”.

“This vicious cycle has to end,” she added.

‘Thousands’ of breaches

Under the terms of the November 2024 ceasefire, cross-border attacks were supposed to stop; Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, which runs across south Lebanon; and Israel was to withdraw troops that had invaded south Lebanon in October.

Israel, however, has continued its attacks across the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east on a near-daily basis, while its army continues to occupy five points in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese government says Israel has committed thousands of breaches of the ceasefire agreement.

Hezbollah has launched only one attack in the 14 months since the ceasefire, while Israel has killed more than 330 people in Lebanon, including at least 127 civilians, and a top Hezbollah commander, Haytham Ali Tabatabai.

The U.S. Marine Corps says it is planning to award a sole-source contract for a new AGM-114 Hellfire missile-armed mobile counter-drone system to defense contractor V2X. This is the same firm that developed the Tempest, a high-mobility 4×4 vehicle with launchers for radar-guided Longbow Hellfires and optimized for shooting down uncrewed aerial threats. At least two Tempest vehicles are now in active service in Ukraine, where they first emerged unexpectedly earlier this month.

Last week, Marine Corps Systems Command (MARSCORSYSCOM) quietly put out a contracting notice regarding what it is currently referring to as the Denied Area Sprinter-Hellfire (DASH) system.

“The program office within Program Executive Officer, Land Systems (PEO LS) Marine Corps for the Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) intends to award a hybrid contract (Firm-Fixed Price and Cost Type) on a sole-source basis to V2X … for the Denied Area Sprinter-Hellfire (DASH) system,” according to the notice. “The Marine Corps has a unique and specific need to procure Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System already at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-9 level, to support dismounted Marines.”

“The DASH system fills a critical need to detect, identify, track, and defeat small UAS in a highly mobile, rugged form factor that will help protect Marines,” the notice continues. “The United States Government intends to procure up to 50 systems to include training, initial spares, and reimbursable repairs with an expected delivery date for two systems of no later than 30 May 2026 and delivery of the remaining 48 systems no later than December 2026 to meet an FY27 initial operational capability requirement. This effort is expected to be awarded in Fiscal Year 2026.”

The notice does not provide specific details about the DASH system’s configuration. TWZ has reached out to the U.S. Marine Corps and V2X for more information.

However, the mention of TRL-9 does point to DASH being a Marine Corps version of Tempest or a direct derivative thereof. In U.S. government contracting parlance, TRL-9 refers to systems that are not just fully developed, but that have also proven themselves in operationally relevant conditions.

V2X first unveiled Tempest at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention in Washington, D.C., last October. The configuration that has been seen to date, including in Ukraine, consists of a pair of launch rails for Hellfire missiles and a small form factor active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar mounted on what looks to be a modified Can-Am Maverick X3 4×4 off-road buggy.

The vehicle also has an array of antennas mounted on the left rear side, which are likely tied to a passive radio frequency (RF) detection system. The system does not have any other readily apparent sensors, such as electro-optical and/or infrared cameras.

The combination of the radar and a passive RF detection system would be enough to enable the vehicle to be able to spot and track drones, and then cue its AGM-114L Longbow Hellfires to intercept them. Unlike the majority of Hellfire variants that are laser-guided, the AGM-114L has a millimeter wave radar seeker. Despite originally being designed to engage targets on land and at sea, the Longbow variant of the Hellfire has been in increasing use in the anti-air role in recent years. This extends beyond ground-based platforms, with the AGM-114L now having demonstrated counter-drone capability when employed in the surface-to-air mode from ships and as an air-to-air weapon launched from crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

At the same time, it is still possible that V2X may have developed a variation on this concept for the Marine Corps that uses a different underlying platform. The fact that the Tempest system can be installed on something as small and lightweight as a modified Can-Am Maverick X3 underscores the potential for it to be ported over to an array of other vehicles. V2X itself has said in the past that it was working on a trailer-based version intended primarily for point defense of static sites. It’s also worth noting here that laser-guided Hellfires can even be employed in a man-portable configuration using tripod launchers on the ground, further speaking to the adaptability of the missile to different launch environments.

