Israel’s Defense Ministry will deliver its first full Iron Beam high-energy laser battery to the IDF on December 30. The move marks the world’s first deployment of a high-power laser air-defense system into regular frontline service. Defense Ministry R&D chief Dani Gold confirmed the rollout date on Monday, calling it the system’s “first capability,” with more upgrades already in development.
Indonesian Christian volunteers are rushing aid to residents who say the government has been slow to help after floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island killed at least hundreds of people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Syrian Ministry of Interior announced Sunday that a joint operation has located and destroyed more than 15 ISIS weapons-storage sites in southern Syria, marking one of the most extensive counter-terrorism strikes carried out in the region this year.
Sudan’s military rulers have quietly offered Russia its first-ever African naval base—an arrangement that would hand the Kremlin a powerful strategic foothold over the Red Sea, one of the world’s most critical and contested trade arteries—according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive.