The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit’s (31st MEU) recent deployment to the Middle East marked the first time the United States Marine Corps (USMC) used its Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept in a combat setting, the service confirmed to TWZ on Thursday. At its core, EABO involves relatively small groups of Marines quickly establishing bases of operation in forward areas, often within the enemy’s weapons range. During operations in the fight against Iran, Marines refueled and rearmed their own aircraft, as well as those from the joint force, at these austere locales. They also set up remote sensing locations, among other actions from the EABO playbook.

This employment of EABO for Epic Fury is a highly significant development. After years of progressively evolving the EABO playbook, it was no longer an experimental exercise. This meant that Marines were forward deployed in a contested area in a region where established bases were taking heavy fire from Iranian missile and drone barrages. Troops were killed in some of these attacks and U.S. aircraft, buildings and equipment were damaged and destroyed across the Middle East. Pushing aircraft from the MEU, as well as the joint force, to FARPs (forward arming and refueling point) would have been a relevant asset preservation tactic as well as one that would help accelerate combat operations, and it’s exactly what EABO is meant to do.

The 31st MEU’s six-month deployment began in January in the Pacific, before the unit was ordered to the Middle East in March, returning to Okinawa, Japan, in July. That’s where it is stationed as the USMC’s only continuously forward-based MEU.

“This was the first time we were able to implement EABO in combat operations since the concept was created for the force,” Capt. Steven J. Keenan, a USMC spokesperson, told us. “We have practiced it many times, but this was a first for supporting a Joint Force named operation with forward FARPs and forward bases that supported joint ops and combat power sustainment.”

EABO was first introduced in 2020 by then-Commandant Gen. David Berger in his Force Design 2030 plan for the future of the Corps. It was created with a fight against China in mind, especially utilizing small Pacific islands. The idea is to have highly mobile, low-signature forces deployed forward in austere, contested or potentially contested maritime locations. The mission is to “support sea control operation, conduct sea denial operations within the littorals, contribute to maritime domain awareness, provide forward command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting, and counter-targeting capability and forward sustainment,” according to the Marines.

The news of the first activation of the EABO concept in combat came Wednesday during a media roundtable with Col. Chris P. Niedziocha, who commanded the 31st MEU during its deployment to the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury. Now director of the USMC Expeditionary Warfare School, Niedziocha discussed EABO and a range of other operations during that deployment, including boarding vessels during the blockade of Iranian ports.

The 31st MEU was embarked aboard the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group (ARG), which consisted of the America class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, San Antonio class amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans, and Whidbey Island class dock landing ship USS Rushmore. You can read more about the ARG/MEU and its assets in our initial story about the deployment to the Middle East here.

“You’re starting to see this has been validated,” the colonel said of the EABO concept during the roundtable TWZ attended virtually. “It’s still nascent, but we actually, for the first time, demonstrated what we thought we were able to do, which I think is pretty exciting. And then things like forward arming and refueling to extend the operational reach of aircraft and expeditionary reloading, and then the ever-present logistic challenge of doing something like that. So that’s pretty significant.”

“We successfully implemented critical Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), establishing sensor expeditionary advanced bases and forward arming and refueling points (FARPs) where none existed,” the colonel added. “Through our forward logistic elements, we proved that an agile Marine Air-Ground Task Force can sustain itself and generate ready, lethal power in contested maritime environments, directly setting the theater for follow-on joint forces.”

One of the objectives of the FARPs was to reduce reliance on the Marines’ fleet of KC-130 aerial refuelers and serve as jumping-off points for its F-35B Lightning II fighters.

“There was all manner of tankers all the time, but the FARP is to extend the operational reach, and if you can do it, you reduce the load on that,” Niedziocha noted. “Because there’s some aircraft that are basically for expeditionary austere operations, especially the F-35B,” the Marine Corps’ variant of the aircraft designed for short take off and vertical landing. 

“There are some trade-offs associated with the Bravo,” Niedziocha pointed out, using a slang for the jets. “There’s less internal fuel, but you have the lift [system], which gives you the option to do these kinds of things. So, the goal there was to walk that fine line between providing the full sortie over wherever you needed it, and keeping the ships far enough away to make them as survivable as possible.”

In addition to the F-35Bs and other aircraft organic to the 31st MEU, the FARPs were also used by Army helicopters, Keenan told us. Imagery posted on the Pentagon’s image distribution site also showed U.S. Army Gray Eagle drones and Marine MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft were included.

Niedziocha did not provide details about where the FARPs were set up, but a U.S. defense official told us they were “disaggregated throughout the Middle East.” The official declined to provide further information, citing operational security concerns since they are still being used.

“Throughout the deployment, the Tripoli ARG and 31st MEU successfully conducted over 1,600 mishap-free flight hours of combat aviation missions, including precision strikes, transporting 800,000 pounds of cargo, and moving 5,000 personnel,” a 31st MEU overview of the deployment explained. “The units also provided sustained combat support to joint force operations by delivering critical intelligence and refueling over 300 aircraft ashore and underway.”

The colonel also didn’t provide details about the sensor expeditionary advanced bases. According to the Marines, “a sensing expeditionary advanced base (SEAB) brings together coastal surveillance radars, electronic sensors, and Marines ashore to extend maritime domain awareness, complementing the radars and sensors already at work aboard naval ships off the coast.”

“When SEAB systems identify surface vessels in nearby sea lanes, small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) operators launch their platforms to visually identify and track the contacts,” the Marines added. “Sensor data and imagery are transmitted in real time across the blue-green command network to decision-makers.”

This capability could have been used to track Iran’s remaining fleet of small boats that it has used to harass shipping and mine the Strait of Hormuz, as well as larger vessels trying to transport oil. Other sensors, like radars and counter-drone systems, could also help identify incoming threats and provide general situational awareness. The EABO concept was employed as part of the 31st MEU’s larger role in supporting the blockade and mine clearance efforts.

The 31st MEU interdicted four vessels during the deployment, three of which led to boardings. On April 19, Marines boarded the MV Touska; on April 28, the MV Blue Star III; and on May 19, the MT Celestial Sea.

The Touska was boarded after USS Spruance fired multiple 5-inch rounds, targeting the engine room and disabling the vessel’s propulsion. The crew of the vessel was retained for about two weeks before being repatriated.

Niedziocha told us that none of the crews offered any resistance.

“At two in the morning, when 30 Force Reconnaissance Marines fast rope onto your vessel, [you are] just compliant with a capital C. They did exactly what they were directed to do. The overmatch that you put onto that vessel is pretty surprising. And then there’s overwatch provided by UAS and manned aircraft, so you create this bubble around the vessel. So yeah, they complied.”

You can see the Touska being boarded in the following video.

The U.S. just released a video of its forces boarding and seizing the Iranian container ship M/V Touska near the Hormuz Strait after it tried to break the U.S. naval blockade pic.twitter.com/FpB2obb3jY

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 20, 2026

Two years ago, as the EABO concept was maturing, TWZ was invited to get an exclusive look at how an advanced EABO concept would be put into action, including how squadrons operated the F-35B out of an austere combat environment while generating combat sorties. It was an unprecedented and exclusive peek into the EABO playbook and what a real fight in the Pacific with the USMC’s most advanced fighter aircraft could actually look like. You can read about that in our story here. It appears the operations in the Middle East mirrored this exercise closely.

Now back in Japan, the ARG/MEU is getting ready for a new deployment, said the colonel.

“We got back to Okinawa, I think July 22nd, and they had already begun their workup cycle in earnest to be on the water in early January to go out and do another Iron Fist [training exercise] with the Japanese, and then long periods of a crisis response,” said Niedziocha, who relinquished command in August before moving on to his new role. “Just being there, present in the First Island Chain to partner with your allies, demonstrates the resolve and commitment to deter whatever needs deterring.” 

As noted earlier in this story, the EABO concept was designed with a Pacific fight in mind. Its first combat employment in the Middle East clearly offers lessons that can now be adapted to enhance EABO operations globally.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post USMC Used Its Expeditionary Operations Playbook In Combat For First Time During Epic Fury appeared first on TWZ.

The U.S. State Department today approved the possible sale of 48 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The proposed deal, worth an estimated total cost of $24.3 billion, was announced as the Kingdom is in the midst of a fierce fight against the Houthi rebels of Yemen. It marks a major policy shift, with Washington previously being unwilling to export the advanced stealth fighters to Arab states and will likely serve as a reminder at a very challenging time for the Saudis of the unique security capabilities that only the U.S. can provide them.

In addition to the jets, which will be conventional takeoff and landing variants, Saudi Arabia has requested 49 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines, support and other items.

Despite concerns from Israel that providing Saudi Arabia with the advanced fighters will tip the balance of power in the region, the proposed sale of this equipment and support “will not alter the military balance in the region,” the State Department noted. 

The United States has a requirement to maintain Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge, which essentially guarantees that Israel will be prioritized for advanced U.S. weapons ahead of Arab states in the region. Among these advanced weapons, the stealthy F-35 is highly prominent.

You can read our past feature about the wide-ranging impacts of an F-35 sale to Saudi Arabia here.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region,” the State Department wrote. “The proposed sale will improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defense, and improving interoperability with U.S. forces, and other regional and NATO forces.  The proposed sale will also augment Saudi Arabia’s operational aircraft and enhance its air-to-air, and air-to-ground self-defense capability.  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment and services into its armed forces.”

In November, “President Trump approved a major defense sale package, including future F-35 deliveries, which strengthens the U.S. defense industrial base and ensures Saudi Arabia continues to buy American,” according to the White House.

Trump has pushed for closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia and wants the Kingdom to join the Abraham Accords initiative. This is a set of agreements that establish normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and different Arab states. Doing so would be a major breakthrough, following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and others.

A Saudi F-35 deal was also discussed under the Biden administration, as part of a broader deal that sought to normalize the Kingdom’s relations with Israel.

This is a developing story.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post F-35 Sale To Saudi Arabia Approved By State Department appeared first on TWZ.

Noite na Marginal Pinheiros, uma das principais artérias de São Paulo: dois jovens negros são abordados por três policiais militares numa viatura. Motivo? Eles caminhavam de forma suspeita, segundo a equipe. A abordagem é seguida por revista, interrogatório e xingamentos por parte dos PMs. “Tu é todo ladrãozão, né”, comentou um dos policiais.

Nada ilegal ou suspeito foi identificado na dupla. Mesmo assim, a ação foi exaltada em um vídeo publicado no YouTube pelo Diretor Elias Junior, candidato a deputado estadual pelo MDB. “O tamanho do viaduto ficou pequeno quando viram a ROTA”, diz o título da publicação. Um formato sensacionalista que se repete entre outros youtubers que disputam as eleições de 2026 e integram a lista dos que mais monetizaram explorando operações policiais. Alguns dos vídeos contêm deboche, humilhação e truculência, expondo, além dos próprios policiais, moradores e suspeitos, sobretudo em regiões periféricas de grandes cidades.

Apuração exclusiva da Agência Pública, em parceria com a plataforma Zeeng, mostra que um candidato com muitos seguidores pode ganhar até R$ 8 mil por mês no YouTube com vídeos sobre operações e abordagens das polícias. O levantamento considerou os 15 candidatos influencers com maior monetização sobre ocorrências policiais em 2026: eles podem ter ganhado até R$ 64,6 mil na soma dos vídeos (entre shorts e vídeos longos) postados no YouTube de 1º de janeiro a 25 de agosto deste ano.

Os valores podem ser ainda maiores, pois o levantamento considera o pagamento estimado por views do YouTube, o que não leva em conta outras redes sociais e possíveis patrocínios negociados diretamente pelos candidatos, a exemplo de divulgação de cursos e produtos.

Ao todo, sete partidos de direita e centro-direita compõem o levantamento: Podemos, MDB, PP, PL, Avante, União Brasil e Republicanos. Os nomes analisados possuem vínculo direto com a Polícia Militar, Polícia Civil, Polícia Rodoviária Federal e Guarda Civil Metropolitana de São Paulo. A exceção é Elias Junior, que é diretor cinematográfico, mas acompanha operações e explora a estética policial.

Dos 15 youtubers listados pela reportagem, 14 utilizam ocorrências policiais para divulgar a própria imagem, a maioria em condutas que não são condizentes com as normas das Polícias Civil e Militar de São Paulo sobre uso das redes sociais. Além disso, parlamentares licenciados dos cargos não têm prerrogativa para se apresentarem como autoridades policiais – e nem usarem distintivo ou equipamentos da corporação, conforme confirmado pela Secretaria de Segurança Pública de São Paulo.

O líder na estimativa de arrecadação é o deputado federal e candidato à reeleição, delegado Palumbo (PODE-SP), que pode ter faturado cerca de R$ 64,6 mil desde o início do ano, acumulando mais de 26 milhões de visualizações no período analisado. Mesmo licenciado do cargo de Policial Civil, Palumbo aparece nos vídeos participando de operações, sobretudo relacionadas ao tráfico de drogas.

Na maioria das ocorrências, ele caminha ao lado dos agentes, auxilia e até mesmo protagoniza interrogatórios. Os títulos utilizados nos conteúdos são majoritariamente chamativos e com palavras fortes. “São duas opções, c4deia ou caixão – dessa vez ele foi parar na c4deia”, descreve uma publicação de 20 de julho de 2026, que começa com policiais imobilizando de forma agressiva um homem na rua. “Não estamos te esculachando não, você está sendo tratado como tem que ser tratado”, diz um dos agentes. Depois de ter sido procurado pela reportagem, Palumbo retirou o vídeo do ar, mas não respondeu aos questionamentos.

Delegado licenciado usa distintivo e participa de operações

O canal com maior número de inscritos pertence ao deputado federal delegado Da Cunha (União-SP), com 3,53 milhões de inscritos, embora tenha ficado em 10º lugar no ranking de visualizações. Ele publicou 237 vídeos num período de quase oito meses, podendo ter monetizado cerca de R$ 3,4 mil desde janeiro.

Da Cunha está licenciado do cargo de delegado da Polícia Civil, mas participa de operações policiais e se apresenta nas ocorrências como “deputado e delegado”. Em um dos vídeos, postado em 8 de julho deste ano, ele interrogou um homem linchado por populares após uma tentativa frustrada de assalto a uma loja de produtos importados, em Osasco (SP).

O deputado aparece no vídeo atendendo a ocorrência junto à Guarda Municipal de Osasco. Usando distintivo de delegado, o deputado também foi até o hospital onde o suspeito ficou internado após o espancamento. Com o homem com a cabeça enfaixada e deitado numa maca, o parlamentar é filmado dando sermão e ainda faz propaganda de um projeto de lei de autoria dele e dos deputados Kim Kataguiri (Missão-SP) e Marcos Pollon (PL-MS): “Sabia que aumentou a pena do 157 [crime de roubo]? Sabia que a lei é minha? Agora é dez anos a pena mínima. Vai ficar uma cotinha na cadeia, meu tio. Agradecer à polícia que salvou sua vida né, se não ‘tava’ com o CPF cancelado já”.

Por lei, é considerada contravenção um policial civil usar publicamente distintivo de função que não exerce. Além disso, uma portaria editada em 2020 regulou, em São Paulo, o uso de redes por policiais civis. A norma proíbe, entre outros pontos, a publicação de fotos e vídeos com vítimas, suspeitos ou investigados; veda comportamento que busque “reconhecimento social” ou “promoção pessoal” e exige “decoro e discrição na linguagem”.

A Polícia Militar de São Paulo tem norma parecida desde 2021, que proíbe publicar ou compartilhar qualquer conteúdo que se relacione, direta ou indiretamente, com a PM, bem como divulgar operações ou investigações.

Ainda que o servidor esteja licenciado, um órgão de segurança pública pode adotar medidas administrativas pelo descumprimento de normas institucionais, explicou o professor de direito eleitoral da Faculdade de Direito de Sorocaba, Pedro Marques Neto. “Tem regras que evitam o uso de fardas, por exemplo, mas muitas vezes elas não são aplicadas”.

No Brasil, quase 30% dos órgãos de polícia não têm norma específica para o uso de redes sociais por parte dos agentes, conforme levantamento do Instituto Sou da Paz. Para a entidade, é preciso garantir a liberdade de expressão, “mas também vedar o uso da autoridade policial para autopromoção e engajamento político”.

O problema é que as normativas em geral não estabelecem o setor responsável e as formas de fiscalização dos agentes no ambiente virtual, frisou a diretora-executiva do instituto, Carolina Ricardo. “Falta em algumas normativas ter um fluxo claro de quem é o dono disso dentro das instituições, da função de fiscalizar. E isso torna muito mais difusa a implementação [das normas]”, comentou.

Procurada, a Secretaria de Segurança Pública (SSP) de São Paulo informou que o parlamentar licenciado por conta do mandato não tem a prerrogativa para usar distintivo e nem se apresentar como autoridade policial. “Não há, portanto, autorização para ações como as descritas pela reportagem”, disse, em nota, quando questionada sobre parlamentares licenciados e também sobre o caso do Elias Junior, que não é policial.

Sobre o uso de redes sociais, a Secretaria reforçou que portarias das Polícias Civil e Militar proíbem a criação de perfil vinculado ao trabalho policial, bem como a publicação de fotos e vídeos com vítimas, e que não compactua com desvios de conduta. “Casos identificados são apurados pelas corregedorias das corporações, mediante procedimento próprio, podendo resultar em medidas administrativas, disciplinares, civis e criminais”, diz a nota. A SSP, no entanto, não confirmou se os casos enviados pela reportagem serão apurados.

A Pública procurou também todos os 15 candidatos do levantamento. A Capitã Rebeca, em 12º lugar no ranking, respondeu que não monetiza com os vídeos. Porém, não comentou sobre os objetivos do canal e nem como se posiciona sobre as críticas de espetacularização da violência.

O Coronel Telhada, 14º no ranking, disse que nenhuma das suas redes sociais ganha dinheiro com monetização. “O YouTube com frequência manda mensagem para monetizarmos, mas nunca concordamos e nem aceitamos, nunca fizemos inscrição no programa de monetização de nenhuma rede social e nem faremos”, afirmou em nota.

O deputado federal Sargento Fahur e candidato à reeleição, disse que a gestão do seu canal é feita por uma empresa. “Os valores obtidos com monetização não são suficientes sequer para custear integralmente a operação”, afirmou, pois há custos com funcionários, edição de vídeos, aluguel de espaço e compra de equipamentos. “Não se trata de autopromoção, mas de divulgar aquilo que penso”, conclui nota enviada pelo policial militar reformado que está na 6ª posição no ranking (leia na íntegra).

Este espaço será atualizado em caso de manifestação dos demais.

Distintivo confiscado – e devolvido

Em julho de 2021, Da Cunha chegou a ter o distintivo e a arma confiscados após a abertura de uma sindicância contra ele por ter simulado operações policiais. Os objetos foram devolvidos em 2023, numa decisão do delegado-geral da Polícia Civil de SP, Artur José Dian. À época, a Secretaria de Segurança Pública de São Paulo (SSP-SP) informou que a competência sobre o processo era exclusiva da Polícia Civil e que não iria se manifestar sobre o tema.

Os processos administrativos foram abertos após o deputado virar réu na Justiça por abuso de autoridade e constrangimento ilegal. Em julho de 2020, ele teria constrangido uma vítima de sequestro e o próprio sequestrador a simularem um resgate para que a cena pudesse ser gravada e repercutida nas redes sociais. Ele também é alvo da Justiça, após denúncia do Ministério Público, por violência doméstica contra a ex-companheira, em outubro de 2023. Ela acusou o parlamentar de ameaça de morte, lesão corporal, dano material e de bater sua cabeça contra a parede, além de tentar sufocá-la em um apartamento em Santos.

Em 3 de setembro deste ano, o processo por abuso de autoridade teve mais uma reviravolta: o anúncio da demissão de Da Cunha do cargo de delegado por parte do Governador de São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos), atendendo a uma recomendação feita pela Polícia Civil em 2022. No mesmo dia em que a demissão foi anunciada, no entanto, a Justiça de São Paulo concedeu uma liminar, a pedido do deputado, impedindo que a decisão fosse formalizada.

Monetizando a estética policial

Com 1,3 milhão de inscritos, o canal do Diretor Elias Junior teria arrecadado, em média, mais de R$ 40,8 mil na monetização dos vídeos só este ano. Na página inicial do perfil no YouTube, ele aparece com um colete à prova de balas marrom e uma roupa camuflada, nas características da farda do Exército brasileiro. Em alguns dos vídeos, ele usa boina e uniforme semelhantes aos usados pela PM de São Paulo.

Elias Junior vai às ocorrências dentro das viaturas, usa o discurso punitivista e expõe as abordagens policiais, ainda que nenhum crime tenha sido identificado. Entre outros formatos, os títulos sensacionalistas criticam o sistema legal brasileiro. Um deles foi intitulado “Mulher bandida teve o benefício da mãe cárcere”. No vídeo, publicado em 16 de junho de 2026, ele conversa com uma mulher que cumpria pena por tráfico de drogas em casa por conta de um benefício legal concedido a mães de crianças com menos de 12 anos.