For its part, the Marine Corps has already fielded counter-drone systems mounted on 4×4 Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicles, which it calls Light Marine Air Defense Integrated Systems (LMADIS). A complete LMADIS system consists of one MRZR with small AESA radars, electro-optical cameras, and passive RF detection capability paired with another one of the vehicles carrying an electronic warfare jammer. Marines also train to employ shoulder-fired heat-seeking Stinger surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), in conjunction with LMADIS. An early version of LMADIS, lashed to the deck of the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, was used to knock down an Iranian drone as the ship transited the Strait of Hormuz back in 2019.

The Marines also have MADIS systems that utilize the 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JTLV). Like LMADIS, the larger MADIS distributes different sensors and effectors between individual JLTVs, as you can read more about here.

Regardless, V2X’s Tempest or a variation on the system mounted on a different vehicle would give the Marines a new, highly mobile platform for engaging drones and potentially other aerial threats. AGM-114Ls could be used against helicopters and some types of cruise missiles under certain conditions. It might also be possible to engage fixed-wing aircraft, but the range and speed of the Hellfire present significant limitations against that target set.

A platform like the Can-Am Maverick X3 also allows for the employment of ‘shoot and scoot’ tactics. This means the system can pop up suddenly and reposition just as quickly, helping to create unpredictability for opponents and reduce vulnerability to counterattacks. This is a capability that is also beneficial for responding to aerial threats that might emerge unexpectedly. As already noted, Ukrainian authorities say they have been making good use of their Tempest systems to knock down incoming Russian drones.

Footage of a V2X Tempest SAM system in Ukrainian service shooting down Russian drones with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

The first confirmed footage of the Hellfire-equipped dune buggy in Ukraine, likely supplied for live combat testing by an unknown nation. pic.twitter.com/1I1NK537Dj

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) January 11, 2026

All of this aligns with the Marine Corps vision for future expeditionary and distributed operations, especially in island-hopping scenarios in the context of a high-end fight in the Pacific. The service sees relatively small force packages operating from forward bases spread across broad areas, likely within range of enemy stand-off weapons. These are concepts of operations in which mobile air defense capabilities with low operational and logistical footprints would be advantageous, if not essential, to mission success.

Hellfire-armed air defense systems have historically presented cost benefits, as well. As of 2020, Hellfire had an average cost, across all variants, of more than $200,000, though AGM-114Ls were likely substantially more expensive. As a comparison, the cost of a single Stinger missile has reportedly surged in recent years to as high as $400,000. Past reports have also said that Raytheon’s Coyote Block 2 counter-drone interceptors, which are growing in popularity across the U.S. military, have unit costs in the $100,000 range.

It is important to point out that the AGM-114L is now out of production, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin. That company has recently been touting potential anti-air applications for the successor to the Hellfire family, the AGM-179A Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), which has a dual-mode laser and millimeter wave guidance system.

With the schedule the Marines have laid out for the DASH effort, targeting delivery of the first pair of systems by May, more specific details about the system and its capabilities may now emerge in the coming weeks and months.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

GB started with the hammer, took two in accomplished first end, and looked like they might enjoy a comfortable start to the day in Italy.

Estonia responded by doing the same, though, after a slight Dodds error with her last stone. “Sorry, Bruce,” said the 34-year-old, who was slightly errant again with her opening rock of the third end.

But Dodds, peerless against Norway, righted herself to deliver a magnificent final store and restore GB’s two-point advantage.

The Estonians should have pulled level again, but a Marie Kaldvee mistake ensured they still trailed at the break. “It’s been a bit of back and forth,” was how 2022 Olympic gold medallist Vicky Wright described it.

