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Are the Minions losing their pop culture hold? Minions & Monsters , the latest installment in the Despicable Me franchise, marks the third prequel entry and the seventh Despicable Me film. While the animated feature was praised by critics, earning a franchise-high Rotten Tomatoes score of 90%, its box-office performance has come up lacking. Minions & Monsters follows James and Henry ( Pierre Coffin ), two minions who belong to a different group from the ones that served Gru, with more artistic tendencies. One day, they stumble into Hollywood and become superstars until the introduction of sound in filmmaking, when the minions are unable to adapt due to their language. After getting fired, James plans to make his own movie, but to make it a success, they need to find a giant monster.

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Somali pirate attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden region are on the rise, according to the U.N ., a naval task force and a joint naval communications operation . The spike comes amid ongoing tensions in the Persian Gulf between the U.S. and Iran, and one regional military task force tells us these Somali Pirate Action Groups (PAGs) may be taking advantage of that situation. Meanwhile, a think tank suggests that the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen are aiding these pirates in a form of so-called gray zone conflict.

Regardless, these incidents are posing increased security risks to a commercial shipping industry already roiled by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and its ongoing aftermath , which is starting to heat up again after about a week of calm.

The most recent pirate attack took place on Sunday .

“Yesterday, I was informed that a Palau-flagged vessel Lady Naeima , a bulk carrier, was attacked in the Red Sea by pirates,” the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez told a meeting of the organization on Monday . “ At the moment it is navigating towards the next destination and the crew is safe, but it is a reminder to flag States, shipowners and vessel operators to remain alert and use the Best Management Practices to combat these incidents.”

Bulk carrier attacked off Yemen continues toward India

A bulk carrier has reportedly come under attack by unknown armed assailants off Yemen, prompting renewed warnings for vessels transiting the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The incident involving the Palau-flagged bulk… pic.twitter.com/1yLznhK09J

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) July 6, 2026

There was another attempted attack on July 2 when pirates approached the St. Vincent and Grenadines-flagged bulk carrier MV Golden Arsenal , according to the Indian Navy.

MV Golden Arsenal, a St. Vincent and the Grenadines-flagged bulk carrier, en route from Aden, Yemen, with 21 crew members, including one Indian national, reported an attempted pirate attack approximately 300 nautical miles east-northeast of Djibouti on the afternoon of #01Jul 26.… pic.twitter.com/1wf4E3F35L

— SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) July 2, 2026

The IMO on Monday also called for the “safe release of 44 seafarers held captive in Somali waters by pirates and armed robbers.”

“The seafarers are being held aboard three detained vessels: the MT Honour 25 ,  Eureka and  Sward , which were hijacked in separate incidents between April and May off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden,” Dominguez explained.

The crews “are running critically low on food and water while living under the constant threat of violence,” he added.

“The incidents have highlighted worsening trends in global maritime security, particularly for piracy and armed robbery in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden,” Dominguez postulated. “Over the past three months alone, IMO has recorded 24 attempted and actual incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in the region, involving increasingly dangerous weapons and escalating violence against innocent seafarers.”

IMO’s figures represent a big increase over the past.

“Between 2005 and 2012, pirate groups earned between $339 million and $413 million, according to World Bank estimates. The European Union’s counterpiracy mission Operation Atalanta recorded 26 pirate attacks between 2013 and 2019 and then no attacks from 2020 to 2022,” according to U.S. Africa Command’s Africa Defense Forum . “But piracy off the Somali coast resumed with six attacks in 2023 and surged to 22 in 2024.”

Pakistani crew members aboard hijacked MT Honour 25 plead for urgent help from Pakistan government. New video shows deteriorating situation for the Pakistani crew: pic.twitter.com/nlEKrmYsw8

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) June 17, 2026

The recent spike in pirate attacks spurred the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) to raise the threat level in the region .

“The threat level is assessed as SUBSTANTIAL following 7 piracy-related events since 11 June in the Gulf of Aden,” JMIC stated on Monday. “PAG operations are a strong possibility, particularly within coastal approaches, transit corridors, and other established small-craft operating areas.”