Em outra publicação, em 23 de junho de 2026, o candidato acompanha o patrulhamento realizado por dois tenentes da Polícia Militar que decidem abordar dois homens que estariam andando com um “jeito malandro”, na Zona Leste de São Paulo. Os homens eram dependentes químicos e foram interrogados pelos militares sobre o consumo de drogas e crimes que teriam cometido; posteriormente, foram liberados. Mas o vídeo foi postado.

O diretor Elias Junior não respondeu aos questionamentos da Pública. A Polícia Militar não comentou o caso.

O tribunal midiático e o ‘policial herói’

Jurisprudências do Tribunal Superior do Trabalho (TST) reconhecem o vínculo de integrantes da segurança pública com a iniciativa privada, desde que compatíveis com os horários e não conflitantes com a função exercida. O famoso “bico” de segurança particular, por exemplo, é proibido.

Em relação à figura do “policial youtuber”, há regras institucionais que deveriam limitar a atuação dos servidores na internet. Em São Paulo, por exemplo, é vedado o uso de qualquer elemento que se remeta à corporação em perfis pessoais, com exceção de solenidades, formaturas e eventos excepcionais. O que acontece na prática, no entanto, é a teatralização da atividade do agente de segurança, com discursos violentos que tendem a construir a imagem de “policial herói”, assim como na maioria dos programas policiais — explicou o pesquisador Dannilo Duarte, autor do livro Jornalismo Policial na Televisão Brasileira: Gênero e Modo de Endereçamento.

O autor destaca que a internet amplificou a exploração audiovisual das operações, principalmente em ações envolvendo populações mais vulneráveis. “Há um posicionamento de quem é a vítima e de quem vai ser o bandido. Recorrentemente esse bandido vai ser preto ou pardo, vai estar em regiões periféricas. Se constrói uma ideia de que está sempre vinculado ao tráfico e que são pessoas com o estereótipo do malandro, do espertalhão, que não cumpre as leis”.

Além disso, esse tipo de abordagem, conforme o autor, alimenta a ideia de “justiceiro” que, em meio a estímulos à violência e descredibilização do sistema judiciário, faz “justiça com as próprias mãos”, a exemplo do assassinato de Claudio Rafael Landeiro, em 12 de agosto, em Copacabana, Zona Sul do Rio de Janeiro. A vítima tinha 37 anos e foi espancada até a morte por cinco homens após ser acusada injustamente de roubar uma bicicleta.

“É um comportamento de certa forma estimulado, o ‘bandido bom é bandido morto’. Mas você não verá isso acontecer num condomínio de classe média, mesmo que o infrator tenha cometido uma infração grave. Jovens brancos de classe média, média alta, não são espancados na praia ou nos becos. A integridade física não é respeitada. Há um lixamento virtual e físico”, pontuou Duarte.

Dos 15 perfis analisados, há uma exceção para a estética policial. Trata-se do policial rodoviário federal, Breno Faria, candidato a deputado federal pelo PL no Rio de Janeiro. Dono do canal Café com teu Pai, perfil também popularizado no Instagram, ele aproveita o espaço na internet para a defesa de ideias misóginas e ataques a leis de combate à violência contra a mulher. Em um dos vídeos, afirma: “as leis feministas não protegeram a mulher em nada” e defende o “aconselhamento familiar” como mais eficiente do que a atual legislação.

Numa outra publicação, Breno Faria faz comentários pejorativos sobre as roupas da deputada Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP). “Mulher trans negra ou patricinha de Beverly Hills?”, publicou em 15 de junho. Estima-se que Faria tenha monetizado em torno de R$ 3,8 mil só no YouTube desde janeiro, somando mais de 1,9 milhão de visualizações em 401 vídeos.

The head of Air Mobility Command (AMC) on Wednesday offered some new details about what went into repairing a KC-135 Stratotanker riddled with shrapnel holes from an Iranian attack. We have previously written about a couple of these jets damaged during Operation Epic Fury (OEF) as they came through RAF Mildenhall in the U.K. on their way back to the U.S. for comprehensive repair work. We are also getting new information of how AMC kept its fleet operating at such a prolonged high-tempo ahead of and during OEF.

The discussion about the damaged tanker took place during a panel at the Air & Space Forces’ Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. The tanker in question was damaged as it was preparing for a mission, explained AMC commander Lt. Gen. Daniel H. Tulley.

“A KC-135 ops crew is in the jet,” he said. “KC-135 maintenance team is about to launch this jet. Unexpected Alarm Red [an attack warning]. Everyone jumps in a bunker.”

After the barrage, the airmen emerged from their bunkers and checked out the plane.

“That aircraft is smoking,” Tulley said. “There are holes in it, and it’s a fully loaded KC-135. Two hundred thousand pounds of jet fuel. Took 48 hours for that [fuel] to be drained out of that aircraft. In the meantime, first on the scene was I think the pro super [production superintendent] and the expediter. They immediately began to collect the fuel… They start to patch the holes. They start to fix all the systems. Long story short, they were eventually able to get that plane to make a transoceanic flight back home to be fully repaired.”

Tulley did not say where the attack took place. However, as we have previously reported, five tankers were reportedly damaged in an Iranian long-range strike on Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia on March 14. That was later confirmed in a Department of War Inspector General report released earlier this week.

You can see two of the shrapnel-damaged KC-135s as they passed through the UK on the way home in the following photographs shared with us by aviation photographer Andrew McKelvey. We do not know if either of these is the one discussed by Tulley.

Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), followed Tulley’s comments with additional details about the repair work.

“I’ll pick right up on that because it was our aircraft battle damage repair team that was actually able to patch their aircraft back together to get it back to Tinker [Air Force Base in Oklahoma] that can put it completely back where it needed to be,” she noted. Tinker is home to the Expeditionary Depot Maintenance (EDMX), which is “responsible for maintaining the Air Force’s sole source for Aircraft Battle Damage Repair (ABDR) rapid repair capabilities for the entire tanker and bomber fleets,” according to the Air Force.

“So with Operation Epic Fury, we’re asking those questions: What can we sustain for how long? And it begs a question about regeneration,” Tulley further explained. “You know, our new teammates have regeneration as part of their doctrine, so readiness in contact is the way we’re approaching this. What can we do to improve how we generate capability while under fire, in contact, persistently in an extended or protracted conflict? Lots of great examples of work being done to get after this. General Hurry’s team has brought a lot of capability forward at Mildenhall Air Base.” 

One example of how this has worked has been repairing damaged aerial refueling booms in the U.K. instead of all the way back to the U.S., Tulley highlighted. The booms, which extend from the back of tankers so that receiving aircraft can get their gas, can be damaged by the process, especially during combat refueling.

“I think we turned 30 booms instead of bringing them all the way back to the states,” Tulley noted.

Repairing battle damage is certainly a unique situation for AMC airman, but keeping hundreds of the command’s tankers and cargo aircraft moving at such a high rate prior to and during the war was a huge undertaking that was helped by new maintenance concepts. The Air Force sent maintainers and parts to bases in Europe to drastically speed up major maintenance that would have demanded the aircraft return stateside.

“We moved some maintenance actions forward, so they didn’t have to – the aircraft didn’t have to go all the way back to the states,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said during his keynote speech earlier this week. “We put some of them in Europe, so they could get through some normal safety inspections that were either due or deferred. Got those done, and the aircraft doesn’t have to go all the way back to the states. They can go somewhere in Europe, get the thing done, and then get right back to the flight. And so, those measures by Air Mobility Command paid dividends in the readiness of our mobility fleet.”

Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), which maintains the service’s fleet of strategic bombers and its ICBM force, did something similar at RAF Fairford in the U.K., AFGSC commander Gen. Stephen L. Davis explained.

“It’s a complex problem,” said Davis. “I would say in the past we probably didn’t do this the right way. When we thought a conflict was kicking off, the first thing we do is start sending bombers forward, and that actually consumes our readiness. So I think we got it right during OEF.”

“We pushed maintainers and support personnel forward to RAF Fairford, and then we actually took the bombers, we loaded them up in CONUS [Continental United States]. We took them to the Middle East. They actually did a mission. They employed, deployed, conducted a combat mission, and then landed at Fairford. And then for the next, well, I guess they’ve been there for now six-plus months.”

“They’ve been conducting nearly daily operations out of there,” Davis proffered. “When bombers are back at home base, they build readiness. When we deploy it forward, they consume readiness. And then, as [Gen. Hurry] said, we’re getting great support in terms of parts, in terms of supplies, and in terms of forward depot support. So that fleet remains healthy.”

Being able to do as much repair and maintenance work as close to the front lines as possible will be hugely important in any future fight against China, and, unfortunately, repairing battle damaged aircraft will be necessary too. Clearly, the Air Force has learned some very important lessons from Epic Fury.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post How The Air Force Patched Up A Shrapnel-Damaged KC-135 appeared first on TWZ.

Senior U.S. Air Force leaders in Europe say NATO allies are increasingly looking to participate in the development and employment of collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs), even as several of those same countries pursue their own indigenous fighter and drone programs. American commanders say they are looking forward to CCAs expanding the alliance’s overall capacity, and are already pushing for such systems to work together from the outset.

Speaking yesterday at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending, Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, U.S. Air Forces Africa, and NATO’s Allied Air Command, and Chief Master Sgt. Joshua J. Wiener, USAFE-AFAFRICA’s command chief, discussed how the command is preparing for an eventual European role in the U.S. Air Force’s planned fleet of hundreds of CCAs.

The issue is particularly significant for USAFE, which operates a fraction of the fighter force it maintained in Europe during the Cold War, even as many of its NATO allies contend with shrinking fleets of crewed combat aircraft. This comes against a backdrop of deepening tensions with Russia and the emergence of new kinds of threats. Autonomous aircraft that can augment crewed fighters could provide the alliance with additional combat mass without requiring a corresponding increase in the number of crewed aircraft and personnel permanently based in Europe.

“I’m excited about what CCAs have in store for the Air Force,” Hinds said, pointing to recent comments from the Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, including the aim of having at least 500 CCAs in service by 2032.

He added that European interest in these kinds of platforms is already growing.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more interest from other nations inside Europe about what is America doing with CCAs and how they can join this party, if you will,” Hinds said.

Germany is “heavily involved,” he said, while Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are also showing interest.

In the case of Germany, we have previously explored how that country is looking to procure CCAs by 2029. Sweden, too, recently unveiled a concept for a high-end, stealthy CCA-type drone, while the Dutch are looking to become more closely alligned with U.S. Air Force CCA efforts.

USAFE is currently using two broad operational scenarios to explain to allies how CCAs could fit into NATO’s force structure.

The first is defensive. A CCA could operate as part of an integrated air and missile defense network, potentially engaging one-way attack drones or cruise missiles without the need for expensive crewed fighters.

The second is offensive. In that scenario, autonomous aircraft could help suppress or destroy integrated air defense systems and potentially attack fielded forces during an effort to repel a hostile incursion into NATO territory.

Allies are interested in both missions, Hinds said, and want the ability to incorporate CCAs into their own force designs. Interestingly, only yesterday, Anduril shared photos of its YFQ-44A Fury configured with air-to-ground weapons, underscoring the fact that the CCA could take on an air-to-ground role in the future in addition to its current air-to-air focus.

That kind of interest has already prompted work at the NATO level. Hinds pointed to a study by the Joint Air Power Competence Center, the alliance’s airpower think tank based in Kalkar, Germany, examining how NATO members could employ CCAs in a modular fashion, including issues such as sustainment, training, and exercises.

“It was a pretty long paper, but the nations wanted it,” Hinds said.

Initial experimentation is expected to take place in the United States, but European experimentation could follow, including by Sweden and potentially other NATO members.

At the same time, European countries are not simply waiting for an American CCA to arrive.

The United Kingdom has launched its own Storm Fighter CCA program. Germany is pursuing a separate loyal-wingman effort, while the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan are meanwhile jointly embarked on the Global Combat Air Program, or GCAP, which is intended to produce the Tempest next-generation crewed fighter and associated uncrewed systems.

The proliferation of national programs raises an obvious question: How does NATO prevent a growing fleet of autonomous aircraft from becoming a collection of incompatible national systems?

Hinds said the answer starts with commonality.

“The first and foremost thing is we want to strive for commonality,” he said. “Commonality means we don’t even have to worry about interoperability.”

Where common equipment is not possible, however, USAFE wants interoperability built into national systems from the beginning.

“Interoperability by design” is the preferred approach, Hinds said, with NATO data standards and other requirements incorporated before a system enters service rather than retrofitted later.

The good news for USAFE is that NATO already has extensive experience establishing common standards for interoperability, covering everything from tactics and procedures to communications, datalinks, weapons employment, and other technologies. That existing framework gives the alliance a foundation for integrating increasingly diverse national systems without requiring every member to field identical equipment.

Hinds did warn that some countries have previously acquired equipment that was not compatible with NATO systems, leaving them with the choice of paying to modify their own equipment or forcing the alliance to adapt its systems around it.

That problem becomes particularly important as autonomous aircraft are connected to increasingly complex sensor and weapons networks. Even more important is the requirement for a baseline command-and-control network for CCAs themselves, allowing different platforms to manage them seamlessly.

The ability to share and control CCAs across a complex battlespace is already emerging as both a major opportunity and a significant integration challenge. The U.S. Air Force and Navy, for example, have made clear that their respective CCAs are being developed with the ability to be controlled seamlessly across services, pointing toward a future in which autonomous aircraft need not remain tied to the service or platform that launched them.

Hinds described a potential kill chain in which an F-35 detects a target, passes the information to another node in the network, and a ground-based system operated by another NATO country ultimately launches the weapon.

In such an architecture, the aircraft, sensor, command-and-control network, and weapon do not necessarily have to belong to the same country.

As an example, Dutch F-35s, operating in Europe, have used a data-exchange system to transmit targeting coordinates to Israeli-made PULS (Precise and Universal Launch System) rocket artillery. The system, developed by Lockheed Martin is known as Keystone, and you can read more about it here.

USAFE is making “significant advances” in areas including cross-servicing, cross-loading, and cross-flying allied aircraft, Hinds said, all of which are intended to make multinational operations more seamless.

The same philosophy applies to weapons.

“We want to have all the fires, right? Whether it’s U.S. built or built inside European nations,” Hinds said.

That could prove increasingly important as European countries expand domestic production of missiles, drones, and other weapons alongside their aircraft programs.

The growth of GCAP and other European defense programs comes amid broader debate over how much Europe should depend on U.S. military equipment.

But Hinds rejected the idea that allies developing indigenous aircraft and autonomous systems necessarily signals a move away from American equipment.

“No, I don’t,” he said when asked whether allies were moving away from U.S. systems.

Instead, Hinds characterized the trend as an expansion of the transatlantic defense-industrial base.

Sweden was one example he cited. The country, which recently joined NATO, continues to produce new military equipment, including Gripen fighters, while those aircraft are already being operated by NATO members.

Swedish Gripens are currently leased to Hungary, and other countries are considering the aircraft, Hinds said.

The broader trend toward co-manufacturing and co-production is also something he welcomed.

“I’m seeing a lot of discussions about co-manufacturing and co-production, and I welcome those discussions as well,” Hinds said.

That approach could become increasingly important as NATO tries to expand its available combat power without relying exclusively on additional U.S.-built platforms.

For USAFE, the objective is to ensure that whatever aircraft NATO countries develop or purchase can plug into a common architecture, sharing data, receiving targeting information, drawing on common logistics networks, and contributing weapons effects across national boundaries.

For a U.S. Air Force command that has spent decades trying to cover Europe with far fewer fighters than it once had, hundreds of autonomous wingmen, whether American-built or allied, could provide a significant way to generate additional combat mass.

Senior U.S. Air Force officials are now working to ensure that the networking, weapons integration, logistics, and command-and-control architecture will be in place once those aircraft start to come online.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post How The USAF Is Preparing For European Allies To Join The Collaborative Combat Aircraft Club appeared first on TWZ.

Yemen’s Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, has released imagery that it says shows the downing of a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 fighter over Marib governorate. The material includes photos of the wreckage of an F-15 on the ground. At this stage, the fate of the two crew members is unclear. The incident comes amid a major escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

A video of what Ansar Allah says is the successful shootdown of the F-15 shows the typical ground-based forward-looking infrared (FLIR) systems we have seen in use by air defenses in Yemen previously, and, more recently, in Iran.

Onboard footage of a Houthi SAM system shooting down a Saudi F-15 overnight over Yemen’s Marib province. pic.twitter.com/6mh23B2Ovu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 16, 2026

After a period of relative calm following the 2022 truce, fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Houthi forces making significant advances against Saudi-backed Yemeni government positions, including around the strategically important coastal areas of Marib and Taiz. The group has also stepped up missile and drone attacks against southern Saudi Arabia, targeting military and energy infrastructure while strangling the kingdom’s ability to move oil through the Red Sea. The Houthis have further declared the Bab el-Mandeb closed to Saudi oil traffic, directly challenging one of Riyadh’s key energy-export routes.

Prior to the release of imagery, earlier today the Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed that Houthi forces had shot down a Saudi F-15 while it was conducting operations in support of Saudi-backed forces in Marib. Saree said the aircraft was engaged by a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile, although he did not identify the weapon. Reuters likewise reported that the Houthis had claimed the shootdown but that the claim had not been independently verified.

Saree also claimed that Houthi air defenses subsequently engaged formations of Saudi F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons that entered the area while attempting to locate the downed aircraft. According to the Houthi account, those aircraft were forced to withdraw. That portion of the claim has likewise not been independently verified.

Saudi Arabia has not, at the time of writing, publicly acknowledged the loss of an F-15. Reuters reported that the Saudi-led campaign had intensified considerably in recent days, with Saudi aircraft striking targets across Yemen while the Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Saudi territory.

The aircraft appears to be an F-15SA, the most advanced variant of the Eagle operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Specifically, it appears to be tail number 5539, assigned to the 55th Squadron based at King Khalid Air Base.

The Royal Saudi Air Force received 84 of the new-build F-15SA. Meanwhile, the 68-strong fleet of earlier F-15S aircraft has been upgraded locally to a similar standard, also known as F-15SR (for Saudi Retrofit). Aircraft 5539 is understood to be among the latter.

The reported shootdown highlights the continuing threat posed by Houthi air defenses, which have proven considerably more capable and difficult to suppress than their improvised appearance might suggest.

As TWZ has previously detailed, the Houthi air-defense network includes mobile surface-to-air missile systems, repurposed infrared-guided R-73 and R-27 air-to-air missiles, and Iranian-derived systems such as the Saqr/358.

Of particular concern is the group’s use of passive infrared sensors for detection, tracking, and missile cueing. Unlike conventional fire-control radars, these sensors do not provide an aircraft’s electronic-warfare systems with an early warning that it has been detected or targeted. TWZ has noted that this combination of mobility and passive sensing can create a difficult problem even for highly sophisticated combat aircraft, with the Houthis having previously demonstrated the ability to threaten U.S. crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

That capability does not mean that Houthi air defenses constitute a conventional, integrated air defense network comparable to those operated by major state militaries. However, they can still be effective through a combination of concealment, mobility, passive detection, unconventional employment of missiles, and the difficult operating environment over Yemen.

Previous Saudi aircraft losses attributed to Houthi air defenses during the Yemen war from 2015 to 2022 include several helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and drones. Total Saudi losses to all causes in the conflict amount to around a dozen helicopters, five jets, and as many as 30 drones. A Saudi F-15 crashed in the Red Sea at the start of the war in 2015 and Eagles were also reportedly engaged and damaged by Houthi surface-to-air missiles in 2018, although they returned safely.

Video footage that emerged in 2021 shows Saudi troops on the ground watching an F-15 swoop in a relatively low level to knock down a Houthi Qasef-series suicide drone:

In the past, Houthi forces have come close to engaging U.S. F-35s and have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to bring down MQ-9 Reaper drones. If the Saudi F-15 loss is ultimately confirmed, determining precisely how the aircraft was detected, tracked, engaged, and hit could therefore provide valuable insight into how this unusual air defense architecture is being employed against Saudi and other combat aircraft.

As we discussed at the time, the clear risk posed by Houthi air defenses is likely the main factor behind Saudi employment of a Chinese-made short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) in the current fighting with Yemen.

العثور على بقايا صاروخ صيني من طراز DF-15A في اليمن. pic.twitter.com/af9mGNNxiA

— إيران بالعربية (@iraninarabic_ir) September 14, 2026

The timing of the reported shootdown is also notable. It comes amid a sharp escalation in the conflict, with Saudi Arabia conducting air operations against Houthi positions in Yemen and Ansar Allah launching missiles and drones toward targets inside Saudi Arabia. Reuters reported that the Houthis had attacked the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu and a southern airbase at Khamis Mushait, while Riyadh has reported intercepting Houthi drones.