Kaldvee was slack again upon the resumption and Mouat – fuelled by an interval munch of mango – delivered with GB’s final stone to extend the advantage to 6-3 with three ends remaining.

Estonia – who overcame a four-point deficit in the final end against Switzerland in their opener – employed their powerplay in the sixth and moved back within one after capitalising on a rare Mouat error.

GB played their own powerplay in response and made full use of it, a furious double sweep by both Mouat and Dodds earning a decisive four points after some deliberation with the measuring stick.

That opened up a five-point chasm, which persuaded the Estonians to shake hands and concede defeat with an end to spare.

“That was better from me today. I had a few that slipped up, but I called myself a bad word, and moved on,” Mouat told BBC Sport.

“We’re very happy with how we’re performing and excited to get GB off on the right foot.”

Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham – the top two try-scorers in Scotland history – as well as British and Irish Lions Test full-back Blair Kinghorn have been left out of the side for the Six Nations opener against Italy.

Coach Gregor Townsend has opted for a back three of Bristol’s Tom Jordan at full-back flanked by Glasgow Warriors wingers Kyle Steyn and Jamie Dobie – who will make his first start in a Six Nations game – for Saturday’s game in Rome.

Graham is among the replacements but Van der Merwe and Kinghorn are not even in the matchday 23, with stand-off Adam Hastings and scrum-half George Horne the other backs cover.

Other than the shock omissions of three 2025 Lions tourists, Townsend’s selection for Scotland’s first game of the championship is otherwise predictable.

Grant Gilchrist, 35, has beaten off the challenges of the more youthful Gregor Brown and Max Williamson to partner Scott Cummings, who missed last year’s championship through injury, in the second row.

Matt Fagerson, vice-captain Rory Darge and Jack Dempsey form an all-Glasgow back row, with versatile Warriors forward Brown also covering the breakaway unit.

Ewan Ashman, Scotland’s leading try-scoring forward, gets the nod at hooker ahead of George Turner and will have Lions props Pierre Schoeman and Zander Fagerson either side of him.

Ben White partners vice-captain Finn Russell at half-back despite strong claims from in-form Horne.

The midfield is the familiar pairing of Huw Jones and captain Sione Tuipulotu – the 18th Test match the pair have played together.

Four days after a KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tanker made an aborted takeoff at Moron Air Base in southern Spain, the runway at the installation remain closed and will be for several more days, according to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Notice To Airman (NOTAM). The base is a key logistics hub for military aircraft, equipment and personnel heading east from the U.S. to Europe and the Middle East. The incident came as the U.S. is building up its forces in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility amid growing tensions with Iran.

We were the first to report about the mishap at Moron and related problems.

The jet, callsign GOLD71, is still blocking the runway, according to online flight trackers. According to a firsthand account provided to The War Zone, the incident started after the KC-46 experienced an engine failure on Saturday while taking off. That resulted in rejected takeoff with hard braking that reportedly blew out eight tires. What damage was done to the runway remains unclear. We have reached out to U.S. Air Forces Central-U.S. Air Force Africa (USAFE) and Air Mobility Command for more details.

The following video shows the aftermath of the aborted takeoff as the jet came to a halt.

“It was a routine takeoff of a Pegasus KC46 with an RTO (rejected takeoff) due to engine failure, emergency braking sequence and everything that involves braking a loaded tanker,” Pepe Jimenez, the aircraft spotter who took the video, told The War Zone on Tuesday morning. “AB Morón result blocked for days.”

Additional images taken by Jimenez after the mishap show damaged landing gear and base emergency crews responding.

Jimenez also shared images showing personnel near the KC-46A’s starboard engine.

After the mishap, the FAA issued an initial NOTAM on Jan. 31 notifying pilots that there was a disabled jet on the runway. That NOTAM expires Feb. 7.

“AERODROME CAUTION: DISABLED AIRCRAFT LOCATED ON THE RUNWAY 1935 FT FROM RWY 02 THRESHOLD (SOUTH END),” it read. 