JMIC

The European Naval Force Somalia Operation Atalanta counter-piracy military operation was launched in 2008 after an earlier and much larger increase in pirate activity in the region. It was one of several multinational efforts to combat piracy introduced around that period, including NATO’s Operation Allied Provider and Allied Protector . Pirate attacks also led to shipping companies hiring armed private security forces to protect their vessels. The pace of pirate attacks has ebbed and flowed over the ensuing years and while far from the peak levels of the early 2010s , these efforts continue.

A spokesperson for Atalanta told us that “in recent months, we have seen a peak in the piracy events in the area. There are different reasons that are likely behind the situation we are currently living with piracy, some of them are recurrent like the weather at sea or the difficult situation for some of the Somali population; others are related to the current instability in the area.”

The situation in the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran largely closed off after being attacked on Feb. 28, is creating “indirect influences” that have led to increased pirate attacks, Atalanta told us.

“The indirect influence in the area could be seen in the increase of the maritime insecurity in the area and how this situation creates a window of opportunity for the pirates to act due to the increase of attention in other areas of the region,” an Atalanta spokesperson told us. “Also the limitation to access some ports closer to the Strait of Hormuz due to the situation.”

A view of commercial cargo vessels and crude oil tankers anchored in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of Muscat, Oman, on June 21, 2026, as they prepare to transit through the critical Strait of Hormuz. (Photo by Shady Alassar/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu

Meanwhile, as we noted earlier in this story, the American Security Project (ASP) think tank posited that the Somali pirates are being abetted by the Houthi rebels of Yemen.

“For the Houthis, instability generated by Somali piracy provides indirect strategic advantages by increasing maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Aden without requiring the Yemeni group to assume the significant risks associated with renewed escalation in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait,” an ASP report from May suggested. “A 2025 United Nations report indicated that the Houthis brokered arms transfer to al-Shabaab, in exchange for increased piracy targeting commercial vessels off the Somali coast. A report also suggests the Houthis equipped Somali pirates with advanced GPS tracking devices, enabling their disruption of commercial vessels. Speculation that the May 2 piracy attack happened in coordination with Houthi intelligence further reflects the increasing overlap between these groups.”

“Given Somalia’s proximity to key maritime routes, the resurgence raises concerns that Somali piracy may be leveraged as a tool to advance the maritime objectives of regional non-state actors,” ASP added. “Most notably, Houthis’ leverage of Somali piracy provides Iran and the Yemeni proxy group plausible deniability in maritime disruption amid the U.S.-Iran conflict, complicating regional security.”

This assessment is shared by AFRICOM.

“Authorities in semiautonomous Puntland State are warning that collaborations between Somali pirate groups and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen represent a major threat to maritime security in the Horn of Africa,” the command’s Africa Defense Forum reported in January . “The growing relationship between the Houthis and Somalia’s al-Qaida affiliate, al-Shabaab, includes ties to piracy and has resulted in pirate groups using more sophisticated weaponry and technology acquired from the Houthis.”

Gulf of Aden. (Google Earth)

As we previously reported , the Houthis carried out a campaign against shipping in November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians over the latest war between Israel and Gaza. It stretched into the summer of 2025, forcing some ships to avoid the Suez Canal for a far longer route around Africa, boosting shipping costs by nearly $200 billion at the time.

The Houthi attacks also forced the U.S. and allies to deploy many warships, including the Eisenhower and Truman Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) to both defend against Houthi attacks and strike targets in Yemen. These operations resulted in a large expenditure of air defense and strike munitions .

You can see video from some of those encounters below.

The Houthis have threatened to resume attacks in support of Iran, a potential scenario we explored in past reporting . On Monday, Operation Aspides , a European-led naval task force created to protect Red Sea commercial shipping, told us it is prepared to take action should the Houthis strike again.