The F-15 incident also follows a separate confrontation over an alleged Houthi drone attack near Mecca. Saudi authorities said their air defenses intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered the restricted airspace over the city. The Houthis denied targeting the holy city.

Meanwhile, there are reports that U.S. officials met representatives of the Houthis in Oman over the weekend, with the Houthis apparently telling the U.S. officials that they had no intention of attacking American vessels and that they remained committed to the 2025 ceasefire with ​the United States unless they stepped in on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom reportedly requested exactly this in recent weeks but was denied.

For the moment, the most that can be established from the available imagery is that a Saudi F-15 was destroyed, with Ansar Allah claiming responsibility.

This is a developing story and will be updated as additional imagery, official statements, or other independently verifiable information becomes available.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Houthis Claim Saudi F-15 Kill Over Yemen appeared first on TWZ.

The top U.S. Air Force officer in Europe, who also serves as the NATO Allied Air Command leader, said he has been tasked with enacting new alliance plans to defend against cruise missiles and drones. He was responding to questions about a drone that NATO had to shoot down after it entered Lithuanian airspace overnight. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday morning that the incident was “part of a broader pattern of Russian aggression and provocation against Europe, testing our readiness and our resolve.”

The drone incursion into Lithuania took place against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and amid a spate of so-called ‘hybrid’ or ‘gray zone’ actions Moscow has been accused of carrying out throughout Europe, including a recent attempted drone attack on the Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany.

We now know that Russia is responsible for the attempted explosive attack at Leipzig airport. Russia's repeated hybrid attacks on Germany and Europe are unacceptable. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/o3vBjgpeb1

— German Embassy Washington (@GermanyinUSA) September 1, 2026

“I don’t know what’s in the mind of Putin or his fielded forces about those one-way attack drones or even cruise missiles, like we’ve seen enter Polish airspace just a few months ago. In July, we had an AS-23 cruise missile enter Poland,” Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe/U.S. Air Forces Africa (USAFE), and Commander of the Allied Air Command, said in response to a question about the drone shootdown over Lithuania. He was speaking during a media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending.

Hinds added that while he doesn’t “know the why behind” the drone incursion into Lithuania, he has been tasked by U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, who serves as NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), “to fully implement EVA [Enhanced Vigilance Activity] Eastern Sentry and now its Standing Defense Plan 12000, which gives the nations the capabilities that they need to defend their airspace against either one-way attack drones like the one that you described last night, or a cruise missile.”

EVA Eastern Sentry is a mission NATO stood up in September 2025 after “an unprecedented number of Russian drones and planes violated the airspace of several NATO Allies,” according to the alliance. “Allies are contributing additional capabilities and assets to NATO’s deterrence and defense – for instance, more fighter jets, helicopters, transport aircraft, air defense systems, surveillance aircraft and frigates – and improving the coordination of these assets through NATO.”

Standing Defense Plan 12000 is a new plan for integrated air and missile defense across the alliance. Grynkewich introduced the concept during testimony to Congress in March.

Hinds acknowledged that Russia could be testing the alliance.

“It’s not about the small UASs; that’s typically a national responsibility, and it could be probing,” the Air Force general noted. “Regardless of the intent behind it, what we want to be prepared for is the second that a one-way attack drone or a cruise missile is first and foremost detected – hopefully well before it enters NATO territory – we want to know it. We want to know where it’s coming from. We want to have the capability to sense it. We want to be able to have the C2 [command and control] systems to be able to decide what to do about it, and then have the right kit to be able to act.”

Despite an integrated air and missile defense system that includes Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries, NATO currently is primarily “using air power” against drones and cruise missiles “and that’s not putting us on the right side of the cost curve,” Hinds stated. “But we want to get there.”

Using NATO jets to take down drones “is very effective, just like what you saw last night, and many other times,” but not necessarily efficient, Hinds explained. 

“I think there’s been at least five other cases of allied nations providing air power to shoot down one-way attack drones,” he proffered. “I want to get to the point where we’re doing it efficiently, using lower-cost interceptors, hopefully ground-based, and in some cases air-based that are cheaper to use, so we’ll see what the intent may be. Intelligence organizations are going to provide us with that intelligence later on, but I just don’t know yet.”

You can see one of those NATO jet engagements with drones in the following video.

NATO airpower in action this morning, safeguarding Latvian airspace. pic.twitter.com/Ugzbx8aaZS

— Marko Mihkelson (@markomihkelson) June 8, 2026

It should be noted that Europe is starting to follow the American lead in using less expensive laser-guided, air-to-air rockets as drone-killing weapons. TWZ was the first to report about the use of 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rockets by the U.S. The U.K. Royal Air Force announced in May of this year that its Typhoons were now equipped with APKWS rockets while the French recently tested their own 68mm laser-guided rockets from Rafale fighters.

The Defence Procurement Agency has successfully completed integration testing of 68 mm laser-guided rockets on the Rafale fighter jet. The time between the contract being awarded for this new capability and initial operational capability being achieved was less than 8 months. pic.twitter.com/rR2Nij9EzY

— French Aid to Europe (@aidefranceukr) July 13, 2026

As the threats have evolved, NATO has “transitioned away from air policing, and we’ve transitioned to air defense for some specific reasons,” the general pointed out. “One is readiness. Air policing is a readiness decrementing mission that the alliance has done for years. There’s also an assurance mission that we did for 32 nations. That’s transitioned to air defense now. Air defense means we have the right kit, multi-domain, to be able to be put in the right place based on indications, warnings, or real threats, like you saw last night, inside of the Baltic nations, to be able to respond decisively and quickly.”

“There’s also a deterrence value there,” Hinds added. “So if Russia does fly a one-way attack drone or a cruise missile, they know that we’re going to be in the right spot to be able to detect it and then defend against it.”

“These are limited incursions, right? Small numbers. Here’s what I see: hybrid activities may, in fact, only be one of the few levers that Putin has available to him, because he sees that he does not have an advantage in geography, domain, or readiness,” Hinds suggested.

“Think about that,” he urged. “So what are we seeing? We’re not seeing a massing of forces across the opposite side of Finland, a new NATO nation. We’re not seeing a massing of forces whatsoever in any domain opposite of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia. You’re seeing a significant number of one-way attack drones in the Black Sea targeting Ukraine. Some of them are entering Romania. What you’re not seeing is a direct confrontation in geography. We’re not seeing direct competition in domains. And I think Putin knows that we are ready. I know he knows that we’re a defensive alliance. I know he knows that we have an advantage in every domain against them, and I think that’s likely why you’re seeing things like what you’re seeing with hybrid activity.”

Though below the level of armed conflict, these Russian activities raise the potential for something worse, Hinds posited.

“The risk about hybrid activity, from my perspective, is it could lead to escalation, and that’s where I hope that we get back towards deterrence again, and that the nations they’re going to decide to do what they want to do when it comes to these hybrid activities,” the general said. “Some of them are law enforcement. Some of them are military responses, and that’s up to the nations to decide how they’re going to deal with that. Not me.”

“But what I owe General Grynkewich is to ensure that we are demonstrating our deterrence each and every day, and we’re doing that effectively across all domains,” Hinds added. “And to ensure that Putin knows that if he tries something against the alliance, that we will be there, and we’re ready to win decisively if challenged.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post NATO Air Commander Details Thinking Behind The Alliance’s New Air Defense Plan appeared first on TWZ.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach offered some new insights on Monday into the challenges faced by airmen during Operation Epic Fury as Iranian missiles and drones rained down on them. His comments came during a keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending. 

“Since becoming the chief, I’ve had the privilege of spending time with airmen throughout CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command],” said Wilsbach, who assumed the position in November. “I have walked flight lines, visited maintenance hangars, and stood inside operations centers where young Americans were managing missions overhead. Let me tell you about a few courageous airmen I met on my recent trip to the Middle East. They told me about their experience on the flight line during an attack.”

Burning Hangar

“As missiles were inbound, airmen sprinted toward bunkers,” the service chief said, without providing details about which base. “Moments later, a missile struck nearby in a hangar, and the aircraft inside burst into flames. The bunker withstood the blast, but the force of the impact damaged the door so badly it wouldn’t open, trapping the airmen inside.”

“Picture the scene,” Wilsbach explained. “Fire was spreading, an aircraft was burning only feet away, their teammates were trapped inside, and they had no way out. Despite the danger, airmen ran toward the flames.”

“A security forces NCO grabbed a pry bar and forced the door open,” he continued. “Calmly communicated with the airmen trapped inside. Seconds later, the ejection seat on the burning aircraft ignited, sending glass and metal fragments through the air. Finally, the door gave way, and the airmen escaped and ran for cover.”

“Wherever I went, I saw airmen with that steely-eyed look of warriors, determined to get the mission done and protect their fellow airmen,” the chief noted. “More than 30,000 airmen deployed in support of Epic Fury to a dozen locations. They served alongside soldiers, sailors, Marines, Guardians, and Coalition partners.”

Launching F-15Es Under Fire

“Operation Epic Fury will be studied for its scale, precision, and speed,” said Wilsbach. “Over 38 days of combat operations, the Joint Force struck more than 13,000 military objectives. Five hundred aircraft executed 10,000 sorties, an average of more than 250 sorties every day. Our airmen accomplished this through 1,200 alarm reds while executing 48 airfield repairs and completing more than 420 reportable explosive ordnance disposal, long lonely walks.”

“That walk is exactly what the name suggests,” Wilsbach proffered. “EOD technician leaving a place of relative safety and approaching a suspected bomb or unexploded munition to render it safe for everyone else.”

“Behind those numbers were thousands of decisions made by airmen who had to keep the mission moving while the enemy was actively trying to stop them,” Wilsbach stated. “One was Garrett, a staff sergeant F-15E crew chief from East Texas. He joined the Air Force to travel and see the world. We sure allowed him to achieve that goal, but I’m not sure the Middle East was exactly what he had in mind. On the second day of Epic Fury, Garrett was on the flight line launching four Strike Eagles when alarm red sounded. Airmen around him started running for shelter. Garrett’s adrenaline spiked. He knew exactly what that alarm meant. Danger was inbound, but his launch was not complete.”

“A young airman was working with him, and Garrett sent him to the bunker,” the service chief continued. “Garrett stayed. The rest of the team was separated, so he armed the weapons and cleared the jet. Proceed… While everyone else ran for cover, he decided to stay. Garrett understood why those Strike Eagles were in theater. He knew they were one of their best lines of defense, so he stayed until the job was done. Only after the last fighter taxied out, Garrett finally took cover. Later, when someone asked why, his answer was simple: his fellow airmen needed those airplanes in the air.”

Swatting Down Drones Under Fire

“Hundreds of miles away, two senior airmen, Shanae and Nolan, tracked a swarm of enemy drones headed toward their base,” Wilsbach pointed out. “Shanae joined the Air Force to provide for her family. During the opening days of Epic Fury, she found herself protecting another family – the hundreds of airmen depending on her.”

“People sprinted for shelter as alarm red announced an incoming attack, but Shanae and Nolan stayed focused on the screens in front of them because every inbound track could be a weapon aimed at their teammates,” the general said. “Shanae is 27 years old, and Nolan is 21. Think about the responsibility we placed on these two airmen. Hundreds of lives depended on them to identify the threats and employ countermeasures. Every second mattered. The stakes were life and death. Together, Shanae and Nolan achieved more than 10 surface-to-air kills that night, defeating threat after threat before it could reach the airmen they were protecting. There were moments when they were afraid, and most people would be, but courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is overcoming it. They stayed locked on, trusted their training, and did the job everyone around them was counting on.”

Picking Up The Pieces After An Attack

“Peter is a senior airman from New York who spent nine months in the Middle East as an air transportation airman,” Wilsbach said. “With his team, he moved heavy ordnance, prepared missile systems, and downloaded Patriot equipment, while ballistic missiles and attack drones repeatedly target their airfield.”

“One of those attacks became very personal,” the service chief noted. “Enemy fire destroyed Peter’s living quarters and nearly everything he had brought from home. Imagine coming back after a 12-hour shift to find the wreckage of your hooch. The few pieces of home he carried halfway around the world were gone. Peter’s response told me everything I needed to know about him. He said that his possessions could be replaced, but the mission could not.”

Keeping The Reapers Flying

“More than 4,000 dynamic targets had to be found, identified, validated, and engaged,” Wilsbach said. “Remotely piloted aircraft, airborne ISR platforms, cyber operators, space professionals, and countless others turn enormous amounts of data into intelligence commanders could use.”

“Suit is a first lieutenant with a family tradition of excellence,” Wilsbach said of one MQ-9 Reaper pilot. “Both of his grandfathers served in the Army. I’m sure they wanted a better life for their kids, which is why his parents chose the Air Force. Today, Suit flies the MQ-9 and carries his family tradition forward. He also scored a perfect 100 on its physical assessment this year, so apparently excellence runs in the family.”

“MQ-9s flown by pilots like Suit supplied critical ISR and kinetic strike capabilities, launching them from bases within range of enemy fires,” said Wilsbach. “Suit planned and launched an MQ-9 combat sortie during an active attack. While missiles hit the airfield, Suit taxied out and got his Reaper airborne. He handed off control to another crew, then switched to the ground control station to recover a different MQ-9. His crew destroyed a priority target and then turned their sensors back toward their own airfield to inspect the runway for damage and determine whether operations could continue.”

“The MQ-9 was a workhorse for combatant commanders during Epic Fury. It provided real-time intelligence, struck 860 targets, and gave our forces the edge while denying the enemy freedom of movement. Airmen-like Suit made sure this asset stayed in the fight and maximized its impact. The MQ-9 success demonstrates the need for a capable follow-on aircraft that achieves the same effects with greater survivability, adaptability, and at a lower cost.”

Rescuing An F-15E Crew Shot Down Over Iran

“Peaches is an air battle manager from Texas,” the chief stated. “During Epic Fury, she found herself in the middle of a story of her own her family will be telling for generations. Peaches led 134 joint and coalition operators responsible for command and control across a complex battle space. Her team supported operations involving more than 1,000 one-way attack drones and 1,200 enemy ballistic missile threats. Those numbers are difficult to comprehend, but for Peaches, command and control was not a collection of symbols moving across the screen.”

“Every symbol represented something real: an aircraft, a threat, a crew, an airman,” he explained. “It was during this time two of those airmen became isolated inside of Iran. What followed became one of the defining moments of the operation. Over 50 hours, Peaches was one of the many who coordinated the combat search and rescue effort, leading her team to integrate 176 aircraft, fighters, bombers, tankers, intelligence platforms, and Air Force Special Operations Command forces that converged on one objective: bringing those Americans home.”

MUST WATCH: The extended @60Minutes interview with DUDE 44 Bravo https://t.co/HZUr7D4Svk pic.twitter.com/OUrlK072XP

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 14, 2026

“Think about the complexity of that problem,” Wilsbach noted. “Aircraft operating at different speeds, altitudes, fuel states, with different sensors, weapons, and responsibilities, while an adversary was actively trying to stop them. Maintenance teams generated additional fighters. Tanker crews extended the range and endurance of the force, intelligence professionals track the threats. AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] airmen brought specialized capabilities need[ed] to reach out to our isolated teammates and get them out. Every one of those airmen was doing something different, yet all were contributing to the same mission.”

“The Dude 44 rescue demonstrates why integration matters,” Wilsbach added. “To someone outside of our profession, committing that much combat power to recover two people might appear extraordinary. To an airman, the reason is simple: we make a promise to one another in our Airman’s Creed. I will never leave an airman behind. If you are isolated, injured, or trapped behind enemy lines, we are coming to get you. The courage and performance displayed during that mission was so impressive that 10 airmen received battlefield promotions. I had the distinct honor of promoting six of those heroes, ranging from staff sergeant to chief master sergeant during a recent trip. Everyone understood that their success depended on someone else doing their job. That is how our air and space forces fight.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post Airmen Under Fire: Stories From Iranian Barrages On U.S. Bases appeared first on TWZ.

Debris from a Chinese-made ballistic missile found in Yemen could have inadvertently revealed a previously undisclosed addition to Saudi Arabia’s secretive ballistic missile arsenal. Imagery circulating online appears to show the wreckage of a Chinese DF-15A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), potentially marking the first known Saudi combat use of a weapon in this class, although both the identification and ownership remain unconfirmed.

The booster stage of a Chinese-made DF-15A (Dong Feng-15A) ballistic missile operated by Saudi Arabia fell in Raghwan District, Marib Governorate, northern Yemen. pic.twitter.com/dfSXMOiCzQ

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) September 14, 2026

It is also unclear what happened to the missile itself. The debris suggests a stage separation or the missile broke apart or crashed before reaching its target. The Houthis are not known to possess any weapons that could have intercepted it.

The development comes amid a sharp escalation in the long-running Saudi-Houthi conflict. After years of relative de-escalation following the 2022 truce, fighting has intensified in recent weeks as Houthi forces have dramatically overrun Saudi-backed Yemeni government positions, including around strategically important Marib and Taiz. The Houthis have also escalated missile and drone attacks against southern Saudi Arabia, targeting military and energy infrastructure while threatening the kingdom’s ability to move oil through the Red Sea. The group has declared the Bab el-Mandeb closed to Saudi oil traffic, adding a direct threat to one of Riyadh’s critical energy-export routes.

You can catch up with our latest coverage of the fighting here.

As for the DF-15, also known by its NATO designation CSS-6, this is a road-mobile, solid-fueled SRBM developed by China during the 1980s. The system formed part of Beijing’s effort to develop a new generation of conventionally armed mobile ballistic missiles, including systems primarily intended for export.

العثور على بقايا صاروخ صيني من طراز DF-15A في اليمن. pic.twitter.com/af9mGNNxiA

— إيران بالعربية (@iraninarabic_ir) September 14, 2026

As you can read about here, the DF-15 family has evolved through several variants, although open-source information concerning their capabilities remains inconsistent.

The DF-15A reportedly entered Chinese service in the mid-1990s. Estimates of these missiles’ maximum range vary substantially, from roughly 600 kilometers (373 miles) for the original DF-15 to as much as 900 kilometers (559 miles) for later versions.

China is the only confirmed operator of the DF-15 family. There have been longstanding reports of Chinese transfers of the DF-15 or the related M-9 export version to Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, but in each case, the export record is heavily disputed, with some reports likely conflating the DF-15 with the broadly similar DF-11.

While Saudi Arabia has never publicly acknowledged operating the DF-15 family, it has a well-established history of acquiring Chinese ballistic missiles.

In 2013, Prince Fahd bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, Deputy Minister of Defense, visited the Strategic Missile Forces of Saudi Arabia, and was given this model. YEARS of speculation on the smaller missiles (The large is DF-3). Now we know – they are DF-15 and DF-15A. pic.twitter.com/oOn8qiCgye

— Tal Inbar (@inbarspace) September 14, 2026

Saudi Arabia imported Chinese ballistic missiles to expand its long-range strike options. Its desire for a land-based strategic deterrent was initially driven by concerns over Iran, regional missile proliferation, and nuclear hedging. More recently, however, it shifted toward fielding more accurate, mobile systems with greater conventional military utility.

Riyadh secretly obtained DF-3A missiles from China beginning in the late 1980s, establishing a strategic ballistic-missile capability that remained largely outside public view.

The kingdom has also subsequently been linked to the DF-21 family. Satellite imagery and other open-source intelligence have provided evidence of Chinese-designed ballistic-missile infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.

While the Houthis have their own ballistic-missile arsenal, this is principally associated with Iranian technology, captured Yemeni systems, and locally produced or modified weapons.

Saudi employment of an SRBM in the current fighting would represent a notable expansion of the kingdom’s response options. If Saudi Arabia did indeed do this, its main advantage would be speed and responsiveness. A solid-fueled ballistic missile could reach targets deep inside Yemen within minutes while keeping Saudi aircraft and crews out of the immediate engagement area, providing Riyadh with a rapid strike option against fixed Houthi targets. That could be particularly valuable as the conflict expands and Saudi forces face pressure to respond quickly to Houthi attacks on military and energy infrastructure.

Previous losses at the hands of Houthi ground-based air defenses could also dissuade Riyadh from relying on crewed aircraft to strike targets on the ground deep inside Yemen. Houthi air defenses, while pathed together in many ways, are capable enough to give even U.S. airpower a serious run for their money.

At the same time, a conventional SRBM like the DF-15A can deliver a large warhead at very high speed, imparting significant kinetic energy, making it particularly useful against fixed, high-value, or hardened targets.

Use of an SRBM would also be in line with the current pattern of escalation, with the Houthis conducting missile and drone attacks against Saudi military and energy targets while Saudi-backed Yemeni forces are engaged in renewed ground fighting. Riyadh’s demonstration of an SRBM capability in this campaign would also signal that it is is willing to draw more heavily on its strategic missile inventory as the conflict intensifies, potentially further raising the stakes of the confrontation.

Such a move would carry a message beyond Yemen. Using a previously unacknowledged ballistic missile capability in combat would signal to Iran that Riyadh is now willing to employ this arsenal, after decades of keeping it very much in the shadows.