On Monday, the FAA issued two more NOTAMs, notifying pilots that both the military and civilian runways at the facility would be closed until Feb. 6.

Jimenez told us that the incident left several aircraft at the base unable to take off. The list includes one KC-135 Stratotanker, another KC-46, one C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet, “and the entire 11th Wing with Eurofighters from the Spanish Air Force,” Jimenez told us.

Another image Jimenez shared with us shows the Globemaster III and another Pegasus at the base. The War Zone cannot verify the current status of the aircraft at Moron.

It is unclear at the moment how badly U.S. logistics are affected by Moron’s closure. At the time of the incident, GOLD71 was part of an effort to take Air Force F-35A stealth fighters to the Middle East, according to online flight trackers. The F-35As, from the Vermont National Guard, were moving east from the Caribbean after taking part in the operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. The fighters were diverted to Rota Air Base in Spain after the KC-46 mishap, and it remains unclear when the flight will resume to its ultimate destination. We were the first to report that they landed in Lajes, Portugal, and were possibly slated to head to Jordan.

Further highlighting the importance of Moron, a F/A-18G Growler electronic warfare (EW) jet left Moron and landed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on Jan 31. Just like the F-35As, these aircraft departed from their assignment to the Caribbean before crossing the Atlantic. It is unclear if the Growlers took off before or after the KC-46 incident. Jimenez also captured an image of a Growler at Moron.

“Morón Air Base is a vital link in any operation moving east from the United States due to its strategic location close to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, its massive flight line, long runaway, aircraft refueling systems and excellent weather,” according to the 465 Air Refueling Squadron, the facility’s host unit.

In addition to serving as a transit hub, Moron also hosts temporary deployments of strategic aviation, like the B-52J Stratotankers from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The B-52s arrived in November in support of Bomber Task Force Europe 26-1.

B1-B Lancer bombers have also flown BTF missions to Moron from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.

While the U.S. has other bases in the region, like Rota some 50 miles to the southwest, the KC-46 incident at Moron highlights the complexities of large-scale logistic maneuvers like the one taking place now. The U.S. is flowing forces to the Middle East as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to pressure Iran to end its nuclear ambitions. This has required many cargo flights to move materiel and personnel, as well as tankers to keep them refueled along the way. The situation at Moron shows how one incident can slow a global operation for days.

Yesterday, we reported that U.S. and Iranian officials were scheduled to meet on Friday for negotiations. Tuesday morning, Axios reported that Iran wants to change the venue from Istanbul to Oman.

The Iranians “also now want to hold them in a bilateral format, only with the U.S., rather than with several Arab and Muslim countries attending as observers,” Axios added.

Should the negotiations not happen or breakdown, Trump has options in the region for carrying through on his threat to attack Iran, even if there are not yet enough tactical aircraft in the region for a sustained military operation. We will keep an eye out to see when Moron reopens to continue assisting U.S. military logistics.

Update: 8:11 AM Feb. 4 –

The KC-46 has been moved to a taxiway, and the runway at Moron has reopened, according to the FAA’s latest NOTAM. However, Taxiway Alpha, where the jet was moved to, remains closed. It is unclear at the moment whether flights have resumed. The NOTAM is in effect through April 30.

Morón’s RWY02/20 is open again (with limitations). Personally I see a problem with the #KC46 just outside the runway strip penetrating obstacle limitation surfaces, but who am I… 😉🤷‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/1C1THXCUL4

— Sir Listenalot (@SirListenalot) February 4, 2026

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

An F-35C Joint Strike Fighter flying from the supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln has shot down an Iranian drone said to have “aggressively approached” the ship. Separately, American officials say that small boats and a drone belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) harassed a U.S.-flagged merchant ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz. All of this comes amid a major ongoing U.S. military build-up in the region aimed squarely at Iran, as well as reports that American officials could be set to meet with their Iranian counterparts later in the week.

