'Drone warfare has become cheap and commercially available'

Despite FBI warning, Iran likely can’t strike US homeland with military drones

Experts say Tehran probably lacks the ability to attack the American mainland with military aircraft, although a domestic terror plot using commercially available drones is a threat

Last week, reports surfaced that the FBI had issued a warning about potential Iranian drone attacks on California.

Federal and state officials downplayed the threat, saying there were no indications of an imminent attack.

“No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

Some still took the danger seriously, though — the Academy Awards, held in Los Angeles over the weekend, beefed up security due to fears of a possible attack.

But could Iran actually attack the US homeland with military drones? Two experts said it was unlikely Iran has the capability, although one added that a domestic terrorist attack using drones was more realistic.

“I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s a goal,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank who specializes in Iran, Turkey and the wider Middle East.

The initial FBI warning reportedly said that Iran “allegedly aspired” to a drone attack from an “unidentified vessel” off the coast, but did not say that Iran had the capability. The warning came immediately before the outbreak of the war and said it had “no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”

Leavitt said the warning was based on “one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip.”

Rubin, a former Pentagon official who has lived in Iran, said it was an aspiration for Iran because a successful attack would be a boon for the regime’s standing.

“The first foreign state power to attack the US since World War II would be a hook upon which Iranians could claim victory for a generation,” he said, noting that the Iranian regime still celebrates Operation Morvarid, a 1980 Iranian raid against Iraq.

Rubin said a potential drone attack could theoretically be launched from a cargo ship in the Pacific, or from Mexico. Iran reportedly has links to criminal networks and other bad actors in Latin America.

“It would not be too difficult to utilize them if the price is right,” Rubin said.

“The fact that previous administrations gave the Revolutionary Guards pallets of cash just underlines the fact that all things are possible,” he added, referring to the Obama and Biden administrations’ sanctions relief for Iran.

Iran has attacked Israel and Arab states since the start of the war with hundreds of drones and missiles.

Kateryna Bondar, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC, research institute, also said she doubted Iran could attack US territory with military drones.

“Bringing [military] drones close to the US coast on cargo ships, it’s pretty complicated. I don’t think Iran has such capability or has been planning this in advance,” she said, adding that Iran does not possess drones with the range to reach the US from Iranian territory. Iran’s military drones are believed to have a maximum range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles).

US intelligence, satellites, spectrum analysis and border defenses could all thwart such an attack, said Bondar, a former adviser to the Ukrainian government who has studied drone warfare in Ukraine and written about Iran’s use of drones in the war.

The Ukraine conflict has seen pioneering use of drones in warfare, particularly by Ukraine, which has used cheap unmanned aerial vehicles to defend against Russian attacks that often use Iran’s Shahed drone series.

Ukraine last week sent anti-drone experts to Middle Eastern Arab states under Iranian attack.

Bondar warned that a domestic terrorist attack using commercial drones was more of a threat. Iran is believed to have sleeper cells and sympathizers in other countries who could carry out attacks. The US has thwarted Iranian plots in the US, and Iran-linked attacks have been carried out in countries such as Argentina.

“Drone warfare has become very accessible, cheap and commercially available, so that it can be an act of terrorism here in the US,” Bondar said.

“Anyone can buy an FPV drone online on Amazon, attach an explosive device and there’s your flying IED,” she said, referring to off-the-shelf first-person-view drones and improvised explosive devices. “Not only Iran, but anyone can do that.”

She pointed to Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web last year, in which Ukrainian forces attacked strategic bomber aircraft at Russian airbases by launching explosive-laden drones from trucks near the targets in Russian territory, far from the front lines.

Such an attack on the US would not require military expertise or the complicated logistics that would be required to bring military drones near the US, Bondar said.

“It is so much easier than bringing a Shahed drone and cargo ship and risking and going over all the border patrol and the Coast Guard and all sorts of defenses on the border,” Bondar said. “Drones are just tools. Pretty easy to fly, to maneuver, to learn how to use. Anyone can do this, so it makes this threat even more feasible.”