If the evidence ultimately points to a Saudi DF-15A launch, the discovery would offer a rare look at the operational use of an extremely secretive part of the kingdom’s arsenal, and add a significant new dimension to the rapidly escalating Saudi-Houthi war.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Saudi Arabia Appears To Have Used Its Secretive Stash Of Ballistic Missiles For The First Time appeared first on TWZ.

The Ukrainian Navy is claiming one of its uncrewed surface vessels (USV) sank a Russian USV, marking the first time one of these weapons, also known as drone boats, destroyed another. The engagement is the latest iteration in the use of combat drone boats, which Ukraine has employed to devastating effect against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet vessels and facilities, forcing the general evacuation of Russian naval assets from occupied Crimea to bases in Russia proper. The use of weaponized USVs is now proliferating around the globe at an increasing rate.

The incident took place somewhere in the Black Sea, said the Ukrainian Navy, which provided no details about when it happened or exactly where. TWZ cannot independently verify this claim; however, we cannot find any evidence of a drone boat killing another drone boat in the past.

“Units of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) detected the target,” the Ukrainian Navy stated on Telegram. “The Ukrainian Navy’s ‘Sargan 3000’ unmanned boat, equipped with a remotely operated weapon station (RWS) Protector 12.7 mm, successfully destroyed it. This is the first naval battle in history between unmanned boats.”

An 81-second video released by the Ukrainian Navy opens with a view from the Sargan 3000’s onboard camera. It shows the Ukrainian USV acquiring, then engaging the Russian USV with its machine gun. It then cuts to a closer view of the Protector gun system firing at the Russian drone boat. At about the 30-second mark, the view switches to a feed from an aerial platform, though it is unclear if it is piloted or a drone. The video continues with the Sargan 3000 raking the Russian USV with its heavy machine gun until pieces start flying off and it eventually sinks, stern first.

Ukraine's Navy says a Sargan unmanned surface vessel destroyed a Russian unmanned boat with machine-gun fire in the Black Sea, the first-ever battle between unmanned surface vessels. Ukrainian Navy personnel operated in coordination with HUR. #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Avg4ecz8m6

— NOELREPORTS (@NOELreports) September 12, 2026

The Sargan 3000 (the name means needlefish in Ukrainian) was first introduced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in April as a “multi-purpose platform that has undergone testing and entered service with the Ukrainian Navy. These uncrewed vessels are highly maneuverable and capable of carrying out strike missions.”

Though initially designed as a kamikaze weapon, it evolved into a platform for remote-controlled weapons, according to the Russian AmalNews outlet.

“The maritime drone features a specialized low-profile hull with distinctive hydrodynamic lines and is constructed from materials that reduce its radar signature,” the publication explained. “The Sargan-3000 USV is equipped with a waterjet propulsion system (presumably powered by a diesel or hybrid engine to ensure a long operational range).”

AmalNews states that the Sargan 3000 is 6.9 meters (about 22.6 feet) long, 2.2 meters (about 7.2 feet) wide, with an operational radius of up to 1,600 km (about 994 miles) and can carry a payload of 450 kg (about 992 pounds). It travels at an estimated speed range of 40-55 knots.

During operations, the Sargan 3000 connects to Ukraine’s Delta situational awareness system, “enabling the real-time transmission of target data, video feeds, and telemetry to operators,” AmalNews noted. “It features multi-channel control capabilities, including redundant satellite communication terminals (utilizing secure Western commercial networks and NATO military networks).”

It is also equipped with “an autonomous inertial and optical navigation system to ensure operation in the event of GPS jamming, and it incorporates electronic countermeasures (ECM) modules.”

There are several variants of this USV. They include those equipped with machine guns; rockets; FPV drones; an electronic warfare version and one that lays mines, the publication added.

Ukraine’s Sargan-3000 naval drone was presented in an FPV drone carrier variant, additionally fitted with a remote weapon station. The type first appeared in combat conditions in early June, when one washed ashore and detonated in the waters of Romania’s Constanța port. #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/QyKnyJFqUq

— NOELREPORTS (@NOELreports) July 5, 2026

The Sargan 3000’s Protector remote weapon station is made by Kongsberg.

The drone boat’s first publicly known combat engagement took place in July, when one “destroyed the Russian Federation’s FSB border guard ship Izumrud,” the Ukrainian Navy stated at the time.

“Ukrainian naval sailors sank the border guard ship of the 2nd rank with the Sargan-3000 maritime unmanned complex near Novorossiysk,” the Ukrainian Navy claimed on Facebook. “Among the crew of the ship are dead and wounded.”

It is unclear whether the USV acted as a kamikaze vessel or a weapons platform, although the former is most likely.

“It was Izumrud that on November 25, 2018, participated in the attack on the ships of the Ukrainian Navy in the Kerch Strait,” the service added. “Revenge is inevitable.”

Ukraine's Navy has sunk the Russian FSB Border Guard patrol ship Izumrud near Novorossiysk using the Sargan-3000 unmanned maritime system.

The vessel, a Rank 2 patrol ship, reportedly sustained catastrophic damage, with casualties and injuries among its crew.

The Izumrud was… pic.twitter.com/7VjKDH2ReD

— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) July 14, 2026

One sea drone killing another is a notable development given the damage these systems can inflict and the challenge of locating and destroying them on open waters. Being able to operate on the water over long distances and timeframes, they can be used to hunt down other drone boats, as what appears to have taken place in this engagement, or serve as a picket line of sorts to protect harbors, vessels and other targets that have been attacked by USVs in the past.

The Russian drone boat, which is not identified, did not appear to be armed.

The Houthi rebels of Yemen actually pioneered the operational use of kamikaze USVs years ago. We first reported about this capability in January 2017, when an explosive-laden Houthi USV struck a Saudi frigate. Before that, Iran developed various crude kamikaze USVs and those capabilities soon migrated to its Houthi proxies, which put them to use in the Red Sea for the first time.

Ukraine has led the way in advancements of these systems, first employing them as kamikaze weapons, but then adding machine guns and rockets and later missiles, which were used to shoot down Russian helicopters and jets. Ukraine has also used these to launch FPV and bomber drone attacks as well as deliver uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV) into enemy territory.

You can see that delivery in the following video.

No soldiers. Just machines.

Ukraine has carried out the world's first known combat mission in which a sea drone transported and deployed an armed ground robot behind Russian lines on the occupied Kinburn Spit. pic.twitter.com/zyJdFXWxVb

— Ivan Khomenko (@KhomenkoIv60065) July 13, 2026

In the wake of the Ukrainian success with these weapons, Russia developed its own drone boats, and in August 2025, launched its first attack on a Ukrainian vessel.

The U.S. used drone boats as kamikaze weapons for the first time in July, during an attack “on a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on X at the time.

Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea… pic.twitter.com/bOM2kmgRxz

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 13, 2026

Regardless, it looks like history was made with this incident in the Black Sea. But this involved a sea drone hunting down and destroying another that couldn’t fight back. Given the rapid pace of weapons development by both sides in the Ukraine war, it seems inevitable that a duel between two armed drones boats could soon follow.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post First-Ever Kill Of A Drone Boat By Another Drone Boat Claimed By Ukraine appeared first on TWZ.

Saudi Arabia on Friday announced it had to temporarily shut down the key east-west pipeline after drone attacks on Thursday from an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq. As we have explained in the past, the Kingdom has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to hostilities near the Persian Gulf that have closed the Strait of Hormuz. 

The pipeline was shut down a day after the Houthi rebels of Yemen increased their control over the crucial Bab al-Mandab Strait (BAM), a narrow body of water separating the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Combined with Iran vastly curtailing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, this gives Tehran significant control over two of the world’s most crucial passageways for the flow of oil.

3. The Houthis have reportedly attempted to seize ROYG-controlled islands in the Red Sea from which Houthi fighters could launch attacks on international shipping. Houthi forces reportedly landed on the Hanish Islands in the southern Red Sea on the morning of September 10 after… pic.twitter.com/tiFPgNDOHZ

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 11, 2026

“The East-West pipeline, in the regions of Riyadh and Medina, was subjected to several attacks on Thursday morning, September 10, 2026,” Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry posted on X. “The line was shut down as a precaution. The attacks resulted in some injuries, and medical care has been provided to those injured.”

“Emergency teams and specialized technical teams began work immediately after the attacks occurred, and took the necessary measures to secure the line and verify its safety, in accordance with approved safety procedures and emergency plans, and in coordination with relevant authorities,” the ministry added. “Any updates will be announced in due course.”

A before and after of the East-West Pipeline pumping station showed that it wasn’t just “hit”, it was absolutely MANGLED.

The past 24 hours have been nothing short of catastrophic for the global energy markets, but the harsh reality?

The pain is just getting started. pic.twitter.com/aei8HPplB3

— Brett Erickson (@BrettErickson28) September 11, 2026

Showing the complexity of this situation and the high degree of coordination among various Iranian-backed proxies, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Iranian proxies in Iraq of carrying out the attack. The Kingdom subsequently said it would hold off on responding to “give the brotherly Iraqi government an opportunity to take the necessary measures to prevent attacks launched from Iraqi territory against the Kingdom and neighboring countries,” according to the Arab News.

Officials in Baghdad quickly responded to that request, firing a regional commander overseeing operations where the attack was launched from.

“The Prime Minister, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Mr. Ali Falih Al-Zaidi, directed the formation of an investigative committee regarding the Maysan Operations Command,” the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office announced on X. “His Excellency ordered the dismissal of the Operations Commander from his position, following confirmation that the attacks targeting the brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were launched from one of the sites within the province.”

وجّه رئيس مجلس الوزراء، القائد العام للقوات المسلحة، السيد علي فالح الزيدي بتشكيل مجلس تحقيقي بحق قيادة عمليات ميسان.

وأمر سيادته بإعفاء قائد العمليات من منصبه، على خلفية ثبوت انطلاق الاعتداءات التي طالت الأشقاء في المملكة العربية السعودية من أحد المواقع داخل المحافظة.…

— المكتب الإعلامي لرئيس الوزراء (@IraqiPMO) September 11, 2026

On Friday, the Houthis acknowledged that they captured new stretches of Red Sea coast from the Saudi-backed factions they’ve been battling. This includes the port of Mokha and the key islands of Perim (also known as Mayun) and Zuqar.

In a quick recap of what’s changed, the port provides a potential new surveillance and launching point for the Houthis. From here they can deploy mines, standoff weapons, as well as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) that can be used to attack shipping. The islands give the Houthis a presence in the middle of shipping lanes. This is especially true for Perim, which sits in the narrowest part of the BAM, less than two miles west of Yemen and about 13 miles east of Djibouti, giving the Houthis a commanding presence at the mouth of the Red Sea. Its position could even allow Houthis to launch attacks on shipping using lower-end munitions, such as anti-tank guided missiles and even rocket artillery.

However, maintaining a major military presence on these islands would be a challenge logistically, especially should the U.S. or its allies attack positions there. You can read more about how the fall of the islands unfolded in our report here.

As they swept through the coastal region, the Houthis captured a treasure trove of U.S.-made Oshkosh M-ATV mine-resistant vehicles, pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons, artillery pieces, and large quantities of ammunition and small arms abandoned by retreating National Resistance and Giants Brigade forces.

Videos show the scale of equipment the Houthis captured during the western coast offensive.

The "booty" footage from Mokha and surrounding positions includes U.S.-made Oshkosh M-ATV mine-resistant vehicles, pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons (technicals), armored… pic.twitter.com/n3VPyoSmHk

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 11, 2026

Houthis Display Vehicles and Weapons Seized in Mocha

Yemen’s Houthis have displayed vehicles, weapons and military supplies they say they captured in the Red Sea port city of Mocha after Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies withdrew from the city.… pic.twitter.com/JmTMNY6wIS

— GAROWE ONLINE (@GaroweOnline) September 11, 2026

Iran, which has held off on getting the Houthis directly involved during Epic Fury, has now played its hand and is putting the Houthis in a better position to close the strait than ever before. This was always a ‘sum of all fears’ scenario for oil exports from the Middle East and now Iran could put maximum pressure on the United States and the world to end the conflict in their favor, with oil potentially being cut off from both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Houthis are likely preparing to close the strait with a much better position than they had before. Having both straits closed has long been a 'sum of all fears' middle east energy crisis. Been writing about this exact scenario for over a decade. U.S. stretched thin, especially in…

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) September 11, 2026

Still, on Friday, the Houthis tried to allay those concerns, promising they would limit their control of the BAM to just Saudi vessels. 

“The Yemeni armed forces confirm that maritime navigation is safe for all companies, except for Saudi Arabian ships, which have previously been placed under a ban,” Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree proclaimed. “We are continuing to uphold the equation of blockade with blockade, striking enemy Saudi Arabian troop concentrations, and escalating in response to their actions, until the aggression ceases and the blockade is lifted from our dear people.”

Their rationale is that this campaign is all about defending against attacks by the Saudis and their proxies.

The conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis grew out of a civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2014. It expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis and raged on until the parties reached a tenuous ceasefire in 2022. Tensions, however, reignited after that conflict ended when the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter. In addition to a blockade on Saudi shipping, the Houthis began striking Saudi refineries and other oil infrastructure, including pipelines near the coast.

Houthi assurances about their intentions have meant little in the past. In 2023, when they launched their earlier campaign against Red Sea shipping, the Houthis also claimed a narrow rationale. They said they were doing so on behalf of Palestinians being killed during the Israel-Hamas war. The reality turned out to be that the Houthis were striking even ships not connected to Israel. This ultimately led to the U.S. and allies deploying warships to protect commercial vessels, battles with the rebel group on the water and a campaign of airstrikes on Houthi land targets.

It should be noted that the Saudis held off on getting involved that fight.

Amid all this, the per-barrel price of Brent crude rose to more than $109 yesterday, but was back down to $104 today, according to OilPrice.com.

We have long suggested that the U.S. could get pulled back into a new conflict with the Houthis. Now the rebel group’s rapid defeat of the Saudi-backed forces has reportedly already led to an American role in that fight.

“More than 100 US military advisers are on the ground in Saudi Arabia providing intelligence and targeting support to the Kingdom in its military campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen,” CNN reported on Thursday, citing multiple sources familiar with the effort. “The US military personnel are working as part of a newly-established joint forces command, which was formed in recent weeks amid signs Iran was ramping up its own efforts to aid Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, one of the sources, a US official, said. That official put the total at roughly 200 troops.”

Still, there are limits on the U.S. role.

“The US is sharing intelligence with Saudi Arabia — as it routinely does already — but it is not participating directly in strikes,” CNN noted. “The US is also not helping refuel Saudi warplanes or providing other operational support, as it has in past fighting with the Houthis.”

Then-Defense Secretary James Mattis ended that in 2018 during the first Trump presidency after growing concerns over the large number of civilian casualties being inflicted. The Saudi coalition’s fight against the Houthis also complicated the U.S. counterterrorism campaign against Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper “flew to the kingdom overnight Thursday as Yemen’s Riyadh-backed forces crumbled in the face of a lightning Houthi offensive southward along Yemen’s western coast this week,” Al-Monitor reported. “He was expected to meet with top Saudi officials as they seek to consolidate the battered military effort by forces aligned with Yemen’s government.”

Trump, as we noted at the top of this story, has already declined to intervene kinetically.

“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) called President Trump twice Thursday, urging him to launch strikes against the Houthis as the Iran-backed group closed in on a vital Red Sea chokepoint,” Axios reported, citing two U.S. officials. “Trump declined, and U.S. officials stressed the administration has no plans to intervene directly against the Houthis for now.”

Asked if the U.S. would take direct military action against the Houthis, a senior White House official didn’t rule it out but said it is currently relying on regional partners to carry the burden. 

“The United States is focused on protecting our core national security interests—such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea—while empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges,” the senior official told us. “We are in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Yemen Government regarding regional stability.”

The war against Iran and the ongoing mission to try to protect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz have already strained the U.S. military. There have been 18 troops killed, more than 800 wounded and wide scale destruction of U.S. bases and equipment. U.S. commanders have warned that the ongoing conflict is unsustainable without deeply degrading America’s ability to respond to other contingencies. How much the U.S. could commit to a fight against the Houthis is an open question, especially if the Iran war spun-up again. During the Red Sea operation, at times two carrier strike groups and many other assets in the air and on the sea, were needed to sustain that operation.

“A second front potentially adds more U.S. military risk as we try to sustain a military that has been involved in a protracted deployment to support our economic pressure-focused strategy,” former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel told us on Friday. “The U.S. can do just about anything, but it will be a choice that will impact sustainment, create longer-term deployments and impact other national security priorities.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post The Outlook Is Getting Grimmer By The Day For Oil Exports From The Red Sea appeared first on TWZ.

Earlier this year, an Iran-linked actor used Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence model to scrape and analyze data with the aim of helping target U.S. naval forces in the Middle East. A group in Yemen – very likely Iranian-backed Houthi militants – also used Claude to assist with work on guidance systems for ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

These are just some of the revelations about how adversaries and other malign actors have been using one of the premier pieces of AI software being developed in the United States that were contained in a new report Anthropic released late yesterday. The 154-page document also details instances where Claude was used directly and indirectly to support intelligence gathering and surveillance, cyberattacks, influence operations, and even worrisome biological research over the past eight months. In addition to Iran and Yemen, the human actors behind these activities were based in Russia, China, and a host of other countries.

Anthropic has shared details about what it calls the “misuse” of its models in the past, but describes the new report as its “most detailed” to date. The company has clearly been cataloging these case studies, and has assigned each one a control number. Though the entire contents of the report are cause for concern, the explicit attempt to use Claude to target American forces, as well as to develop new higher-end missiles and other military technology, are particular standouts and signs of what’s to come, as we will highlight below.

GTG-30005: Military reconnaissance

GTG-30005 is the case study dealing with the targeting of U.S. naval forces, and the summary is as follows:

“In another investigation, we identified and disrupted an Iran-nexus threat actor that used Claude to collect and analyze publicly accessible data to develop targeting recommendations against US naval forces in the region. The threat actor used Claude to compile targeting handbooks, through a Python pipeline the threat actor built with Claude’s assistance, to identify and track naval positions based on open-source information. The compiled material included a roster of US personnel scraped from captions on public military photographs; publicly accessible ship and aircraft transponder identifiers; commercial satellite-imagery query scripts; and an inventory of public websites that exposed US naval movements. The threat actor also directed Claude to compile vulnerability research on shipboard systems, cataloging known CVEs in maritime VSAT terminals, Cisco communications equipment, and industrial control products.”

“We banned the actor’s account, developed detections to reduce the risk of future misuse, and shared threat intelligence with government authorities to disrupt the threat.”

How exactly Anthropic defines the term “nexus” here is not immediately clear, and other entries in its new report also use “state-nexus” in addition to country-based variations. However, in this specific case, an addendum is added to the entry that explicitly says that the same account was separately tied to “domestic mass surveillance” software development work “for Iranian state systems,” clearly pointing to an actor directly linked to the regime in Tehran.

Whether or not any of the data collected and analysed here was directly used to subsequently carry out attacks on U.S. forces is unknown. However, there have been media reports just in recent weeks that Iran has been increasingly trying to strike American warships. Those same reports have raised questions about how the country has been prosecuting those operations given its limited capabilities and capacity to track maritime targets far from its shores. The possibility that Russia or China could be supplying targeting data has been put forward.

The use of AI technology by nation-state armed forces to develop target sets and engage them is already known to be growing globally. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been a pioneer in this regard, but the U.S. military, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and others are also known to be developing and fielding these capabilities.

U.S. military officials have also voiced increasing concern in recent years about the ability to track the movements and disposition of U.S. military assets and personnel using publicly available pictures and other data. There has been much talk, in turn, about how to balance transparency and operational security.

GTG-87001: Disrupting a Yemen-based guided weapons engineering cell using Claude to develop guidance software

Anthropic’s new report details an instance where an individual in Yemen used Claude as part of missile guidance work, which is given the control number GTG-87001.

“We identified a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development programs: a guided rocket that used a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance; a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated range goal above 2,000 km; and a multi-variant missile (referred to as the “R2000” set) that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant.”

“The actors used Claude Code in place of human software engineers to develop the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) software that steers and stabilizes a flying vehicle. For example, they used Claude to integrate an open-source autopilot onto a phone-class flight computer, writing the control and position estimation software, tuning the control settings, running a firmware build pipeline, and performing a flight simulation. The actors managed several Claude instances at once, assigning each one a role, much as a lead would delegate work on a small engineering team: the actors tasked one instance with writing the code, another with research, and a third with reviewing the code the first instance produced.”

“Our safeguards blocked many of their requests, but not all of them. The actors used a variety of tactics to evade our safeguards, including hiding their goals and the products the software was meant for, and they split their work across multiple sessions so no single session revealed their full intent.”

“These actors carried out a sustained effort to develop guided weapons, including using Claude to design guidance software. We do not have evidence the actors succeeded in fielding an operational device; but they did test-fire a guided rocket. This field test appears to have failed: within hours, the actors returned to Claude to work out why it failed.”