Reuters was first to report on the F-35C downing the Iranian drone, which was reportedly a Shahed-139. The Shahed-139 is a design roughly in the same class as the U.S. MQ-1 Predator, which could potentially carry small munitions. The Nimitz class USS Abraham Lincoln and elements of its strike group arrived in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility last month after being ordered to head to the region from the Pacific.

“An F-35C fighter jet from Abraham Lincoln shot down the Iranian drone in self-defense and to protect the aircraft carrier and personnel on board. No American service members were harmed during the incident, and no U.S. equipment was damaged,” U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said in a statement to TWZ. “The unmanned aircraft aggressively approached a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier with unclear intent.”

“USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) was transiting the Arabian Sea approximately 500 miles from Iran’s southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship,” Hawkins added. “The Iranian drone continued to fly toward the ship despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters.”

What weapon the F-35C used to down the Iranian drone is unknown. The carrier-based version of the Joint Strike Fighter can be armed with AIM-9X Sidewinders and AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), and a 25mm gun pod, as well as various air-to-surface munitions. F-35Cs have been employed in the counter-drone role in the region in the past, downing uncrewed aerial threats launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen last year.

U.S. Marines also notably used a counter-drone vehicle lashed to the deck of the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer to knock down an Iranian drone as the ship transited the Strait of Hormuz back in 2019. In that instance, the uncrewed aircraft was described as having come within a “threatening range” of the Boxer.

As a general aside, drones inherently present a lower risk of escalation because there is no danger of crew on board being harmed. This also has impacts on the risk calculus for employing uncrewed aerial systems more provocatively, as well as shooting them down.

At the same time, U.S. operations in and around the Red Sea in recent years have underscored the very real threat that drones, and specifically ones of Iranian origin, present to American carriers and other warships. The Houthis in Yemen have actively targeted American naval vessels with kamikaze drones, as well as anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, in the past.

“During a separate incident hours later in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces harassed a U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed merchant vessel lawfully transiting the international sea passage. Two IRGC boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached M/V Stena Imperative at high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker,” Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesperson, also said in his statement to TWZ. “Guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul (DDG 74) was operating in the area and immediately responded to the scene to escort M/V Stena Imperative with defensive air support from the U.S. Air Force.”

“The situation de-escalated as a result, and the U.S.-flagged tanker is proceeding safely. CENTCOM forces are operating at the highest levels of professionalism and ensuring the safety of U.S. personnel, ships, and aircraft in the Middle East,” Hawkins added. “Continued Iranian harassment and threats in international waters and airspace will not be tolerated. Iran’s unnecessary aggression near U.S. forces, regional partners and commercial vessels increases risks of collision, miscalculation, and regional destabilization.”

The Joint Maritime Information Center of the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office has also issued a notice regarding what appears to be the same incident, which also does not name the ship that was harassed. Iran has a long history of harassing (and even seizing) foreign commercial and naval vessels in and around the Persian Gulf, especially at times of increased geopolitical friction with the United States.

As already noted, this all comes as U.S. military forces continue to flow into the Middle East. There have been reports for weeks now about the prospect of new American strikes on Iran, at least in part in retaliation for the country’s violent crackdown on recent nationwide protests. More recently, U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced interest in reaching some kind of deal with authorities in Iran, including over the future of that country’s nuclear program. There are reports that U.S. and Iranian officials could meet as soon as Friday in Turkey.

“We have ships heading to Iran right now, big ones — the biggest and the best — and we have talks going on with Iran and we’ll see how it all works out,” Trump said just yesterday while speaking to members of the press at the White House. “If we can work something out, that would be great and if we can’t, probably bad things would happen.”

How today’s events will impact U.S. decision-making going forward remains to be seen.

Update: 2:52 PM Eastern –

Despite the incident, Trump still prefers a diplomatic solution to the tensions with Iran, according to the White House.