“Until now, the Houthis have not initiated any attacks against the shipping industry (No attacks on MVs since September 2025),” an Aspides spokesperson told us. “The security situation in the Bab El-Mandeb, of course, remains fragile and is highly sensitive to regional escalation. From an operational standpoint, we assess that Houthis pose a threat and are capable of rapidly escalating.”

“We maintain a frequent presence at sea, monitor the situation, and adjust our actions when needed,” the spokesperson added. “In the event of a resumption of Houthi attacks on merchant vessels – which remains a possibility – we are present and ready to implement our mandate, within our means and capabilities.”

A French destroyer operating under EUNAVFOR ASPIDES provided support to a MV crossing the Area of Operations. (Aspides)

Despite the growing risk from pirates, a spokesperson for the Maersk shipping line told us that the company has resumed Red Sea transits that were paused during the Houthi attacks.

“Yesterday, we announced that one of our services will return to the Suez/Red Sea route instead of sailing around the Cape of Good Hope,” a Maersk spokesperson told us Tuesday morning. “Prior to that, we have in recent months done some one-offs by diverting some vessels to this passage, but not on a regular basis.”

The shaky ceasefire that has been in place since April 8 has reduced the risk of the Houthis resuming hostilities in the Red Sea. However, it is under strain again even as transits through the Strait of Hormuz have been increasing, though just a tiny fraction of what took place before the war.

“At least three tankers trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz via a route Iran has warned ships against using appeared to come under attack Tuesday,” CBS News reported. “Iran did not claim any of the attacks, but its state TV network said at least one vessel ignored warnings from Iranian forces.”

UPDATE 068-JMIC ADISORY NOTE

Click here to view the full advisory note https://t.co/YusqNRTxM4 #MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/kMzR4BHBYE

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) July 7, 2026

In the past, as we have frequently reported , U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has often responded to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping by hitting radar towers, drone launch sites and other targets in southern Iran. This has led to several rounds of tit-for-tat strikes that have threatened to restart the war. The conflict has been paused, despite sporadic flare-ups, as the two sides continue to seek a diplomatic solution.

Though Somali pirates don’t present anywhere near the same threat to shut down shipping in the Red Sea as the Houthis have, or as Iran did in the Strait of Hormuz, the situation is concerning. As we have noted earlier in this story, commercial shipping is already under stress in the region. An increase in pirate attacks only makes matters worse.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Pirate Attacks On Shipping Off The Horn Of Africa Spike appeared first on TWZ .

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PARIS — Marine Le Pen’s muted legal victory Tuesday leaves the far-right leader battered and bruised, but it also burnishes her reputation as France’s ultimate political survivor.

In an unexpected verdict, a three-judge panel upheld her conviction for embezzlement but reduced her five-year ban on running for office. The judges also sentenced her to a year of house arrest, which she said on Tuesday evening she would appeal.

Le Pen’s announcement Tuesday that she will stand as her party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election anyway means Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old protégé she had said would replace her, will now campaign alongside her as her prospective prime minister.

“I am the candidate for the presidential election,” she said on the French television channel TF1, with National Rally President Jordan Bardella as her lieutenant.

“We offer the French a duo, president and prime minister, and this duo is solid and has very strong convictions,” she added. “We are a winning ticket.”

Le Pen — a veteran of three previous presidential campaigns — is now set to once again lead her party in a fourth quest to seize one of the world’s most powerful offices, one that concentrates sweeping executive authority in the hands of a leader who oversees the globe’s seventh-largest economy, commands a nuclear-armed state and represents a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

What remains unclear is whether Le Pen can succeed where she has thrice failed, especially with the added burden of another legal battle and a possible final criminal conviction.

While she is likely to have little trouble rallying the party faithful, polls taken before the verdict suggested she would likely make it to the second-round runoff but lose if she then faces off against a centrist candidate.

Resurrection

It is not the first time Le Pen has been written off as a political has-been — most notably after her disastrous 2017 debate performance against Emmanuel Macron — only to come back stronger.