“We identified this activity as part of our internal investigations into suspected weapons development. We banned accounts associated with the actors and shared threat information with public- and private-sector partners to mitigate risks posed by the actors. Nevertheless, we have evidence that the actors had already built an offline simulation toolkit that does not rely on Claude or other engineering computing environments such as MATLAB.”

As mentioned earlier, the report does not name the Houthis, but that group has historically been based primarily in the northern end of Yemen. It is also the only entity in the country known to have active missile development programs, which are conducted with critical support from Iran.

Whether this particular work directly resulted in any new capabilities is unknown. Anthropic notes that there looked to be at least one failed test launch before the accounts were banned, which would have occurred sometime after the beginning of this year, based on the stated cutoff dates for the report. By the end of 2025, the Houthis had already amassed a wide array of very real ballistic missiles, including types with at least claimed ranges of 2,000 kilometers (approximately 1,242 miles). The group also has a variety of cruise missiles and one-way attack drones that it has employed operationally.

Still, being able to leverage Claude could only have helped any domestic missile development efforts in Yemen, which might help reduce dependency on Iran, at least to a degree. Furthermore, developing functional hypersonic glide vehicles capable of prolonged stable flight has historically been notoriously difficult, even for entities with extensive relevant knowledge bases on an organizational level.

GTG-17001: Disrupting a China-based operation using Claude to draft a fire control specification and acquisition documents for undersea warfare

Use of Claude in foreign military endeavours goes beyond the Middle East, as evidenced by case study GTG-17001. This involved a Chinese actor conducting work related to a naval counter-torpedo defense system.

“We identified a China-based threat actor who used Claude to advance three parallel tracks of work on an anti-torpedo weapons system:”

• “First, the actor used Claude to draft a Chinese-language specification for an anti-torpedo fire control system (the core logic that aims and times an anti-torpedo weapon’s response). The document was written to win approval from a Chinese defense manufacturer, which would move the work on to technical certification and operational testing.”
• “Second, the actor used Claude to produce a Chinese-language technical proposal of more than 200 pages, accompanied by an executive briefing deck.”
• “Third, the actor used Claude to benchmark their own system against specific US anti-torpedo and anti-submarine programs based on publicly accessible information. They then generated a Chinese-language briefing on US Navy systems derived from open-source reporting.”

“The actor presented themselves as an original equipment manufacturer in the US defense sector. We assess the actor was associated with a Chinese defense industry manufacturer aiming to produce a weapons specification and acquisition proposal for the People’s Liberation Army Navy.”

“The actor used Claude to write the acquisition proposal, refining it over many drafts. After each draft, the actor instructed Claude to role-play a hostile expert reviewer to critique the proposal, then used that feedback to sharpen the next version. In parallel, the actor used Claude to build pieces of the anti-torpedo weapons system’s fire control software and a test matrix to validate them.”

“The operational lift the actor achieved was a function of using Claude to automate complex technical outputs. The actor leveraged the model to compress the development timelines for the certification registry, compliance documentation, and automated fire control logic. The actor also accelerated the traditional human review cycle by having Claude critique the acquisition proposal across multiple rounds of review while role-playing a persona.”

“We uncovered this activity as part of our internal investigations into suspected weapons development. We cannot attribute the activity to a specific entity or actor. But we have banned the account for violating our Supported Regions Policy and our Usage Policy, which prohibits weapons design and development, and incorporated our investigative findings into our safeguards to mitigate the risk of future misuse.”

Anthropic’s report does not name the U.S. programs leveraged here, but does note the information in question was publicly available. Anti-torpedo systems for surface warships and submarines have been an area of significant interest for the U.S. Navy for years now. Those developments have also produced compact torpedo designs for use in other applications.

The PLAN’s interest in these same kinds of capabilities is not at all surprising. Underwater threats and countermeasures to them, broadly speaking, would play a central and vital role in any future conflict between the United States and China across the broad expanses of the Pacific.

GTG-27005: Disrupting a Russia-based operation using Claude to engineer an autonomous military drone swarm

Another case study, GTG-27005, details the use of Claude by Russian actors working on drone swarming technology.

“We identified likely freelance Russia-based threat actors who set out to build a full-stack autonomous first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drone swarm. The actors used Claude Code to write and test the code and save it directly into the actors’ own project files. In addition to Claude Code, the actors used a software-in-the-loop simulation stack and a rented graphics processing host for model training. They called the operation ‘DronDoc’ or ‘Serafim.'”

“The actors used Claude to build the core software system, including the drones’ shared swarm memory and fault-tolerant coordination logic (FTCL); an onboard small language model to govern attack, observe, and return-to-base behaviors; a terminal guidance software system to steer drones to their target (using the onboard camera) and issue the call to detonate; a control-link geolocation module to find opposing drone operators; a passive acoustic detection layer; and low-level logic for the drones’ programmable chips. The actors designed the platform for autonomous lethal engagement; the onboard model could select targets (including a ‘person’ target class) and issue detonation commands without a human in the loop. The actors’ activity—including flashing the low-level firmware to live development boards, provisioning single-board computers, and wiring up a simulation environment over a mesh network—confirmed that they were using real hardware-in-loop testing within their sessions.”

Many were surprised yesterday by the news that a Russian fiber-optic FPV drone flew into Kramatorsk and attacked a car.

But there is nothing surprising here. The war of 2025 is already very different from the war of 2024.
From LBZ to Kram — 20 kilometers. Enemy FPVs can fly even… pic.twitter.com/hTfhJFPcxZ

— Richard Woodruff (@frontlinekit) October 6, 2025

“The actors trained a computer vision classifier on scraped Ukrainian combat footage, splitting the target classes into “enemy” and “friendly,” and allow-listing Russian systems. They also repeatedly used a fixed coordinate in Donetsk Oblast as the demonstration strike point, with front-line cities and corridors in Ukraine as the mission geography.”

“The actors created their accounts between late 2025 and early 2026 and started the operation in mid-May 2026. The actors circumvented our geographic access controls by routing traffic through commercial virtual private servers.”

“We assess the actors were a small, specialized freelance team doing a mix of civilian and military work, not a Russian state entity. We identified nine accounts associated with this group; eight were used only for ordinary freelance work, not weapons-related software development. Based on our investigation, we assess the actors had ties to a regional university with a federal research center associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences. The actors claimed to have received funding from Russia’s Advanced Research Foundation, National Technology Initiative, and Ministry of Defence, though we cannot verify those claims. We identified this activity as part of our internal investigations into suspected weapons development, we banned accounts associated with the actors, and have incorporated our investigative findings into safeguards to reduce the risk of future misuse.”

Anthropic’s report included a table, reproduced below, detailing different types of drones and other capabilities that were fed into the model as part of this work.

Also, while Anthropic said it could not confirm any direct ties in this instance to the Russian government, the work described here is fully in line with capabilities that have already been demonstrated to varying degrees in Ukraine in the past few years. TWZ has been very closely tracking developments on both sides of the conflict when it comes to new automated targeting and swarming capabilities for shorter- and longer-ranged kamikaze drones. In 2024, we also published a detailed feature outlining a coming revolution in drone warfare, signs of which were already emerging then, thanks to AI and the ever-lowering barrier to entry for leveraging that technology.

GTG-17002: Disrupting a China-based operation using Claude to build targeting software for electronic warfare and air defense suppression

The last case study in the Conventional Weapons section of Anthropic’s new report, GTG-17002, covers electronic warfare-related work by a Chinese actor, with a particular focus on potential air defense targets in Taiwan.

“We identified a China-based actor who used Claude’s chat, coding, and agentic work tools to design, build, and iterate on a Chinese-language suite of about 16 modules for electronic warfare, using the electromagnetic spectrum to detect, jam, or deceive an opponent’s radar and communications, and for suppressing an opponent’s air defenses.”

“The actor used Claude to build the software system, from the underlying logic to the user interface, and iterated through 12 versions. This included implementing and optimizing the system’s radar detection and jamming physics, generating a vulnerability analysis module, and drafting Chinese-language targeting instructions. The software suite the actor built analyzed an opponent’s radars, surface-to-air missile sites, command posts, and communications nodes, then computed their detection coverage, assessed the effectiveness of jamming, ranked targets by value and vulnerability, including which to suppress first, and determined how best to assign jammer sorties to targets across multi-day campaigns. The suite also ranked which of an opponent’s assets to suppress first, and modeled specific engagement envelopes, including those of Patriot and THAAD-class [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] systems.”

“Mid-project, we observed the actor change the simulation’s default scenario to 12 targets in Taiwan. The targets included a command bunker in Taiwan, an early warning radar site, Patriot and Tien Kung [surface-to-air missile] batteries, major air bases, and a regional combatant command headquarters.”

“The actor also ran a self-hosted model on an internal network alongside Claude and connected the software suite to this model through a tool-use integration.”

“Based on our investigation, we assess the actor is a China-based defense and military-industrial researcher. Account-level metadata and content flagged by our safeguards indicated the actor was linked to PRC research institutions, including the PLA Academy of Military Sciences. We detected this activity as part of our internal investigations into suspected weapons development, we banned accounts linked to the actor, and have incorporated our investigative findings into our safeguards to reduce the risk of future misuse.”

An accompanying table, seen below, mentions several specific types of U.S.-made air defense radars, as well as the Link-16 datalink network, as having come up in the course of this work. Electronic warfare variants of the Chinese Y-8 and Y-9 aircraft, as well as the J-16D electronic warfare jet, and what appears to be a reference to the Golden Eagle drone helicopter, are also mentioned.

The suppression of enemy air defenses is an essential part of any modern air campaign, whether conducted independently or as a part of a larger operation. This would be no less critical in any military intervention against Taiwan from the mainland, or any other larger-scale conflict the PLA might find itself in.

Guardrails and ethics

Beyond the details in any of the specific case studies, Anthropic’s new report underscores growing broader concerns about guardrails for the use of AI and general ethics surrounding the technology. As noted in the instances above, Anthropic has also implemented various safeguards to try to block access to Claude from certain regions and/or to prevent the model from conducting certain types of work. At the same time, what the company has now shared makes clear that those protections can still be circumvented to a significant degree, at least for now.

For its part, Anthropic has been publicly supportive of transparency laws and regulation, at least within the United States. The company also notably made tweaks to certain Claude models earlier this year to address U.S. government cybersecurity concerns.

Starting in December 2025, Anthropic has also been very publicly embroiled in a dispute with the Pentagon over the potential use of Claude to support mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapon systems. This subsequently led to the company being designated a supply chain risk, and limitations being imposed on the use of that model within the U.S. military and elsewhere across the U.S. government. Anthropic is continuing to fight that action in court. However, just yesterday, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and the Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael said the U.S. military had scaled back the use of Anthropic’s products in support of classified work by 90 percent.

Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

— Under Secretary of War Emil Michael (@USWREMichael) September 3, 2026

The concerns about ‘misuse’ outlined in Anthropic’s new report apply, in general terms, to publicly accessible models being developed by other companies, too. There have already been publicly disclosed instances of AI agents themselves engaging in hacking and other malign behavior in order to complete assigned tasks, raising additional questions about security and public safety, not to mention ethics.

TWZ has noted in the past that America’s adversaries are likely to be less worried about ethics, in general, when it comes to AI. Anthropic’s new report also shows there are few bounds to what state-aligned or even non-state actors might seek to use this technology for, including the development of potential weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, AI models like Claude are not going away, and developments continue to advance at an ever-quickening pace, opening the door to further proliferation. Developments are rapidly intermingling globally, with companies in China notably leveraging models created in the U.S. to further their own work, which is then released publicly. The technology will increasingly become more integrated and critical to most aspects of military operations and weapons development, alongside its commercial and civilian applications. It is just as much a superweapon as anything else, and the country with the more capable models, and the willingness to deploy them, will have a major edge in future conflicts.

With all this in mind, it seems very plausible, if not probable, that the case studies described in Anthropic’s new report are just the tip of an approaching iceberg that will need a concerted effort to tackle.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post Adversaries Using Claude AI To Target Americans And Develop Missiles Is A Sign Of What’s To Come appeared first on TWZ.

Work at a specialized underground weapons test site in New Mexico, contracted earlier this year, was linked to planning for a potential new operation targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, according to a report from CNN. The U.S. military has notably left Iran’s hardest-to-reach site under Pickaxe Mountain untouched so far, but President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials have been openly talking about striking it.

On February 27, the day before U.S. and Israeli forces launched their initial wave of strikes on Iran, the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) quietly announced it had awarded a sole-source deal to Pate Construction Co., Inc., for new construction at the so-called Alternate Seismic Hardrock in Situ Test (ALT-SHIST) site. The work was needed to support an upcoming classified live-fire test. ALT-SHIST is situated within the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), a sprawling U.S. Army-managed complex in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert basin. DTRA is a relatively small and obscure organization that plays a leading role in U.S. military efforts to develop new and improved ways to respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threats.

WSMR and DTRA have come up in discussions about strikes on Iran in the past. The U.S. military’s heaviest conventional air-dropped weapon, the 30,000-pound-class GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bomb, has been extensively tested at multiple sites there in the past. DTRA was also directly involved in its initial development. MOPs made their combat debut during U.S. strikes last year on underground Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz as part of Operation Midnight Hammer. The possibility has been raised that a different site within WSMR may have been used to test the plan of attack against Fordow, which involved two ventilation shafts being hit with six GBU-57/Bs each. The bombs were dropped in rapid succession, with each one burrowing deeper and deeper into the facility below. WSMR also happens to contain the site of the first atomic bomb test in 1945.

“The plans for the test [at ALT-SHIST] were connected to the Iran war,” CNN said in its story, published yesterday, citing unnamed sources “familiar with the matter.” Beyond that, the planned testing was tied to a “need to develop a way to target Iran’s deepest-buried underground facilities and, likely, simulate U.S. strikes against specific nuclear facilities.”

CNN said it was unable to independently verify whether or not the test in question had occurred.

A formal justification for the sole-source contract to Pate Construction that DTRA released in February did not mention Iran or elaborate on the need for the new testing at ALT-SHIST, but stressed there was an urgent requirement critical to U.S. national security.

“The services required are the immediate and mission-critical enabling services for a ‘real-world’ national security ordinance [sic; ordnance] test. This is not routine construction; it is the highly specialized remediation and operational preparation of a unique, subterranean test facility at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR),” according to the justification document, which DTRA officials had approved on February 24. “The work is a critical path dependency for a live-fire test designed to validate classified capabilities against rapidly emerging threats.”

“As the incumbent contractor for over a decade, Pate Construction Co., Inc. possesses unparalleled and non-transferable tacit knowledge of this specific subterranean test facility. This is a unique Government structure with complex geological and security considerations, and Pate Construction Co., Inc.’s direct, hands-on experience is a tangible asset that no other source possesses,” the document adds. “Pate Construction Co., Inc. is the only contractor that
currently maintains a fully mobilized presence at WSMR with the specific heavy equipment and security-cleared operators required.”

CNN‘s piece says apparent work at ALT-SHIST was visible in satellite imagery of the site between mid-February and mid-March, but the outlet said it was unable to confirm whether or not this was related to the contract with Pate Construction.

We reviewed satellite imagery showing work at a remote DTRA/STRATCOM test site that coincided with this contracting action, but we couldn’t confirm its purpose.

The Pentagon didn’t respond to our questions regarding the test, and we couldn’t independently confirm it occurred. pic.twitter.com/k8zyvqWy56

— Davis Winkie (@davis_winkie) September 9, 2026

ALT-SHIST is an active test site, and any work observed there earlier this year could well have been linked to other projects. For instance, additional publicly available DTRA contracting documents offer details about planned work on a specific part of the ALT-SHIST site, called Tunnel 7, tracing back to last year, as part of a project nicknamed Millstone Willemite 6 (MW-6).

“This task requires the construction contractor to repair and address the damage to Tunnel 7 caused by prior incidents, in accordance with government-provided designs, specifications, and other contract documents,” according to one contracting document dated September 15, 2025. “The contractor will also be responsible for providing support during testing activities, as well as safing after each test and general support between tests. All tunnel construction must be completed by 15 June 2027.”

“The contractor shall repair a D-shape tunnel and overburden using the D-shape of 20 feet depth and width, inside the tunnel. The contractor shall remove and repair any damage to the ribs, crown, and invert to Tunnel 7,” that same document continues. “After the repair of Tunnel 7, the contractor shall provide general construction support to instrument the tunnel in preparation for testing and then safe the tunnel for re-entry post-testing.”

The schedule for the MW-6-related work indicates that it is separate from what Pate Construction was hired to do at the site back in February.

ALT-SHIST, which was first established in 1995, is also not the only site DTRA makes use of within WSMR. As its name indicates, it is an alternate to the original SHIST site, use of which began in 1993.

“There was a small addition made to the SHIST site, but that area has been heavily used since 2007,” according to an environmental impact study the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completed in 2015. “The granite bedrock at these sites has been fractured and damaged by extensive testing. There are no existing granite areas adjacent to those sites where similar testing can be performed.”

USACE conducted that study in support of the establishment of a new test site at WSMR, simply called the Granite Test Site, to succeed the original SHIST. The Granite Test Site is now in use. There are many more sites within the range complex designed to simulate underground and otherwise hardened targets. This is also just one aspect of the wide array of testing that occurs on a daily basis at WSMR.

All three also appear to have been involved in the testing and development of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). 5/10 pic.twitter.com/3aWSYXIZln

— Fabian Hinz (@fab_hinz) June 25, 2025

However, the presence of large areas of undisturbed granite is a key factor here, as that is particularly relevant for testing weapons designed to penetrate into extremely deeply buried facilities. CNN‘s piece yesterday noted that Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site is built underneath a granite mountain.

“The mountain in White Sands, they specifically picked mountainous areas that were solid rock, and they used state-of-the-art tunneling technology to make the kind of cavities in the mountain that you would put this kind of [Iranian nuclear] facility in,” Gary Stradling, a retired scientist who previously worked for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), told TWZ in an interview last year. “I think that there is a lot of work that DOD has done in these kinds of facilities that is highly classified, and I couldn’t talk to you about it. This is very sophisticated work. It is not casual, and it’s not speculative. These are real experts who are doing the work. Careful, technical, quantitative work to be able to deliver this kind of war-fighting capability to the services.”

TWZ spoke to Stradling, who did work tied to earth-penetrating munitions at various points during his lengthy career, in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer.

Me, standing at the edge of a MOP crater on a mountain top at White Sands Test Range, where detailed studies of massive earth penetrators were studied for effectiveness against deeply buried targets by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) —formerly Defense Nuclear Agency.… pic.twitter.com/JYq1V2xO6q

— Gary Stradling (@gary_stradling) June 24, 2025

The U.S. military notably did not strike Pickaxe Mountain, which is situated immediately to the southwest of Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, during Operation Midnight Hammer. The site also went untouched by Israel during last year’s 12 Day War. American and Israeli forces did not target it during major combat operations earlier this year, either. All of this underscores the targeting challenge the site presents, even for strikes using MOPs, which TWZ explored in detail earlier this year and that has continued to make it a point of particular discussion.

CNN‘s report yesterday was primarily focused on a new assessment of ongoing construction at Pickaxe Mountain from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, D.C.

Satellite “images reveal more road activity at Pickaxe Mountain in 2026 than at any point in the site’s history,” according to a report CSIS published yesterday. “There is a clear surge in construction activity in 2026 that corresponds to the raising and hardening of the portal accesses, paving of the internal road network, reinforcement around access areas, and the flattening and removal of excavation spoil.”

“This assessment can neither refute nor substantiate the Israeli intelligence claim that Iran moved centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain,” CSIS’s report also noted. “The continuous construction, the absence of an increased internal security posture, and the lack of observed nonconstruction vehicles and equipment suggest the underground facility is not yet capable of enrichment work, if that is the intended purpose. Further analysis of daily activity would be needed to establish the site’s pattern of life beyond its current construction footprint.”

This is in line with TWZ‘s own previous reporting on Pickaxe Mountain back in July, when there were already signs of growing activity following the establishment of a shaky ceasefire between the United States and Iran the preceding month. As we wrote at that time:

“As with the strikes on Fordow, multiple bombs could be dropped on the same impact point to try to penetrate further down into Pickaxe Mountain. Whether there might be similar ventilation shafts or other weak points that could be exploited at Pickaxe Mountain is unknown. …”

“A strike ‘right in the front door’ on the tunnel entrances at Pickaxe Mountain would be another option to at least hamper access to the facility inside for a time. This could be combined with strikes aimed at sections of the tunnel networks that run deeper inside the facility, but that are still close enough to the surface to be reachable by available conventional munitions. For instance, MOPs may not be able to hit the main cavern areas, but they could possibly hit certain tunnels that might lead to them.”

“Even a combined strike on entrances and shallow tunnels at Pickaxe Mountain could still present certain challenges. Firm intelligence on exactly where the tunnels snake under the mountain could be limited, making it difficult to select the best impact points. This is exactly why the U.S. military has been investing heavily in advanced, void-sensing fuzes for MOP and other bunker buster bombs for decades now. These fuzes detect when a munition has penetrated into a sufficiently large space, such as a room or tunnel in an underground facility, to help maximize damage. Fuzes that can effectively ‘count’ floors also help to ensure the munition has burrowed sufficiently deep before detonating.”

…

“…the U.S. military could conduct follow-on strikes on the entry points at Pickaxe Mountain to disrupt any attempt to regain access, as well.”

“Destroying Pickaxe Mountain will be a scientific and targeting challenge,” CSIS also noted in its report yesterday. “It is an underground fortress buttressed by granite. It is one of the only facilities in Iran’s nuclear program that the United States has not yet struck. Structurally degrading Pickaxe Mountain requires more than just kinetic force – it takes actionable high-confidence intelligence and sophisticated mathematical modeling.”

With all this in mind, it is not at all hard to imagine how new testing at ALT-SHIST, as well as other sites, would be essential for exploring additional options for striking Pickaxe Mountain and/or other deeply-buried targets in Iran using MOPs and/or other munitions.

It’s also worth noting here that GBU-57/Bs are understood to be in relatively short supply, though it is unknown how many of them are currently in inventory. Furthermore, the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bombers are currently the only aircraft certified to employ the huge MOPs operationally. There was a report in 2024 that prime contractor Boeing was working to expand its capacity to produce these bombs. A MOP successor, the GBU-76/B Next Generation Penetrator (NGP), is in development now, but prototyping work is expected to run through the end of Fiscal Year 2028.

President Donald Trump certainly has raised the prospect of a strike on Pickaxe Mountain publicly on several occasions since July. He has also repeatedly said that the site is being persistently surveilled, particularly from space.

“There’s another place called Pickaxe Mountain, another nice place. We may have to give them a shot there, too, because someone said there was a little movement at the site,” Trump said yesterday during a speech at a convention the Republican Party is hosting in Dallas, Texas, ahead of this year’s midterm elections. “We don’t need much. We see everything, you know, because of Space Force.”

“We may hit Pickaxe [Mountain] very soon,” the President also said while speaking to reporters at the White House last Friday.

Trump on Pickaxe Mountain: We may have to give them a shot there too. We see everything. We can the see tag on their coat. “Muhammad Al-Fayed” It’s never Muhammad Jones. pic.twitter.com/UQm939OruL

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 10, 2026

Trump on Iran:

We may hit Pickaxe Mountain very soon because if there is anything going on with Pickaxe. pic.twitter.com/kwlHZuV6M7

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 4, 2026

Whether growing activity at Pickaxe Mountain finally prompts a U.S. strike at the site, either alone or as part of a larger operation, remains to be seen. If and when such a mission is launched, past and future testing at sites like ALT-SHIST in New Mexico will all but certainly have played an important part.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post Work At Underground Test Site A New Indicator Of Possible Strikes On Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain Bunker appeared first on TWZ.

The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have captured Mokha – a key Red Sea port in southwestern Yemen near the Bab al-Mandab (BAM) Strait. There are also reports they seized two islands located in the Red Sea shipping lanes. These moves against the Saudi Arabian-backed forces that previously held these areas could further cement the Houthis’ control over the narrow chokepoint to the Gulf of Aden, where the group has already imposed a blockade on Saudi oil exports.

The Houthis’ drive to control the BAM has been emboldened by the U.S. being stretched thin in its ongoing fight against Iran. Combined with Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, this threatens to add to the Islamic Republic’s command over the flow of oil from the Middle East. It is a maximum pressure campaign on the U.S. and global markets, something we have predicted for years. Amid all this activity, the per-barrel price of Brent Crude is well over the $100 mark now.

The rapid advance on Mokha was planned and backed by Iran, according to the leader of Saudi-backed forces that retreated from Mokha, which is about 50 miles north of the BAM. It took place as Tehran has taken a more belligerent stance in the region that has seen it reportedly damage U.S. aircraft in a recent attack on Jordan earlier this week and get closer to striking U.S. Navy warships with ballistic missiles.

“The Joint Forces have formed a command center south of the city of Mokha, following Houthi breakthroughs across various combat axes under heavy fire, in which the Houthis used various types of weapons,” Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), Lt. Gen. Tareq Saleh, said in his acknowledgment that his forces lost the port. The PLC was created in 2022 to represent the internationally recognized government of Yemen.

“The armed forces on the West Coast — the National Resistance, the Giants [Brigades], and the Homeland Shield — in addition to units of the Taiz axis west of the governorate, have paid a heavy price, martyrs and wounded, over the past days as they confronted the Houthi attack, which was planned by Iran, supported by it, and carried out with the participation of its various proxies/tools.”

“Thanks to God, our armed forces were able to repel an enemy combat formation a short time ago in the province of Taiz, forcing it to withdraw,” Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree proclaimed. “This was achieved by targeting it with a number of locally manufactured surface-to-air missiles.”

Videos have emerged showing Houthi forces inside Mokha and its airport and a large amount of equipment being seized.

The people of the port city of Al-Mokha gave a warm reception to Yemeni armed forces fighters following the city's strategic liberation. pic.twitter.com/0XDrveJPxU

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) September 10, 2026

BREAKING: The Houthis have announced a Cessation of Combat Operations along the Coast of Bab al-Mandab Strait following the Collapse of Pro-Saudi Forces

The Core Military of the Houthis has entered the City of Mokha

Additionally, all Islands Key to Controlling the Bab… pic.twitter.com/95HI4TJ6Bm

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) September 10, 2026

Houthi forces captured the key coastal city of Mokha overnight after Saudi/UAE backed forces retreated.

Seen here, Houthi fighters pose with an abandoned M-ATV MRAP at the city’s critical seaport. pic.twitter.com/1WD6l08MVc

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 10, 2026

Houthi fighters were filmed on the runway of Mokha international airport after capturing the city. pic.twitter.com/56Rc4BwsNf

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 10, 2026

Holy score. This footage from Al Jazeera shows some of the equipment that was left behind for the Yemeni to capture in Mokha. https://t.co/yc0nwRlIse pic.twitter.com/Jn8VT571LY

— Reno (@theRenoNara) September 10, 2026

Even before the capture of Mokha, the rebel group held the BAM under threat with its array of drones and missiles, some of which it launched from deeper in Yemen. In fact, the group became the first to fire anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) at vessels during its campaign against Red Sea shipping.

Mokha, however, provides a potential new surveillance and launching point for the Houthis to deploy mines as well as aerial drones and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) they can use to attack shipping. As we have reported previously, the rebel group pioneered the operational use of some of these weapons.

The Houthis “are determined to control the ports in order to use booby-trapped boats from areas close to shipping lanes,” Col. Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a Yemeni army officer and military analyst, told Arab News last month as the rebels were pushing closer to the port.

You can see video and images of a Houthi USV that struck the Greek-owned ship Tutor in the Red Sea in 2024 below.

Photos of Houthi kamikaze USV right before it struck Greek-owned cargo ship Tutor.

The ship's guard were totally confused as to what they were observing.

They couldn't even react before it hit the ship. https://t.co/ZwFlWnsFAR pic.twitter.com/8ORRrvZWH6

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 17, 2024

In addition to Mokha, the Houthis also reportedly captured two important islands that could also add to its control over shipping through the strait. However, TWZ cannot independently confirm this.

There are claims that the Houthis seized Perim Island, which sits right in the middle of the BAM. In 2021, satellite images we obtained showed completion of a new, approximately 6,150-foot-long runway on the island as well as hangars and other facilities. The installation was supposedly meant primarily to support drone operations and was built by the United Arab Emirates.

This strategically located island sits in the narrowest part of the BAM, less than two miles west of Yemen and about 13 miles east of Djibouti, giving the Houthis a commanding presence at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Zuqar Island, which was also reportedly captured, sits in the middle of the Red Sea about 80 miles north of Perim Island. In the custody of the Yemeni government since 1998, it was being “used by government forces to track shipping traffic, monitor movements by Houthi rebels and stop weapons smuggling in the Red Sea,” according to The National.

Last year, images emerged of construction of a runway on the island.

It is unclear who built this island runway, though there have been indications that it could have been the United Arab Emirates once again.

A closer look at the new 2.1 km runway on Yemen’s Jabal Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea shows a small apron with one completed aircraft hangar and another likely under construction, plus a taxiway leading to two military emplacements, likely to shelter aircraft or UAVs. https://t.co/cnphe6yCeO pic.twitter.com/iOwr7C6I91

— Rich Tedd (@AfriMEOSINT) October 20, 2025

Zuqar Island sits about 7 km east of the northbound shipping lane in the Red Sea. Control over these two islands could allow the Houthis to mirror the pattern Iran established in the Strait of Hormuz by directing traffic to pass through a narrow passage between Qeshm and Larak islands.

The conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis grew out of a civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2014. It expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis and raged on until the parties reached a tenuous ceasefire in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis, and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. Tensions, however, reignited after that conflict ended when the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter. In addition to the aforementioned blockade, the Houthis began striking Saudi refineries.

The Houthis already control the port of Hodeidah, about 100 miles to the north. Capturing Mokha and the two islands extends their reach even closer to the BAM. 

In the wake of the Houthi blockade imposed in July, traffic in the BAM fell by 15%, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

“On average, 273 ships sailed through the chokepoint each week between 27 July and 23 August,” the organization reported. “The naval ban on Saudi Arabia came into effect on 20 July, and the weekly average in the run up date was 319. Still, traffic remains above volumes seen before the crisis in the Middle East Gulf that led to a flurry of activity in the Red Sea as Saudi oil was redirected to Yanbu.”

As we have explained in the past, Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities near the Persian Gulf.

The biggest impact of the blockade, Lloyd’s List Intelligence notes, is that it is driving up the cost to deliver oil by forcing traffic north through the Suez Canal, “extending voyage times and tying up capacity. In the Middle East, rising use of Hormuz shuttle tankers and multiple STS transfers is creating delays and increasing vessel utilization. Combined, these rising inefficiencies have led to the third VLCC spot-rate spike since the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East Gulf.” 

The Houthi strikes on Saudi’s oil infrastructure, including a Houthi missile and drone attack against the Saudi Aramco refinery at Jazan on the Red Sea earlier this week, add a further dilemma for Riyadh, making it harder to get its product to points of shipment.

Video of of the aftermath of those strikes, which you can see below, emerged on social media.

Following Houthi strikes, fires can be seen raging at the Jizan oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/tAqOPlsmvS

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 8, 2026

All this is raising the specter of the U.S. having to get as involved as it did during the previous Houthi campaign against shipping that ended last September, which could pull resources away from Iranian-focused operations, if supporting such an operation is even possible at all at this point. The Navy, and other key elements of the U.S. military, is overstretched and worn down by continuous deployments for many months leading up to Venezuela and then Iran, and now six months after Operation Epic Fury.

U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf are under increasing pressure as tensions with Iran continue to simmer. On Tuesday, several U.S. Air Force jets were damaged in an Iranian missile barrage on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, according to CBS News. An A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jet lost a wing and about eight F-15E Strike Eagle multi-role fighters were slightly damaged and returned to service, the network noted.

There is also a report that Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain” where the U.S. military has a number of key facilities, including the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The country has been the subject of frequent Iranian barrages since the U.S. and Israel first attacked on Feb. 28.

Cao’s assessment matches what we have seen and heard prior to his comments and raises anew the question of whether the U.S. will return to Bahrain and other bases in the region heavily attacked by Iran.

In an exclusive interview, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told me that Iranian forces "blew the hell out of Bahrain."

While open-source analyses have long indicated that the U.S. Fifth Fleet Headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain sustained extensive damage in the early…

— Ryan Morgan (@R_S_Morgan) September 10, 2026

On the sea, Iranian missiles are getting closer to hitting U.S. Navy warships, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“At least three times in the past week, Iranian forces have launched missiles at American warships, including an aircraft carrier, taking direct aim at the U.S. Navy in a way it hasn’t done since the start of the war,” the newspaper noted. “The attempted strikes on warships have led to much closer calls than previous attempts, with Iran using maneuverable warheads, people familiar with the attacks said.”

Amid this activity, traffic through the Strait remains suppressed.

“Vessel transits via the Strait of Hormuz fell on Wednesday to seven from 12 ​the previous day, preliminary ship-tracking data showed on Thursday, with ‌levels also below the 10-day average of 14,” Reuters reported. “Out of these seven ships, four vessels exited and three entered, according to the data.”

However, an exact figure is hard to come by. Some vessels could be sailing through the ​waterway with their transponders turned off and would not be counted ​toward the totals, the outlet added.

As it is, oil prices are skyrocketing. As of noon Thursday, the per barrel price of Brent Crude exceeded $107, the highest price since July when it fell to just over $77 per barrel, according to OilPrice.com.

It will take some time before we get a better picture of how the Houthi seizure of the port of Mokha, and possibly Perim and Zuqar islands, will affect the global economy due to rising oil prices, either through reduced supply, increased cost of delivery or some combination of the two. With no end in sight to the U.S. conflict with Iran that helped to drive these actions, the Yemeni rebel group has incentives to inflict economic pain wherever it can.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Houthis’ Stranglehold On Strategic Bab Al-Mandab Strait Grows Stronger appeared first on TWZ.

Ukraine has unveiled a new domestically developed surface-to-air missile system designed to turn a diverse collection of air-to-air missiles into a flexible ground-based air defense capability. Called Shershen, Ukrainian for hornet, the system combines a locally-developed command-and-control architecture, a dedicated surveillance radar, and multiple launchers that can employ both Ukrainian and Western missiles.

The system was displayed at the MSPO defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland, by the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries (NAUDI). The example shown is reportedly the second operational prototype and is described as being close to its production configuration.

At the ongoing MSPO-2026 defense and industrial exhibition in Poland, the launcher of the Ukrainian Shershen air defense system, developed by Radionix, has been presented for the first time, along with the R-120K surface-to-air guided missile specially developed for it (second… pic.twitter.com/5RfZWHWuxl

— 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱 (@TheDeadDistrict) September 9, 2026

The appearance of Shershen comes as Ukraine continues to develop an increasingly diverse family of indigenous air defense systems, while simultaneously adapting older missiles and foreign-supplied weapons to address a severe shortage of interceptors.

That effort has produced some distinctly unconventional combinations. Ukraine’s so-called FrankenSAM programs have paired existing Soviet-era launchers and radars with Western missiles, while other systems have adapted Soviet R-73 air-to-air missiles for ground launch. The United Kingdom and Denmark have also worked with Ukraine on the containerized Gravehawk system, another concept built around repurposed air-to-air missiles.

Shershen takes that philosophy a step further by making missile interchangeability a central feature of the system.

The Shershen battery consists of a Perun command-and-control vehicle, an Athena radar, and four Borei launchers.

According to the developer, the system’s architecture is deliberately open. This allows it to use different missiles from different manufacturers and also permits the integration of third-party surveillance and guidance radars.

The company says Shershen can currently employ the R-27 (AA-10 Alamo), R-73 (AA-11 Archer), AIM-9 Sidewinder, and AIM-132 ASRAAM, while compatibility with the R-60 is also being explored. These weapons come with a mix of semi-active radar or infrared homing seeker heads.

Air-to-air missiles are already available in considerable variety across Ukraine’s arsenal and those of its foreign partners. Being able to employ several types from a common ground-based system provides much more flexibility than a conventional SAM designed around one dedicated interceptor.

It also offers a way to exploit missiles that were never originally intended to be fired from the ground. That means Shershen’s launcher and fire-control system are meant to be interceptor agnostic, at least to a certain degree.

Shershen’s Athena radar is reported to be capable of detecting targets at ranges of up to 85 kilometers (53 miles).

In terms of the engagement envelope, Shershen is claimed to be capable of engaging aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones at ranges of up to 25 kilometers (16 miles) and altitudes of up to 10,000 meters (32,800 feet). Clearly, these figures will vary widely depending on the type of interceptor.

When employing radar-guided missiles, the system’s engagement architecture can reportedly guide as many as six missiles simultaneously.

The advertised performance figures have not been independently verified, and it remains unclear what target types and engagement conditions were used to establish them.

Україна представила складові мультикаліберного зенітного ракетного комплексу «Шершень» на міжнародній виставці MSPO 2026 у польському місті Кельце.

Міжнародний консорціум компаній Shershen Group, який створює ЗРК в інтересах України представив, показав командний пункт,… pic.twitter.com/9wAS7ewxzg

— Мілітарний (@mil_in_ua) September 10, 2026

The developer says the second prototype has completed initial testing, including successful interceptions at a test range.

One of the Borei launchers displayed at MSPO were armed with an R-120K, a new Ukrainian missile equipped with a radar seeker and is intended to be capable of both air-to-air and surface-to-air employment.

The R-120K remains under development, however. Work is reportedly continuing on its rocket motor, meaning that its eventual performance and production status remain uncertain. Still, having the option of including the R-120K on the Shershen system in the future is significant.

Rather than relying indefinitely on stocks of Soviet and Western air-to-air missiles, Ukraine could eventually have a domestically produced interceptor specifically tailored to its growing family of ground-based air-defense systems. That will become increasingly important as stocks of legacy missiles are depleted. Earlier this year, it was reported that Ukrainian F-16s were running low on their air-to-air missiles, which include the same AIM-9s that are used in some FrankenSAM systems, as well as being compatible with Shershen. But even before that, it was clear that Western-supplied missile stocks in Ukraine across the board were diminishing, in some cases drastically, with critical interceptors like the AMRAAM and Patriot being badly affected.

Ukraine’s need for additional surface-to-air missiles has become increasingly acute during the full-scale war, especially as Russian drone and missile barrages have stepped up.

The shortage has encouraged Ukraine to pursue a combination of indigenous development and unconventional adaptations.

The FrankenSAM initiative, conducted with U.S. support, demonstrated how existing Ukrainian systems could be combined with foreign missiles to rapidly create additional air-defense capacity. Ukraine has also fielded modified Osa systems armed with R-73 air-to-air missiles rather than their original 9M33 interceptors. Other R-73-based concepts have even been demonstrated aboard Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessels.

Shershen appears to reflect the next logical step in that evolution: rather than creating a one-off FrankenSAM combination, build an architecture from the outset that can accept multiple missiles. Additionally, with so many different ground-based air defense systems now being fielded, it comes with the significant advantage of a standardized launcher and control interface that can accommodate a range of interceptors.

At the same time, Ukraine is pursuing substantially more ambitious indigenous SAM projects.

Earlier this year, a previously secretive Ukrainian missile identified as the Koral made what appeared to be its first public appearance. The program dates back to at least 2021, when Ukraine’s Luch design bureau presented a concept for a medium-range surface-to-air missile.

Koral is intended to provide a much longer-range capability, potentially filling some of the gap left by Ukraine’s aging Soviet systems and supplementing the Western-supplied Patriot and SAMP/T.

Shershen, by contrast, is clearly focused on the short-range layer.

Together, the programs illustrate the breadth of Ukraine’s emerging domestic air-defense effort: from relatively inexpensive systems built around repurposed air-to-air missiles to new, purpose-designed interceptors intended to replace or augment Soviet-era systems.

Ukraine’s experience with FrankenSAM has demonstrated the value of getting unconventional air defense combinations into service quickly.

Once fielded, Shershen, with its architecture capable of accepting different Soviet-origin and Western-made interceptors, and eventually a Ukrainian one, gives Ukraine another way to stretch its missile inventory and enhance its air defense capabilities.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Ukraine’s New Shershen SAM Can Fire A Wild Mix Of Adapted Air-To-Air Missiles appeared first on TWZ.

A Russian gas plant more than 1,700 miles from the Ukrainian border was attacked by a drone on Wednesday, Ukrainian and Russian officials said. This is reportedly the longest-distance Ukrainian strike of the war and comes as Kyiv continues to target Moscow’s energy infrastructure. 

“Today, an attack by a drone was repelled against one of the industrial facilities in Noyabrsk,” Dmitry Artyukhov, governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, stated on Telegram. “As a result of the drone’s debris falling, a fire broke out. Emergency services specialists are working at the scene. Most importantly: there are no casualties or injuries. The extent and nature of the damage are being determined.”

“I urge residents of Yamal to remain calm and to rely only on information from official sources,” Artyukhov added. “The situation is under control.”

“The criminal Kyiv regime has, for the first time, attacked the Arctic region of the Ural Federal District,” Artem Zhoga, the Presidential Envoy of the Russian Federation to the Ural Federal District, confirmed on Telegram. “As a result of debris from a drone falling on the territory, a fire broke out at a fuel and energy complex facility in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District… The enemy is trying to damage economic facilities in order to sow panic.”

New range record: Ukrainian drones attack Novy Urengoy – nearly 3,000 km from Ukraine.

The facility in Novy Urengoy that processes gas condensate for transport was hit—one of the most important installations in Russia's gas condensate infrastructure.

The facility has a capacity… pic.twitter.com/gLysVaLjJJ

— Jürgen Nauditt (@jurgen_nauditt) September 9, 2026

The target of the attack was the Novy Urengoy Condensate Stabilization Plant (CSP), according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces General Staff, which took credit for the attack.

“On 9th September 2026, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine struck the Novy Urengoy Gas Condensate Processing Plant in Novy Urengoy, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,” the general staff claimed on X. “The extent of the damage is being assessed.”

The plant has an annual processing capacity of approximately 19.5 million tons, the general staff added.

“It produces stabilized gas condensate, petroleum fractions, diesel fuel and other petroleum products,” the Ukrainian military pointed out. “Its products are used, among other purposes, to meet the needs of the Russian armed forces. Operations against key enemy military targets are ongoing.”

Ukrainian officials did not provide any details about how the strike was carried out.

More than 3,000 km away. Novy Urengoy gas condensate processing plant hit

On 9th September 2026, units of the Defence Forces of Ukraine struck the Novy Urengoy Gas Condensate Processing Plant in Novy Urengoy, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, russian federation.

The extent… pic.twitter.com/YrRmHp6NYb

— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) September 9, 2026

One video that emerged from the scene showed a column of flames rising in the distance but does not offer much in the way of detail about where the attack took place or the extent of the damage.

Ukrainian drones have for the first time attacked Russia’s largest gas-production hub, almost 3,000 km from the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine struck the Arctic part of the Urals Federal District. A fire started at a fuel-and-energy site.

The plant is part of the Gazprom structure.… pic.twitter.com/yQjodp2vrE

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 9, 2026

Another video showed smoke rising in the distance, but again offered little in the way of detail about what happened.

Ukrainian drones attacked Novy Urengoy in Russia for the first time. That's about 3,200 km from Ukraine!

The Novy Urengoy plant for preparing condensate for transport, located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, was the target. It is one of the region's key gas condensate… pic.twitter.com/KDwOFWicd6

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 9, 2026

The region is a significant target.

“Novy Urengoy is Russia’s unofficial gas capital, located in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district in northwestern Siberia,” according to the Moscow Times. Gazprom “estimated the region’s gas resources at 26.5 trillion cubic meters as of 2020, enough to cover global demand for more than six years.”

In Novy Urengoy, Khanty Mansi AD, west Siberia, Russia,
long-range Ukrainian drones hit an industrial facility in the city located some 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) from the Ukrainian border.https://t.co/bruXXjLYR4

— Alexander Kokcharov (@alex_kokcharov) September 9, 2026

In addition to being the first attack in this region of Russia, this was “the furthest strike since the start of the war,” the Russian Mediazzzona Telegram channel stated. “Previously, the record for distance was the attack on the Omsk Oil Refinery in July 2026. It is located approximately 2,500 km (about 1,550 miles) from the border in a straight line.”

While the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff offered scant details about the strike, officials from the Fire Point weapons company hinted online that one of their drones carried out the attack. 

“Guess who traveled over 3300 km (about 2,050 miles) and successfully achieved their goal,” the company stated on a Telegram post that included video of the gas plant attack.

“3200)),” Fire Point’s founder, Denys Shtilierman, teased in an X post with an image of the burning gas plant.

3200)) https://t.co/Go0EbSm2BS

— Denys Shtilierman (@DenShtilierman) September 9, 2026

Neither Shtilierman nor the company provided any other details; however Fire Point claims its FP-1 drones can now travel about 2,100 miles (3,400 km) with a 60 kg payload.

Despite Fire Point’s hints, there is no confirmation that the company’s weapons had anything to do with this attack. There is also the chance that it could have been carried out by another system or even from inside Russia. Ukraine has, in the past, relied on proxies to stage attacks deep in Russia. In addition, Ukraine last summer carried out a series of remotely launched drone attacks on Russian strategic aviation. Dubbed Operation Spider Web, it included strikes on the Belaya Air Base, about 3,000 miles from the border.

However, a strike from inside Russia is much less likely than one launched from Ukraine given Fire Point chiming in and the increasing reach of Ukraine’s weapons. We have reached out to Fire Point and Ukrainian officials for comment.

You can see video of the Operation Spider Web attack on Belaya below:

Ukrainian drones struck Russian strategic aviation at the Belaya air base in Irkutsk – 4,800 km from Kyiv. pic.twitter.com/UBAi7znioR

— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) June 1, 2025

The Novy Urengoy Gas Condensate Processing Plant wasn’t the only site in Russia affected by drone incursions far from the Ukrainian border today.

“A state of emergency has been declared in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug due to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) activity,” the Russian RIA Novosti news outlet reported on Wednesday. This is located about 1,500 miles from Ukraine. 

“Temporary restrictions have been implemented at the airports of Igra, Nyagan, Uray, ‘Sovetsky,’ Surgut, and Khanty-Mansiysk,” the outlet added.

The publication did not report any attacks and Ukraine did not claim any, but video emerged of what appears to be a Fire Point FP-1 drone flying over the area.

Russian Telegram channels report drones in the area of Khanty-Mansiysk, a city, in west-central Siberia, Russia. pic.twitter.com/in0M552FZN

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 9, 2026

Officials in the region were preparing for a Ukrainian strike, the independent Russian outlet Verstka reported earlier this week.

The area is “a sprawling oil-producing region responsible for roughly 40% of the country’s crude output,” the official Ukrainian United24 media outlet noted.

While the extent of the damage to the Novy Urengoy Condensate Stabilization Plant is unclear at the moment, the attack extends the range of Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil infrastructure.

This summer, Ukraine struck nearly all Russian refineries within range, the Kyiv Post noted. 

“Ukraine’s military said in July that the attacks had knocked 43% of Russia’s refining capacity offline, contributing to a nationwide fuel shortage and export restrictions,” the publication reported.

Still, “Russia’s overall oil exports remained relatively stable between June and July, with higher crude exports and energy prices partly offsetting revenue losses,” the Kyiv Post added.

For Russia, the attacks on its energy infrastructure have become so damaging that last month, President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing the government to temporarily seize what it deems commercial critical infrastructure that is not sufficiently protected against such strikes. That followed Russia’s move earlier this year to allow private companies to purchase their own air defense systems to protect their own facilities. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree allowing the government to temporarily take control of critical infrastructure if private owners fail to protect it from Ukrainian drone attacks or rebuild it after strikes.

Read more: https://t.co/SzAbSZqobI

— ABC News (@ABC) August 25, 2026

Though Russia is continuing its grinding offensive, the energy infrastructure attacks are clearly taking a major toll. The ability to do so seems to have taken on additional significance in the wake of another round of attempts to end the fighting.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s top envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, recently traveled to both Russia and Ukraine seeking to rekindle peace talks. However, there does not appear to be any immediate resolution in sight.

The expanding range and quantity of Kyiv’s long-range strike arsenal gives Zelensky perhaps his most powerful card to play against Russia’s interest in continuing the war. Ukraine has been improving these weapons by the month and the pace of development of its drones and cruise missiles is rapidly accelerating. The country also has several ballistic missile projects in the works, which will only add to the pressure put on Moscow once operational.

Regardless, earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he expects the war with Russia to continue into the winter at the very least. Given that, Kyiv’s campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure does not seem like it will end anytime soon, either.

Case in point, Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes continued on Wednesday with another attack on Sochi, a Black Sea resort town often frequented by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And, for the second day, drones were visible over Russia’s remote central high-north energy production hub.

Massive fire erupts at Sochi port, Russia, following reported Ukrainian drone attacks. pic.twitter.com/cm2WsiA4jS

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 9, 2026

Russian Telegram channels report drones in the area of Khanty-Mansiysk, a city, in west-central Siberia, Russia. pic.twitter.com/in0M552FZN

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 9, 2026

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Ukraine Carried Out Its Deepest Drone Strike On Russia Ever appeared first on TWZ.

Covenant, a previously little-known defense startup, has emerged with a new long-range strike weapon, named Anthem, which it says is intended to provide a cheaper, more readily producible alternative to existing cruise missiles. Already in testing with the U.S. Army, the missile reflects the growing focus on weapons in this class that can be manufactured quickly in very large numbers, even if they sacrifice a significant degree of individual-weapon capability compared to more ‘exquisite’ and costly alternatives.

Covenant, a U.S.-Israeli company founded in 2024, unveiled its Anthem weapon system today along with plans for production in the United States, Germany, and Israel. The company says it has already conducted more than 200 test flights of the weapon and has secured roughly $150 million in orders.

The announcement comes as the United States and its allies are increasingly focused on the availability of long-range precision weapons, particularly the ability to replenish inventories during a major conflict. Covenant’s central pitch is that existing weapons in this category are too expensive and difficult to manufacture in sufficient numbers for a prolonged war, a reality that has been recognized by a bewildering number of new and established industry players.

Anthem is being positioned accordingly as a high-volume weapon rather than a one-for-one replacement for larger, more expensive cruise missiles. In its initial form, it is ground-launched, although it is unclear exactly how this is achieved. Imagery of the weapon during Pentagon trials show it being handled on the ground using tricycle undercarriage, pointing to the use of a runway for launch.

Covenant has not publicly disclosed the weapon’s range, although unconfirmed reports put it at roughly 1,200 kilometers — over 740 miles. The company is also being somewhat deliberate about how it describes Anthem, referring to it as a “deep precision-strike munition” rather than consistently classifying it as a cruise missile.

On the other hand, Reuters reports Covenant executives saying that the missile was developed ‌with an ⁠eye toward future conflicts in the Pacific. “We were designed for the China fight,” said Covenant President Abby Denburg. That would also seem to point toward significant range.

However, more concrete details of its performance, as well as guidance type and projected level of survivability, remain undisclosed.

The company says Anthem can carry a warhead weighing more than 200 kilograms (441 pounds). That is substantially less than the roughly 1,000-pound-class warhead associated with the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can hit targets at over 1,000 miles depending on the exact configuration. Covenant argues that lower cost and much higher production rates would make it possible to employ larger numbers of their weapons against a given target set.

Anthem uses a solid rocket motor for launch and a heavy-fuel jet engine, underslung below the missile body, for cruise flight. Covenant says the system was designed from the outset around readily available components and a supply chain that would avoid dependence on individual suppliers. The company states that it has, for example, multiple solid-rocket-motor suppliers and long-term agreements covering thousands of jet engines.

Overall, the production ambitions are significant. Covenant’s new Grand Prairie, Texas, facility covers approximately 105,000 square feet and is expected to begin serial production during the first quarter of 2027, eventually reaching a stated capacity of 5,000 Anthems per year. Its facility in Saxony, Germany, is intended to reach a similar production rate, while the smaller Israeli site is planned to produce as many as 2,000 weapons annually.

“Germany possesses an exceptionally strong industrial foundation,” Denburg told Bloomberg News. “While its automotive sector is currently undergoing a structural transformation, decades of manufacturing excellence have created precisely the expertise we require.”

That would put the company’s eventual combined production target at up to 12,000 weapons per year, assuming all three facilities reach their planned capacities.

Covenant’s U.S. facility is intended primarily to support American customers, while the German operation is being established around a European supply chain, responding to growing demand for long-range strike weapons across that continent. The company says an unidentified international customer is expected to begin receiving German-built weapons before the end of this year. Meanwhile, U.S. Army deliveries are expected in 2027, under an accelerated qualification contract.

The weapon has already been subjected to U.S.-linked testing. In August, an unnamed defense-industry partner conducted a live-fire demonstration at the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco. The U.S. military’s public material about that event did not identify the weapon or company, but subsequent reporting identified the missile as Covenant’s Anthem.

Covenant now says the system has flown more than 200 times over the past year, including testing involving U.S. government organizations. The company also says Anthem participated in the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 6 experiments and that its August test helped demonstrate a new framework for allowing industry to use the Moroccan test infrastructure.

Beyond the ground-launched version, Covenant is working on a naval derivative. The company says it has a roughly $70-million contract with the Navy’s Rapid Capabilities Office to adapt Anthem into what it calls Maritime Anthem. The effort includes Defense Exportability Features intended to make the weapon easier to provide to U.S. allies and partners.

The emergence of Anthem also illustrates how the defense industry’s current emphasis on mass production is extending into the long-range strike arena.

The United States already fields weapons such as Tomahawk and JASSM-ER, but those systems are expensive, and production capacity is limited. Covenant is betting that a weapon available in much larger quantities can provide commanders with another layer of long-range strike capacity, even if the destructive power of a single round falls well below that of a Tomahawk. Reuters reports that Covenant expects the weapon to eventually cost in the mid-six-figure range, although the company has not provided a final unit price. Compared to other competitors in the field, Covenant appears to be the crudest design we have seen so far, underscored by its apparent launch method, in which it takes off from an airstrip under power of its booster.

Recent combat operations have increased concerns about the rate at which more traditional precision weapons can actually be manufactured. Once stockpiles begin to reduce, long-range missiles have proven among the most difficult munitions to replace. That would only become more problematic during a major conflict.

Covenant has attracted venture-capital backing to pursue that problem. The company says it has raised more than $250 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 8VC, Aleph, and Lightspeed. Its stated focus, however, is now shifting from development to production.

The key question will be whether Covenant can turn the promised production numbers into sustained deliveries. Building thousands of long-range weapons per year requires not only an assembly plant, but also a resilient supply chain, reliable propulsion production, testing capacity, quality control, and the ability to integrate those elements at scale. It will also rely on securing more contracts from domestic and allied customers.

For now, however, Anthem represents an intriguing entrant into a crowded but increasingly important segment of the weapons market.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Army Now Testing Anthem Long-Range Strike Weapon Built for Mass Production appeared first on TWZ.

The U.S. Navy has lost an advanced uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV), and it is now in Iranian hands. Here’s what we know about the Dive-LD drone and its apparent seizure, and its implications.

Authorities in Iran said earlier today that they had retrieved a U.S. Dive-LD uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) largely intact near the Strait of Hormuz. The regime in Tehran subsequently released pictures and video clips of the UUV being lifted out of the water, seen at various points below. This looks to be the first known instance of an operational deployment of the Dive-LD. This is still a relatively new capability for the U.S. Navy that only began entering service a little more than a year and a half ago. American officials have previously confirmed the use of UUVs, in general, to help keep the Strait of Hormuz free of Iranian naval mines, one of many threats that have dramatically slowed maritime traffic through this critical waterway.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines … at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz in a complex intelligence and operational action at dawn today,” according to a statement shared earlier today via Iranian state media. The exact circumstances surrounding the seizure remain unconfirmed.

“An underwater drone operated by U.S. forces malfunctioned more than a day ago,” a U.S. official said in response to our queries about the Iranian claims. “It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment. U.S. operations in area waters continue.”

The official did not confirm or deny the type of UUV in question, or that Iran had retrieved it. They also did not elaborate on the nature of the malfunction. TWZ also reached out to Anduril, which initially deferred any questions to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). However, they subsequently confirmed the loss of a Dive-LD operating in the region.

“Dive-LD is an attritable autonomous system, meaning it is designed from the outset to operate in dangerous environments where loss of the vehicle is an expected possibility. Its purpose is to keep warfighters out of the most dangerous parts of the undersea mission,” an Anduril spokesperson told us in a statement. “This vehicle had already delivered significant value operating thousands of hours in months-long operations in CENTCOM.”

Categorized as a large UUV, the Dive-LD is 19 feet (approximately 5.8 meters) long, four feet (around 1.2 meters) in diameter, and has a gross weight of close to three tons. The design features a 3D-printed exterior, but is said to be capable of diving down to depths of some 19,685 feet (3.7 miles or 6,000 meters). The UUVs can also remain at sea for around 10 days at a time, depending on their exact configuration, and do so with a high degree of autonomy. Dive-LD was originally developed by U.S.-based Dive Technologies, which was founded in 2018 and then acquired by Anduril in 2022.

Anduril announced the delivery of the first Dive-LD to the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One (UUVGRU-1) in April 2025. The Navy had already released a picture of personnel training with one of these UUVs five months earlier. How many Dive-LDs are now in U.S. service is unclear.

The Dive-LD has a highly modular design. Anduril’s website says that the UUV can be configured for various military missions, including so-called intelligence preparation of the operational environment (IPOE); general intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); mine warfare; and precision placement of objects underwater. IPOE refers to the collection of various types of intelligence on a specific area as part of planning for upcoming operations.

As mentioned, U.S. officials have previously stated that UUVs have been supporting mine-clearance operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Broadly speaking, uncrewed underwater platforms offer a way to find and record the location of naval mines using sonars, cameras, and other sensors, while helping keep friendly forces further away from potential threats. Afterward, depending on the type of mines that are found, various methods can be employed to neutralize them. Mine sweeping is time-consuming and dangerous, even in permissive environments, let alone when conducted under the threat of enemy attack.

This past weekend, the Financial Times newspaper in the United Kingdom published a story saying U.S. forces have been using UUVs in exactly this way to help clear Iranian mines, citing “people familiar with the operation.”

“Mostly at night, it [the U.S. military] sent Navy Seal [sic SEAL] divers, robot boats and specialised underwater craft into the perilous strait for a four-month mine-clearance mission,” according to FT‘s report. “U.S. Navy divers worked in small teams using inflatable-hulled craft. They located Iranian mines with the help of robot boats and submersibles – such as the U.S. Navy’s Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel – operating towed sonar arrays.”

The Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel (CUSV) is a speedboat-sized drone boat that has been in Navy inventory since the early 2020s, explicitly for counter-mine operations. FT‘s story does not say where any USVs, UUVs, and/or boats full of divers were launched from as part of these operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz, but it posited that the Navy’s Expeditionary Sea Base ship USS Miguel Keith could have been involved.

A trio of Independence class Littoral Combat Ships specifically configured for mine-sweeping duties, including using CUSVs, had been forward deployed in Bahrain before the start of the conflict with Iran in February. At least two of those ships, USS Santa Fe and USS Tulsa, emerged thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia in March, something TWZ was the first to report on. At the time of writing, those ships currently appear to be in Singapore. The exact disposition of the third of these LCSs, the USS Canberra, is unclear, but USNI News reported today that it is sailing in the South China Sea.

The Navy has a host of other warships in the Middle East that could support counter-mine missions. With a 10-day endurance, Dive-LDs, specifically, could potentially have been launched from locations away from the Strait of Hormuz, including friendly ports.

Dive-LDs could also be used for other missions beyond mine clearance in the region. As mentioned, the U.S. official told TWZ the UUV had malfunctioned while “surveying regional waters.” While this would be a relevant task in the context of a larger mine-sweeping operation, underwater surveys would be valuable for other purposes, too. For months now, U.S. forces have been facilitating the movement of ships in and out of the Persian Gulf via a route that hugs the Omani coastline, keeping them as far from Iranian threats as possible. Having up-to-date and highly accurate maps of the seafloor in these areas would be critical to ensuring they are deep enough for large commercial vessels to pass through safely.

IPOE and general ISR support, above and below the waves, would be part of any current or future U.S. activities in the region. This includes a new campaign of strikes targeting Iranian tanker ships that began last month and monitoring general port activity in Iran as part of the ongoing blockade.

Employing Dive-LDs in operations against Iran also provides a valuable real-world opportunity to prove out new UUV capabilities and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures, which could prove critical in a future high-end fight against a peer opponent like China. Dive-LD has been feeding into Anduril’s development of an even more capable large UUV called Ghost Shark, the first customer for which is the Royal Australian Navy. Ghost Shark is a militarized version of a design called the Dive-XL that followed the Dive-LD. In March, Anduril announced it was among those selected for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform Project (CAMP), an extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle rapid prototyping effort being run by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Navy. Anduril did not say what platform it would be supplying for that project, but used a picture of Ghost Shark to illustrate the announcement.

The U.S. military is already known to have taken advantage of the ongoing conflict with Iran to demonstrate new weapon systems and other capabilities, including uncrewed maritime systems. In June, a Saronic Corsair drone boat conducted a first-of-its-kind at-sea rescue of the crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter that had gone down in the Gulf of Oman. The following month, U.S. forces launched their first known kamikaze USV attack on Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base using explosive-laden Corsairs.

With all this in mind, it is worth noting that the apparent loss of a Dive-LD intact to Iran is still significant, even if the core design is not brand new and if it does not have any especially sensitive mission systems onboard. It is not necessarily ‘exquisite,’ bleeding-edge technology as it is designed to be optionally attritable, but is still an advanced modern system in operational U.S. service now. Insights into its capabilities and limitations would certainly be of interest to Iran and others. What attempts the U.S. military made to recover the Dive-LD are also unknown. However, the fact that it was not destroyed before or while the Iranians were retrieving it points to American forces having completely lost any sense of its location beforehand.

For its part, Iran has long been a collector of foreign military hardware, primarily U.S. and Israeli, including drones of all types. The capture of a largely intact RQ-170 Sentinel in 2011 is the most famous (or infamous) example. The regime in Tehran also regularly works to reverse engineer what it recovers to varying degrees, and has promised to do the same with the Dive-LD. It could also share its latest prize with its own international partners, including Russia and China, for further analysis and exploitation. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) notably has its own very active UUV programs.

