Iranian military officials said Friday their forces had struck al-Tanf air base in southeastern Syria. U.S. Central Command, which coordinates American military operations in the Middle East, did not immediately comment, and it was unclear Friday morning whether any U.S. personnel are at al-Tanf. The Pentagon said in February that it had completed a full withdrawal from the base.

The development came hours after U.S. forces expanded their airstrike campaign against Iran early Friday by hitting more bridges, energy sites and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, as Trump administration officials threatened an even more robust military assault aimed at pressuring Tehran to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran separately launched new missile attacks against U.S. security partners on Friday, including Qatar, a key mediator in the war. It also damaged a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait — something crucial in the small, desert nation. The interim ceasefire agreed to last month has collapsed and the Mideast is now again on the brink of all-out war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ouster of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov after just six months has triggered an unusual backlash, with soldiers, civil society activists and even members of the president’s party warning that the move risks derailing military reforms at a critical point.

Threat Status Special Ukraine Correspondent Guillaume Ptak reports that Mr. Fedorov, 35, was brought into the Defense Ministry in January to shake up one of Ukraine’s largest and most oversight-resistant bureaucracies. He was charged with implementing the fast-moving, data-heavy approach he had used as digital transformation minister to expand Ukraine’s drone industry and digitize other government departments.

Mr. Zelenskyy had been expected to nominate Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko to succeed Mr. Fedorov, but Mr. Klymenko has reportedly declined the post amid public protests over Mr. Fedorov’s ouster, leaving the defense post temporarily vacant as a political crisis plays out in Kyiv and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine churns through its fifth summer.

The Pentagon’s inspector general warns in a major new report that the Army and its defense industry partners are far short of the monthly production target of at least 100,000 rounds set by the National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan.

As of March, the Army had increased its total monthly production to just 36,000 rounds, according to the inspector general report, which said production is expected to hit 71,000 rounds per month — still nearly 30% short of the overall goal.

The 155 mm artillery rounds are crucial for the U.S. military and the armed forces of allies such as Ukraine and Israel, both of which have received huge quantities of the ammunition in recent years. Sources tell Threat Status the situation is a tangible example of how the U.S. defense industrial base cannot produce weapons, ammunition and other key warfighting tools quickly enough.

China’s recent test of a long-range ballistic missile did not launch from a submerged submarine but was fired from the ocean’s surface near the coast, according to a senior Taiwanese defense intelligence official.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz obtained new details of the provocative July 6 missile launch, which remains shrouded in secrecy, despite condemnation by the U.S. and several regional states.

Mr. Gertz writes in his Inside the Ring column that Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy director of the Taiwan Defense Ministry’s intelligence office, testified to lawmakers in Taipei that China’s missile launch took place from a surfaced submarine, raising questions among defense analysts about the People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine capability, specifically its underwater missile launch expertise.

In December 2022, the U.S. Army officially chose Texas-based Bell Textron’s V-280 Valor as the winner of its competitive Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program. Now designated as the MV-75 Cheyenne II, the unique tilt-rotor aircraft will eventually replace the venerable UH-60 Black Hawk as the Army’s main workhorse aircraft.

The Belgium-based company Syensqo is involved, announcing this week that it’s providing advanced composite materials for critical components of the MV-75. A Syensqo press release quoted Ryan Ehinger, the director of Bell’s MV-75 program, as saying: “The MV-75 Cheyenne represents a transformational leap in vertical lift capability, combining speed, range and reliability.”

Military officials say the MV-75 Cheyenne will dramatically expand the service’s operational reach. The aircraft is capable of flying nearly twice as fast as a Black Hawk while covering more than twice the distance — factors that are key to confronting “the tyranny of distance” faced by American forces operating in the Indo-Pacific region.

• July 20 — Takeaways from Ankara, Turkey: Debriefing the 2026 NATO Summit with Rep. Mike Turner, Ohio Republican, Hudson Institute

• July 20-29 — Project Convergence-Capstone 6, U.S. Army

• July 21 — AI+ Discovery Summit, Special Competitive Studies Project

• July 22 — Expanding U.S. Investment in the Western Hemisphere, Atlantic Council 

• July 22 — How Ukraine’s Deep-strike Campaign is Causing Cracks in the Kremlin, Atlantic Council

• July 23 — The Path Ahead for U.S.-South Korea Shipbuilding, Stimson Center

• Aug. 4-5 — Air and Space Force Procurement Conference, American Defense Alliance

• Aug. 5-6 — Border Security & Intelligence Summit, Defense Strategies Institute