Le Pen is “a better candidate than Bardella,” said an official belonging to Edouard Philippe’s center-right Horizons party. “She’s become a more reassuring figure and has widened her appeal.”

“This woman is very intelligent. She is not here by accident,” said far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon last month. “And if she is a candidate for the fourth time, there won’t be any sniggering about her as an opponent.”

Her supporters believe she now has her best shot yet at reaching the Elysée Palace. Since she lost to Macron in the 2022 runoff with 41 percent of the vote, her far-right National Rally has become the most popular party in the country.

Le Pen’s legal ordeal could even give her “a special aura” among supporters who see her as being persecuted, said Philippe Olivier, a member of the European Parliament with the National Rally.

But while it may prove a boost among the base, it could hamper her efforts to win over new voters, particularly those on the traditional conservative right.

Her opponents have already started rounding on her. Communist leader Fabien Roussel wrote online that “such a conviction … should prevent someone from standing before the French people as a candidate.”

‘Clarification’

The aftermath of the verdict is likely to trigger what political analyst Jean-Yves Camus called a “clarification” within the party.

“Their political platforms will not be the same,” said Camus, a specialist in the far right for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. “We have already seen divergences between Le Pen and Bardella.”

In the days before Tuesday’s court ruling, Le Pen appeared resigned to being forced out of the presidential race and ready to focus on helping Bardella win the presidency.

At her most recent political rally in the city of Liévin, one of her northern strongholds, she was filmed dancing, singing and quoting French resistance songs. “If the judicial system bans me from running in the presidential election, it’s with great energy, great conviction and great trust that I will support every day, and until victory, the candidacy of Jordan Bardella,” she said .

For many National Rally officials, as well as much of the wider political establishment, the conversation had already shifted to what a Bardella candidacy would look like, with some far-right figures going as far as to endorse the 30-year-old National Rally president.

Taking back control

As Le Pen reclaims full control of her party, she will have to address the policy differences that have fueled tensions within it in recent months.

While Bardella has supported Le Pen’s efforts to distance the far right from her father’s legacy, he also energetically courted conservative voters in an attempt to reinvent the party as a more conventional, business-friendly force. In surveys taken before the verdict, he had been polling ahead of his mentor.

Le Pen, who instinctively supports a strong, protectionist state, has pushed back on Bardella’s efforts to soften the party’s position on pensions and a windfall tax on energy firms .

“Marine Le Pen has a solid core of supporters and isn’t going to change much, whereas the other one [Bardella] we don’t really know what he stands for,” Arnaud Péricaud, Philippe’s spokesperson, said ahead of the verdict.

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The feedback landed in a first-month check-in at my job: “You’re great, but you can be hard to get hold of.” I didn’t know what to do with that. I was in the middle of getting my PhD, and I needed to find full-time work to raise funds for my studies. In contrast to the doctorate — which involved disappearing for long, quiet stretches to think hard about a single problem — this work seemed to center on how fast you answered a Slack message. I found this odd. Nobody who knows me would say that I’m a fast responder on any media: text, email, or call — partly thanks to my instinct to guard the hours when my brain is sharpest, spend them on the thing that matters most, and let the small stuff sit. Apparently, the currency at work, according to my manager, was different.

It took me years to understand that my manager and I were each half right, and that Cal Newport, an author and professor of computer science, had already mapped the whole misunderstanding.

Pseudo-productivity

Newport has a name for what my manager was really asking for: “pseudo-productivity,” which he describes as using “visible activity as a crude proxy for useful effort.” Knowledge work never inherited a clean measure of output, so we reached for the crudest one on the shelf, which is motion. Are you at your desk? Are you answering emails? Do you have the appearance of being focused, your calendar is full, and therefore the image of being important?

“It’s no longer you just see me in my office looking vaguely busy,” Newport says. “You can actually see every email I’m sending and how active I am in a Slack chat.” Responsiveness became the currency and the standard because it was a literally visible metric.

In my PhD, I’d been insulated from that nonsense. At the start, I was handed a key to an office and told that they would see me four years later. Good luck. My output was a dissertation and a few papers, to be judged by the quality of the thinking held within. So I’d learned to spend my best hours on the hardest problem in front of me and check email whenever I surfaced for air. And depending on when you might have seen me during the day, it might have looked like nothing (naps were commonplace). But I learned the hard way that a good 30 minutes was worth four hours, and a good three hours could be worth days of middling focus.

The instinct turned out to be sound, and the research is on my team here. Every quick reply we make (text, email, Slack, Teams, etc.) is a context switch, moving from one task to another. It takes a while for the brain to fully focus on the new task or return to the original one, so these are not cost-free switches. Psychologist Sophie Leroy named the tax: “attention residue,” the slice of your mind still stuck on the last thing when you start the next, and it takes time for you to reach full attention again.

Continuous partial attention

In his 2024 book Slow Productivity , Newport folds in a related idea from the researcher Linda Stone : “continuous partial attention,” the state where you are mostly on one task while checking Slack every few minutes.

“If you could look inside your skull,” Newport says, “what you see is a train wreck.” Stay reachable all day, and no single task ever gets your full capacity, which means almost all of us are living in a state of constant, unfocused attention.

Still, my manager was right about some things. Complete non-responsiveness, on its own, is not discipline. It’s just being hard to reach, and possibly being an ass. What the PhD never forced me to build, because I mostly worked alone, was the other half of the equation: a way for people to trust that the important things would still get picked up on handoffs.

Fortunately, Newport’s real argument is not “withdraw.” It is to “educate and replace.” You take the availability people have learned to lean on, and you swap it for a system they can lean on instead. The predictability matters for others to be able to trust you.

Two mechanisms do most of the work. The first is office hours: set windows, daily or every other day, where you are genuinely reachable. “Jump on the phone, jump in my office, jump on Zoom, we can figure this out in five minutes.” ( My addition to this is to genuinely and consistently hold those boundaries. If you don’t respect them, no one else will. ) The second is the docket-clearing meeting: a shared document where anything non-urgent gets parked, then worked through together a few times a week in alignment with the highest priorities for your boss and/or the team.

Together, these help you move away from the promise of “I’ll answer the second you ask” (sacrificing the important for the urgent) and toward “nothing you need will fall through the cracks.” That second promise is the one people actually want resolved.

So please, don’t detonate your inbox this week. This is a slow build over time. Pick a single channel and give it a structure other people can see. Post two office-hour windows, and when a “quick q” lands outside them, reply once with where it goes: “I am focused on X right now. Let’s take this at 2 tomorrow, or drop it on the team doc, and we’ll clear it Thursday.”

The first few times may feel difficult. That’s ok. It will be an ongoing navigation and negotiation with others, but if you stick with it, you can get things done on schedule, with your full attention instead of a fragment of it. Non-responsiveness protects your best work only when it comes with a visible promise that the important things still land. Without the system, you’re just hard to reach. With it, you’re exercising judgment about where your attention goes to do the most important work.

What could you make next week if your sharpest three hours belonged to the most important work instead of the false urgency of your inbox?

This article The case for not responding to every little work message is featured on Big Think .

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Credit: Sanuj Bhatia / Android Authority

TL;DR

Android Auto finally gets motorcycle-first navigation, with Sygic’s Motorbike Mode bringing a purpose-built riding experience to compatible motorcycle dashboards.

Riders get larger maps, hazard and speed limit alerts, voice guidance through Bluetooth helmet systems, and controls that work with native motorcycle buttons.

Sygic says it added Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support after users requested dashboard integration following the feature’s smartphone debut.

There has never been a shortage of navigation apps for Android Auto , but if you ride a motorcycle, your options have been surprisingly few. Most of the mapping services built into Google’s driving platform are for cars, so riders have to make do with phone mounts or dedicated GPS units for features like twisty-road routing and ride-specific data.

Things are beginning to change, though. Sygic today announced its motorcycle-centric Motorbike Mode now runs natively through Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, giving compatible motorbike dashboards a purpose-built riding experience for the first time. The rollout is also one of the first dedicated motorcycle navigation experiences available through Android Auto, giving riders more than a scaled-down version of a car navigation app.

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Satellite imagery shows China has built what looks to be a new pattern of hardened structures with retractable roofs at a key missile test and training base in Inner Mongolia. Since the late 2010s, this base has also played a key role in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) dramatic expansion of its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities. The more recent additions to the facility appear to be too small and shallow for this purpose. A new report posits they could be used to fire smaller ballistic and/or cruise missiles, and might point to plans for a new “conventional quick-strike capability.”

The China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), part of the U.S. Air Force’s Air University, first called attention to the two new structures yesterday. Though CASI published the report, it stressed that the “opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the author,” Eli Turk, and “do not necessarily represent the views of the Air University, the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other U.S. government agency.” Tirk is a member of CASI’s staff.

“The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) has constructed an unknown type of fixed launch system at the 1st Test and Training District in Jilantai that appears capable of launching multiple missiles,” Tirk writes. “Construction began sometime in late 2022, and, at least externally, appeared to be near completion by late 2023.”

A satellite image of the site in question, taken on on December 5, 2022. Vantor via the China Aerospace Studies Institute

A close-up look at one of the new hardened structures with a retractable roof, as seen on January 28, 2026. Vantor via the China Aerospace Studies Institute

The report includes satellite images of the site taken in September and December 2022, as well as January of this year, as seen above and below.

“The excavation for the northern launcher … measures roughly 12.5 meters [40 feet] deep when the image was captured [in September 2022]. While it is possible that this foundation was dug deeper, it is not likely that it would have been significantly deeper, given the potential size of the finished interior of the launch system,” according to Tirk. “The limited imagery available of the finished structure prior to the installation of the launcher closure door restricts more accurate measurement, but this structure appears to be somewhere between 6.4 meters and 11.8 meters [21 to 38 feet] in depth.”

Another satellite image of the site while it was under construction, taken on September 10, 2022. Vantor via the China Aerospace Studies Institute

Additional satellite imagery TWZ has reviewed from PlanetLabs shows the rectangular retractable roofs to be approximately 65.5 feet (20 meters) long and just over 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide. The roofs also look to open by sliding sideways along three large rails.

There is at least one other large structure at the site, which could be used for various support functions. There may be additional infrastructure underground. It is also worth noting here that the area with the new hardened structures is connected by road to an earlier facility immediately to the northeast. The tertiary site has several additional large structures contained within a clearly visible perimeter wall.

The roof design, at least, has some broad similarities to the covers on silos associated with older DF-5-series ICBMs , which are also rectangular in shape. For further comparison, the cover on a known ICBM test silo at Wuzhai , some 350 miles to the East of Jilantai, is nearly 74 feet (22.5 meters) long and around 29.5 feet (9 meters) wide. It also slides open to one side along two large rails. Underneath is a tubular silo that would have to be at least around 131 feet (40 meters) deep based on the dimensions of DF-5.

A satellite image of the test silo in Wuzhai taken in October 2025. Google Earth

Another, lower-quality satellite image of the silo in Wuzhai, taken in October 2009, which shows the cover retraced and the tubular silo underneath. Google Earth

Silos constructed at Jilantai and other sites in China since the late 2010s, associated with newer DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs , have completely different lid designs.

nice oblique shot of a silo in the Jilantai #PLARF test site

39.724955° 105.456538° pic.twitter.com/ElLQ6vmmfo

— ben-reuter (@benreuter_IMINT) January 25, 2025

The new structures appear “to have a shorter depth than silos intended for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), suggesting that it may support short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), and cruise missiles,” per Tirk’s assessment. “Assuming the actual depth of the launch system is closer to the maximum range, these measurements suggest that these structures would likely be able to support up to an MRBM-class missile, assuming the roughly 10-meter length [nearly 33 feet] of a DF-21 or 11-meter length [approximately 36 feet] of a DF-17. It is also highly likely that this launch structure could easily accommodate SRBMs and cruise missiles.”