Trump “remains committed to always pursuing diplomacy first,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. “But in order for diplomacy to work, of course, it takes two to tango. You need a willing partner to engage. And so that’s something the president and Special Envoy Witkoff are exploring and discussing right now.”

Witkoff, she added, “is set to have conversations with the Iranians later this week. Those are still scheduled as of right now, but of course, the president has always a range of options on the table, and that includes the use of military force. The Iranians know that better than anyone. Just look no further than the highly successful Operation Midnight Hammer, which took not just Iran but the entire world by surprise and completely obliterated their nuclear capabilities earlier last year.”

Speaking earlier on Fox News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirms the shoot down of an Iranian drone that was “acting aggressively” towards the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) today over the Arabian Sea, though states that President Trump remains committed to… pic.twitter.com/sVPzPjZIy8

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 3, 2026

Update: 3:35 PM Eastern –

The official Iranian Tasnim news outlet reported that the drone in question was actually a Shahed-129. As we have previously reported, it is similar to an MQ-9 Predator drone.

“The Shahed 129 drone was on its usual and legal mission in international waters, engaged in reconnaissance, monitoring, and filming, which is considered a normal and lawful action,” Tasnim posited. “This drone successfully sent its reconnaissance and identification images to the center but then lost communication. However, the reason for this communication loss is being investigated, and details will be provided once confirmed.”

The War Zone cannot independently verify Tasnim’s claims. 

Iranian state media says the drone (that the US shot down) successfully carried out its reconnaissance mission before it abruptly “lost contact”

“The reason for this communication cut is under investigation”, according to Tasnim News Agencyhttps://t.co/JDmehOv9Uz pic.twitter.com/MqUSGqnlBi

— Faytuks News (@Faytuks) February 3, 2026

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Kremlin spokesperson says Russian forces would continue fighting until Kyiv makes necessary ‘decisions’ to end the war.

The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield as a result of the country’s war with Russia is estimated to be 55,000, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that a “large number” were also missing.

President Zelenskyy’s remarks on Wednesday came in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amid crucial ceasefire talks in Abu Dhabi, where negotiators are trying to end Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.

“In Ukraine, officially the number of soldiers killed on the battlefield – either professionals or those conscripted – is 55,000,” said Zelenskyy, in a prerecorded interview with France 2 TV.

Zelenskyy, whose comments were translated into French, added that on top of that casualty figure was a “large number of people” considered officially missing.

The Ukrainian leader did not give an exact figure for those who are still missing.

Zelenskyy had previously cited a figure for Ukrainian war dead in an interview with the United States television network NBC in February 2025, saying that more than 46,000 Ukrainian service members had been killed on the battlefield.

In the middle of 2025, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, estimated that close to 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded since the war began.

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported that Russian attacks had killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine in 2025, almost a third higher than the number of casualties in 2024.

Russia has also incurred heavy losses in the ongoing war.

In January, Ukraine’s military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, was quoted as saying that in 2025 alone, almost 420,000 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded while fighting against Ukrainian forces.

An October 2025 estimate by British defence intelligence put the overall number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in the war at 1.1 million.

Both Ukraine and Russia rarely disclose their own casualty figures in the war, though they actively report enemy losses on the battlefield.

Analysts say both Kyiv and Moscow are likely underreporting their own deaths while inflating those of the other side.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia would keep fighting until Kyiv made the “decisions” that could bring the war to an end, while in Abu Dhabi, Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a “productive” first day of new US-brokered talks, Kyiv’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the fighting, although the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks.

The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which now sits in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine.

Moscow has demanded that Kyiv pull its troops out of all the Donbas region, including heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences against Russian aggression, as a condition for any deal to end the fighting.

Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along current front lines and rejects any unilateral pullback of its forces from territory it still controls.

Russian forces occupy about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion.

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

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