On top of all this, the seizure offers propaganda benefits for the Iranian government, which is already making heavy use of the information space to push back against U.S. military and economic pressure.

Countries seizing foreign USVs and UUVs is certainly not new at this point, even in ostensible peacetime periods. TWZ pointed out that this was only likely to become commonplace, and that steps would need to be taken to address these risks, after a pair of incidents involving Iran in 2022. On August 29 of that year, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attempted to capture a U.S. Navy Saildrone USV in the Persian Gulf. Just days later, the IRGC briefly commandeered a pair of American Saildrones in the Red Sea.

The current conflict with Iran has only further underscored the important roles that uncrewed maritime platforms are playing in U.S. operations now, which are only set to keep growing as time goes on. As those same operations expand, so will the risks of capture and other losses.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post Everything We Know About The U.S. Navy’s Submersible Drone Iran Just Captured appeared first on TWZ.

Just hours ago, the Saudi Aramco refinery at Jazan on the Red Sea was engulfed in flames after a Houthi missile and drone attack. Strikes at the heart of the Saudi’s energy infrastructure on the Red Sea, which acts as the remaining primary lifeline of energy exports out of the region, threaten to drastically impact global oil prices further, a concern we have been raising for some time. In the wake of the attack and additional fighting in the Persian Gulf, oil prices surged toward the $100 per-barrel mark.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a qualitative, large-scale military operation, targeting the Aramco company in Abha, Najran and the Economic City, Aramco in Jizan, and Khamis Mushait Air Base with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree stated on Telegram. “The strikes were precise, by God’s grace, and direct, causing major damage to those facilities.”

Saree claimed that the strikes were “in response to the Saudi aggression that targeted our people and our country with 121 air strikes over the past three days.”

Saudi officials confirmed Houthi attacks and said they would retaliate.

“The terrorist Houthi Militia’s senseless attacks, the latest of which targeted civilian and economic sites in the cities of (Abha, Khamis Mashait, Jazan and Najran) resulting in injuries to (73) civilians, including women and children, constitute a blatant violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and a direct threat to the security and safety of its citizens and residents,” anti-Houthi coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki stated on X. 

“The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will take all necessary operational measures to deter this Terrorist Militia and resolutely confront its hostile approach, in defense of the Kingdom’s sovereignty, the preservation of its national assets and the safety of its citizens and residents,” Al-Maliki added. “The Command will also take all necessary measures and actions to respond to the sources of the threat and neutralize its danger.”

pic.twitter.com/XAqse1hTDT

— المتحدث الرسمي باسم قوات التحالف (@CJFCSpox) September 8, 2026

“…several energy sector facilities and installations in the southern region of the Kingdom were targeted this morning,” the Saudi Ministry of Energy stated on X. The attacks “caused fires at several locations, leading to a temporary halt in some operations,” the ministry added. “Specialized field teams have begun containing the fires, securing the sites and assessing the damage.”

#Statement | Energy Sector Facilities Targeted in Saudi Arabia's Southern Region. pic.twitter.com/olZoupwH48

— وزارة الطاقة (@MoEnergy_Saudi) September 8, 2026

Videos on social media this morning showed the Saudi Aramco facility still burning after the attacks.

Following Houthi strikes, fires can be seen raging at the Jizan oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/tAqOPlsmvS

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 8, 2026

Data from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) indicates a large amount of ongoing thermal anomalies in and near the massive Jazan refinery.

Houthis appear to have launched a major drone attack on Jazan, SW Saudi Arabia, in recent hours.

— Fires at Aramco’s Jazan oil refinery
— Multiple hotspots at Jazan Bulk Plant
— Hotspot near King Abdullah Airport https://t.co/cdhFe7I274 pic.twitter.com/ZIN7WKKUiX

— Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) September 8, 2026

The Houthi attacks inside Saudi Arabia came amid increased fighting in Yemen between the rebels and anti-Houthi forces backed by Riyadh.

War in #Yemen #SITREP | Houthi Narrative | Houthi official media has largely stopped pretending there is no ground war.

The line that this is only a series of limited skirmishes is becoming harder to maintain. Houthi TV @TvAlmasirah and other outlets are now openly reporting… https://t.co/bju4iHy28G pic.twitter.com/ZnifZ1CcQI

— Basha باشا (@BashaReport) September 8, 2026

The conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis grew out of a civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2014. It expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis and raged on until the parties reached a tenuous ceasefire in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis, and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. Tensions, however, reignited after that conflict ended when the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter. The Houthis recently imposed a blockade on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and began striking Saudi ships in the Red Sea as well as refineries.

As we have frequently detailed, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure put further pressure on oil exports from the Middle East, already drastically affected by the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the resumption of the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities near the Persian Gulf. This also raised the specter of the U.S. having to get as involved as it did during the previous Houthi campaign against shipping that ended last September, which could pull resources away from Iranian-focused operations, if supporting such an operation is even possible at all at this point. The bottom line here is that if the Houthis stop Saudi oil from transiting through the Bab el Mandeb Strait and the Suez Canal, this last lifeline of energy to Europe and Asia and beyond would be severed. This would drastically exacerbate an already ballooning oil crisis.

The Houthi strikes on Tuesday followed a spike in attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Last week, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it destroyed three Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) oil tankers after the Iranians fired ballistic missiles at U.S. warships.

On Tuesday, “American forces have struck multiple Iranian tankers tied to the IRGC in response to more attempted missile attacks on a U.S. Navy warship,” a U.S. official told TWZ.

The CENTCOM strikes are part of the Trump administration’s new tanker-for-a-tanker policy of hitting Iranian vessels in response to Tehran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This marks a change from previous incidents where ships were only attacked for running the ongoing U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports. The sinking of one of the Iranian tankers in the most recent strikes is another escalation. Previous incidents following major combat operations during Epic Fury involved U.S. forces disabling Iranian transport vessels, not sinking them.

“Following Iran’s failed attacks, CENTCOM permanently disabled the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask,” the command stated on X on Saturday. “American forces also completely destroyed the unladen crude oil carrier M/T Kylo (also known as the “Noxen”) in the Gulf of Oman, striking the vessel in multiple critical locations to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship.”

The three Iranian crude oil tankers “are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies,” the command added. “Iran has no means by which to defend them.”

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost —taking out three of yours,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost —taking out three of yours. We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.” — Adm. Brad Cooper,… pic.twitter.com/UGGcSGsUtd

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

In addition to the tanker attacks, CENTCOM is maintaining its naval blockade of Iranian ports. “As of Sept. 6, U.S. forces have redirected 92 commercial vessels, disabled 3 and boarded 2 to ensure strict compliance,” the command stated on X.

A U.S. Air Force F-35A stealth fighter jet patrols over regional waters as CENTCOM forces continue to enforce the maritime blockade against Iran. As of Sept. 6, U.S. forces have redirected 92 commercial vessels, disabled 3 and boarded 2 to ensure strict compliance. pic.twitter.com/oXNN5zKx1t

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 6, 2026

As these events unfold, the price of oil is rising further, as we noted earlier in this piece. As of noon on Tuesday, the per barrel price of Brent crude was trading at nearly $98, a $10 per barrel gain from Aug. 26, according to OilPrice.com.

Analysts said the price reflected “the market’s recognition that there is no end in sight for the conflict in the Middle East, which has disrupted oil flows through two vital arteries: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

“Oil market participants are now pricing in a more prolonged disruption to shipping flows,” Hamad Hussain, a senior economist with Capital Economics, a research firm, told the publication. “They and other analysts have raised oil price estimates, based on an expectation of increased disruptions.”

Amid the strikes on oil-related targets, Iran claimed it captured an Anduril Dive-LD UUV and is in the process of reverse-engineering it. The IRGC released video and images of the device.

The IRGC Navy has released footage showing the captured U.S. Navy Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) seized in the Strait of Hormuz. pic.twitter.com/XN379Kcpkh

— Ebrahim Zolfaghari (@IranTimes72) September 8, 2026

Additional images showing the U.S. Dive-LD AUV that was captured by the Iranians, following what a U.S. official described as a malfunction a number of days ago. pic.twitter.com/fyuDFJxsuv

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 8, 2026

The IRGC “captured one of the most modern intelligent and unmanned submarines of the terrorist U.S. military at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz at dawn today, in a complex operation involving intelligence and operational surveillance,” the organization claimed.

The vessel “possesses the latest technology in the field of underwater systems in the world and was delivered to the fleet of the terrorist U.S. military in 2025,” the IRGC added.

Asked if Iran captured a UUV, a U.S. official denied that the Iranians obtained anything sensitive.

“An underwater drone operated by U.S. forces malfunctioned more than a day ago,” a U.S. official told us. “It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment. U.S. operations in area waters continue.”

That's a Dive-LD from the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron 1 (UUVRON-1). pic.twitter.com/qwfOUTA8v7

— Mehdi H. (@mhmiranusa) September 8, 2026

The Dive-LD can be configured for demining operations. Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, recently stated that: “We have successfully cleared sea mines in the strait’s international shipping lanes that were laid months ago by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Internationally recognized transit routes in the strait are free of Iranian sea mines, thanks to the incredible work of the U.S. military.”

It is unclear whether the Dive-LD system was used in those operations; however Financial Times last week reported that the U.S. sent “Navy Seal divers, robot boats and specialized underwater craft into the perilous strait for a four-month mine-clearance mission.”

“The fraught process of explosive device disposal was carried out underwater and in darkness in an attempt to eliminate a crucial factor deterring ships from carrying vital cargoes through the strait since the US and Israel attacked Iran in February,” the publication added.

US Navy SEAL divers spent four months clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Financial Times.

SEAL divers worked at night from inflatable-hulled boats with help from underwater crafts to remove the mines.

"That is usually followed up by a navy diver… pic.twitter.com/NT1gBvQVqA

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 7, 2026

As the Houthi-Saudi exchanges continue and the Strait of Hormuz is still heavily contested, there appears to be no real movement toward a diplomatic solution.

U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed that the U.S. will defeat Iran.

“Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran,” the president stated on his Truth Social site. “Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon. MAGA!”

Trump acknowledges 1) oil prices are high, 2) it's because of the war with Iran, 3) the war has not ended, 4) the US has not won, yet. pic.twitter.com/gcsfqYmu0E

— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) September 7, 2026

Iran, for its part, said it will continue fighting.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always opposed war and has considered the preservation of the people’s interests and regional security to lie in refraining from igniting conflict,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on X. “However, just as it has boldly risen to defend against aggression up to this day, it will continue this resistance with full strength until the aggressors are brought to complete regret and will remain the guardian of the rights of the great Iranian nation.”

جمهوری اسلامی ایران همواره با جنگ مخالف بوده و حفظ منافع مردم و امنیت منطقه را در پرهیز از آتش افروزی دانسته است. اما چنانکه تا امروز در برابر تجاوز، دلیرانه به دفاع برخاسته است این مقاومت را تا پشیمانی کامل متجاوزان با قوت ادامه خواهد داد و پاسدار حقوق ملت بزرگ ایران خواهد بود.

— Masoud Pezeshkian (@drpezeshkian) September 8, 2026

Should there be a resolution to this conflict, U.S. military and intelligence officials have had “recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in Middle East,” CNN reported.

In offices across the US military & intel community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people & facilities typically stationed in Middle East if Trump admin succeeds in ending the Iran conflict, 6 sources tell @KatieBoLillis & me.…

— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) September 8, 2026

That’s it for now. We’ll update this story when new details emerge.

UPDATE: 6:25 PM Eastern:

CENTCOM said it “destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days.”

“The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and continued to patrol regional waters. No American personnel were harmed,” the command added on X. “In response to Iran’s most recent failed attacks, CENTCOM destroyed the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco in the Gulf of Oman as well as M/T Derya near Kharg Island. American forces directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck and rendered inoperable. Iran has used the tankers as part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies. Iran has no means by which to defend these vessels.”

CENTCOM forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days. The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and… pic.twitter.com/Gi8a2tloN1

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 8, 2026

In the wake of the CENTCOM strikes, Iran launched a new wave of ballistic missile attacks, a Jordanian source confirmed to us. The official Iranian Fars media outlet said Muwaffaq Salti Air and Prince Hassan air bases were targeted.

‌
حمله به پایگاه‌های موفق‌السلطی و شاهزاده حسن در اردن

گفته می‌شود پایگاه‌های هوایی موفق السلطی و شاهزاده حسن اهداف حملات موشکی ایران است.

براساس گزارش‌ها اردن به دلیل ناتوانی سامانه‌های پدافندی آمریکایی، جنگنده‌های نیروی هوایی را برای رهگیری موشک‌های ایرانی به پرواز درآورده.

— خبرگزاری فارس (@FarsNews_Agency) September 8, 2026

Video has emerged on social media of interceptors in Jordan defending against the attack.

An insane amount of Jordanian interceptors being seen used here. Dozens being used, as Iranian fires inundate the local area. So far no visible impacts have been viewed. pic.twitter.com/cyZtoojZ9G

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 8, 2026

NOW: Jordan is currently under heavy Iranian ballistic missile attacks.

A large amount of interceptors are being launched, impacts have been recorded. https://t.co/GVndx2SrP6 pic.twitter.com/xzUanwcSUu

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 8, 2026

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Saudi’s Remaining Energy Lifeline To The World Under Threat After Successful Houthi Strikes (Updated) appeared first on TWZ.

Poland has unveiled a full-sized demonstrator of a new heavy infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) intended to put more armor and firepower between mechanized troops and the increasingly lethal threats of the modern battlefield. The unveiling comes as Poland undertakes a sweeping modernization of its armored forces, driven in large part by the threat posed by Russia.

Huta Stalowa Wola, part of state-owned Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa, presented the Ciężki Bojowy Wóz Piechoty (CBWP), or Heavy Infantry Fighting Vehicle, at the MSPO defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland, today. The vehicle, commonly referred to as Ratel (honey badger), is the latest step in a Polish effort to develop a heavily protected tracked combat platform that can complement the lighter, amphibious Borsuk (badger) infantry fighting vehicle.

“The demonstrator presented today confirms that Polish companies possess the expertise to design and develop advanced combat platforms that meet the demands of the modern battlefield,” Adam Leszkiewicz, president of PGZ’s management board, said during the unveiling.

OTO ON. CIĘŻKI BOJOWY WÓZ PIECHOTY.

Po dniach odliczania i pokazywania tylko fragmentów odsłaniamy najważniejszą premierę PGZ na #MSPO2026.

CBWP to nowa ciężka platforma opracowana przez Hutę Stalowa Wola – z wysokim poziomem ochrony, dużą mobilnością i siłą ognia… pic.twitter.com/kazs4ciGMj

— Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (@PGZ_pl) September 8, 2026

At approximately 40 tons, the CBWP is about 12 tons heavier than the roughly 28-ton Borsuk (and adds an axle, for seven road wheels on each side), the result of a fundamental difference in design philosophy.

Borsuk was conceived as a relatively lightweight IFV able to operate alongside mechanized infantry while retaining the ability to swim. The CBWP instead prioritizes protection and battlefield survivability, placing it in the growing category of heavy IFVs being developed and operated by NATO countries and others.

The vehicle will have a three-person crew and carry up to eight infantrymen. Its primary role is to transport those troops safely into contested areas while providing direct fire support once they reach the objective.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated how quickly armored vehicles can be exposed to anti-tank guided missiles, mines, artillery fragments, loitering munitions, and small drones. Even vehicles that survive direct attacks can be functionally disabled by damage to tracks, sensors, or external equipment.

A Ukrainian M2A2 Bradley engaging and damaging a Russian T-90M in a close-range fight. After a mission kill, the T-90M is subsequently finished by an FPV drone:

The Ukrainian Bradley IFV damaged the no-analogue russian T-90M "Breakthrough" in a close fight. Then an FPV drone finished this long-suffering tank.

Maybe, the T-90M tanks should be renamed into "Broken".

: 47th Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/b3ShfqbTd9

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 13, 2024

While Ukraine has shown that armor is increasingly easy to find and attack, and thus less relevant, Warsaw is far from convinced that armored vehicles are now irrelevant, with multiple acquisition projects underway. However, Ukraine does change what these vehicles need to be able to do and how they must be employed to have a chance of survival. In certain circumstances, when properly concealed, dispersed, and integrated with counter-drone capabilities, armor is still seen as important for protected mobility and firepower by militaries around the globe.

According to PGZ, the CBWP’s design therefore puts considerable emphasis on survivability. It incorporates advanced ballistic and mine protection designed to meet relevant STANAG standards. It also uses specialized mine-resistant seats intended to reduce the effects of explosions beneath the hull.

The protection architecture can be supplemented by an active protection system (APS). If integrated on a production vehicle, such a system could provide another layer of defense against incoming anti-tank weapons, and potentially small drones, although PGZ has described the APS as an optional component rather than specifying a particular production configuration.

For detecting threats, the vehicle can employ laser-warning equipment including the OBRA-3 system, integrated with smoke grenade launchers. A laser warning can provide the crew with an indication that the vehicle has been illuminated by a rangefinder or targeting system, potentially allowing it to react before an anti-tank weapon is launched.

A video showing a test of the OBRA-3 protection system on a Polish Rosomak wheeled armored fighting vehicle, with a smoke screen being generated to blind hostile optics. The view is from the driver’s compartment:

The CBWP will also carry an integrated nuclear, biological, and chemical protection system, allowing the crew and embarked infantry to operate in contaminated environments.

Firepower comes from the ZSSW-30 remotely operated turret, one of the most important locally developed systems in Poland’s current armored vehicle modernization effort.

The turret is equipped with a 30mm cannon armed with programmable ammunition, plus Rafael Spike anti-tank guided missiles. Together, the weapons are intended to give the CBWP the ability to engage armored vehicles, infantry, and other battlefield targets while also providing a degree of capability against aerial threats. In particular, the programmable ammunition provides greater flexibility against different target types — such as drones — by allowing the projectile’s effects to be tailored to the engagement.

The inclusion of Spike missiles gives the vehicle an extended-range anti-armor option beyond the effective range of its automatic cannon. Much more than a traditional anti-tank guided missile, Spike provides an indirect-fire capability including the option to loiter over a particular area and search for targets, among other attributes.

The ZSSW-30 also gives Poland a degree of commonality across its growing fleet of modern armored vehicles, with the system already being introduced on Borsuk and on some Rosomak wheeled armored fighting vehicles.

The CBWP reflects a trend for fighting vehicles that blur the boundaries between traditional IFV and infantry-support concepts. It is expected to carry a relatively large infantry squad while possessing the sensors and weapons necessary to remain directly involved in combat alongside those troops. At the same time, its high level of protection makes for a notably large vehicle.

The new vehicle is just one part of Poland’s broader military modernization.

Warsaw has embarked on one of NATO’s most ambitious efforts to expand and modernize its ground forces, with major acquisitions of two different types of main battle tank, artillery, rocket systems, and infantry fighting vehicles. Poland is simultaneously expanding domestic production capacity, seeking to ensure that at least part of the equipment needed for a larger army can be produced and sustained within the country.

The Borsuk program is central to that effort and is intended to replace Poland’s aging Soviet-designed BWP-1 (the Polish version of the BMP-1).

The heavier CBWP offers even more capability, but its heavier weight comes with tradeoffs. It will be inherently less flexible than a lighter amphibious IFV, and more costly. In return, it will give Polish commanders another option for missions where survivability matters more than swimming capability or rapid deployment.

Such a vehicle would be particularly important for units operating in heavily contested areas, where the threat from mines, anti-tank weapons, and drones makes protection a higher priority. This provides some indication of what Polish planners expect a conflict with Russia on Europe’s eastern flank to look like. However, lessons from Ukraine show that, whatever its quality, an armored fighting vehicle will only be as survivable as the network and tactics around it.

Still, the CBWP remains some distance from operational service.

PGZ currently has one operational demonstrator, intended for factory trials. The company plans to subsequently construct two fully functional prototypes, with both expected to be ready in 2027.

Those vehicles will then undergo intensive testing with the Polish Armed Forces. The results could lead to changes in the protection architecture, turret integration, or other elements before a production configuration is finalized.

PGZ has indicated that it could be ready for production as early as 2029, but that timeline is not yet a firm procurement schedule. It will depend on the results of testing, any modifications required during development, and negotiations with the customer.

Poland has been reported to be considering a requirement for up to 700 CBWP vehicles. In addition, Poland has so far contracted for 257 Borsuk IFVs, with another roughly 1,000 Borsuk-family combat and specialized vehicles envisioned under a broader framework agreement.

If the program succeeds, Poland will ultimately field a highly capable two-tier tracked IFV force in which the CBWP equips units expected to operate in the most dangerous portions of the battlefield.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post This Is Poland’s New Heavy Infantry Fighting Vehicle appeared first on TWZ.