The DF-21 is a traditional MRBM design , and there is an anti-ship variant with a reentry vehicle capable of a certain degree of maneuvering in the terminal phase of flight. Though MRBM-sized, the DF-17 is topped with a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle and functions in a completely different manner from typical ballistic missiles. In general, hypersonic weapons of this type offer benefits when it comes to penetrating past enemy defenses and for prosecuting time-sensitive targets at long ranges, as you can learn more about here .

The DF17 launch revealed for 60th anniversary pic.twitter.com/uEao99RqqM

— Hûrin (@Hurin92) June 19, 2026

“While there may be space within this launch structure to store a small number of missiles horizontally that are erected vertically prior to launch, a more efficient configuration appears to be a vertical launch system,” he adds “A vertical launch system would enable the massing of fires for effect, reduce signatures, and maintain the flexibility to employ a variety of different munitions from a single launcher simultaneously, enabling these units to conduct rapid strikes against numerous target types.”

How missiles would be loaded into the launch system is unclear and would depend on its exact design. A specialized loading vehicle or at least a crane might be necessary. There is no indication that the structures allow for road-mobile transporter-erector-launchers to simply drive inside and fire through the open roof.

Tirk also raises the possibility that the site could be tied to Chinese ballistic missile defense developments . The line between ballistic missiles and mid-course anti-ballistic missile interceptors , as well as ground-launched anti-satellite interceptors , is often blurry. The U.S. Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) is notably a silo-launched design, as is Russia’s A-135 .

However, Tirk also notes that the base at Jilantai primarily serves the PLARF. This branch of the PLA is not known to have a major missile or air defense role. That responsibility largely falls to the PLA Air Force (PLAAF). There are no signs of radars or other features associated with these missions, either. As TWZ has previously reported on in detail , we have seen different types of hardened and unhardened structures with retractable roofs emerge near the border with India and on islands in the South China Sea that do look to be air defense sites.

A satellite image taken on September 29, 2026, showing what appears to have been a new pattern of air defense site, featuring hardened structures with retractable roofs. Satellite image ©2025 Vantor

Other significant additions to the facilities at Jilantai have been observed in recent years. As already noted, this has been especially heavily intertwined with China’s construction of hundreds of new ICBM silos and associated infrastructure spread across three separate fields in the north and western ends of the country.

A US military graphic detailing ICBM silo construction at three new sites China in recent years. US military

Overall, Tirk posits that the new structures at Jilantai might reflect “an intent to field a conventional quick-strike capability for a counter-intervention mission set, or possibly to conduct strikes against Taiwan, both of which would provide the PLA with additional capabilities to influence U.S. strategic decision-making.”

“A conventional quick strike capability, like that provided by a vertical launch system, could make PLA leadership more confident in their ability to compel Taiwan and U.S. behaviors during a crisis by threatening or conducting rapid preparatory strikes or counterintervention fires in the early stages of a conflict,” he adds. “Building out these launch systems in sufficient quantities could allow the PLA to rapidly escalate from a quarantine or blockade of Taiwan to conducting elements of a massive preparatory fires campaign against targets on Taiwan, U.S. bases in the first island chain, or U.S. Navy task groups if positioned along the coast.”

A graphic included in the Pentagon’s 2025 report on Chinese military developments showing the general ranges of various shorter-range ballistic missiles and surface-to-air missiles in relation to Taiwan. US military

“Fixed launching options, however, are difficult to conceal, protect with active defenses and – depending on their location – potentially of limited utility for continued use after their first launch. Expansive investment in this type of system may provide significant “use or lose” incentives to the PLA leadership in the event of an escalating crisis,” he also notes. “It is currently unclear how many of these systems the PLARF intends to construct, which PLARF Base they will be deployed under, and the specific mission set they are intended to support.”

There is still the possibility that these structures could serve another purpose, even just within the PLARF. In particular, if the foundation was dug deeper, this could fundamentally change the assessment. From the outside, the roofs do still look to be too narrow for there to be a traditional silo underneath for any of China’s known ICBMs. That being said, a deeper foundation could accommodate intermediate ballistic missiles (IRBM) or hypersonic types that use larger ballistic missile-type boosters, but that are still smaller than an IBCM. The DF-26 family of IRBMs , at least some variants of which are understood to be capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads, is a particularly key component of the PLARF’s arsenal, and might also benefit from a new fixed launch infrastructure. Like the DF-21, there is also an anti-ship version of the DF-26 .

Hardened structures with retractable roofs could conceal other assets beyond launchers for any kind of missile, too. TWZ has previously highlighted other hangar-like structures with retractable roofs, some of which are camouflaged, in an area known as Korla East in the western end of the country. PLAN facilities in this region have been tied to work on missile defense, anti-satellite, directed energy weapon, and electromagnetic pulse technologies, as you can read more about here . Still, this seems less likely to be the case given the PLARF-centric nature of the Jilantai base and the other construction that has been observed there since the late 2010s.

A 2021 satellite image showing hangar-like structures with retractable roofs at Korla East. PHOTO © 2021 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

The new structures at the base in Jilantai also reflect a broader trend when it comes to hardened military infrastructure in China, as well as elsewhere globally. As we wrote last year, after the emergence of the apparent new pattern of hardened air defense sites near China’s border with India:

“The shelters with retractable roofs at the sites in Gar County and near Pangong Lake also highlight a larger trend when it comes to physical hardening, or at least ‘enclosing,’ that has been observed at Chinese military facilities in recent years. There has been a particularly visible surge in the construction of new hardened aircraft shelters, as well as unhardened, but fully enclosed hangars, at air bases across China, including ones situated on the Tibetan Plateau.”

China has completed the construction of 36 hardened aircraft shelters,new administrative blocks& a new apron at its Lhunze airbase in Tibet. Gives China the option of forward-deploying fighter aircraft & drone systems in its arsenal & reduces the response time needed for the IAF pic.twitter.com/g3kRXpyuRg

— Varun Karthikeyan (@Varun55484761) October 29, 2025

Latest images of #China 's Lhasa Gonggar Airport approximately 300 km from #Doklam show apron upgrades along with new Hardened Aircraft Shelters adding a dramatic boost to the PLAAF's capabilities in the region & along the Indo-Sino border #IndiaChinaStandoff pic.twitter.com/GTO921TFgP

— Damien Symon (@detresfa_) September 16, 2020

PLA Air Force had 370 Hardened Air Shelters (HAS) and 1100 regular ones in 2010. This increased to 800+ and 2300+ respectively in 2024, according to Hudson Institute.

Storage tunnels dug up in mountains and hardened storage sites for missiles and other war supplies are extra. pic.twitter.com/DQeQbXnGN9

— Jaidev Jamwal (@JaidevJamwal) January 21, 2025

“Vast fields of new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles have also been built in the western end of China over the past few years. This is all on top of the PLA’s existing array of hardened infrastructure, which includes deeply buried air and naval bases .”

“Chinese construction of new hardened and unhardened aircraft shelters, in particular, is reflective of larger global trends, including in Russia , North Korea , and Iran , as well. It has also stood in notable contrast to the lack of such developments in the United States, something that has become a topic of heated debate, which TWZ has been tracking very closely .”

“ Growing threats posed by long-range, one-way attack drones , which offer a relatively low-cost way to launch large volume strikes , especially against fixed targets like air bases and air defense sites, have become a particularly significant factor in the hardening debate. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb also underscored the threats that smaller, shorter-range drones can pose to aircraft and other assets out in the open, and in areas far away from active combat zones. Drones could also be layered in with the many other methods of attack that would be used against the same array of targets.”

Though questions remain about their exact purpose, and the concepts of operations behind them, the new hardened structures with retractable roofs in Jilantai might be a sign of things to come.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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