A US official told NBC News that Iran has been launching several drones every night since Sunday from IRGC positions toward commercial and military vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The drones are intercepted by US forces before posing a threat. The report comes despite a memorandum of understanding signed that day.
A US official told NBC News Wednesday morning that Iran has been launching multiple drones every night since Sunday from positions operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) toward shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The official said US forces have intercepted the drones before they posed a threat to commercial vessels, US Navy ships, or American personnel in the region. The launches come despite the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran on Sunday, the same day the nightly drone campaign began.
As The Zioneer reported at 06:15 Wednesday — in a series of updates that initially cited an Israeli diplomatic source speaking to i24NEWS — the drone launches targeted commercial shipping in the strategic waterway and all were intercepted. By 06:15, open-source intelligence accounts also reported that the US military had struck Iranian ground control stations in addition to shooting down drones. The current NBC report, published around 07:44, is the first to directly attribute the launch campaign to the IRGC and to characterize it as a nightly pattern since Sunday. The US official's account remains single-sourced, with no independent Israeli or allied confirmation available at this stage.
As The Zioneer has previously reported, this development comes amid a broader backdrop of escalating US-Iran military exchanges in the Gulf region since early June, including IRGC claims of attacks on US Fifth Fleet assets in Bahrain, warning shots fired at US warships in the Gulf of Oman, and alleged drone and missile strikes on American bases across the Middle East — most of which US officials have dismissed or described as intercepted. The lack of damage or casualties reported in this latest incident is consistent with that pattern.
The scope of the nightly launches, the number of drones per wave, and whether any have come close to hitting their targets remain unclear from this report alone. No independent visual or signal evidence has been released to corroborate the US official's account.
5 developments
- ConfirmedCENTCOM intercepts Iranian suicide drones targeting commercial ships in Strait of Hormuz
- DevelopingUS shot down two Iranian drones after attempted strike on ships in Hormuz, Fox News reports
- DevelopingUS CENTCOM Downs Two Iranian Drones in Strait of Hormuz
- StrongIran continues cruise missile launches toward US warships in Strait of Hormuz
Source and signal
- Internal intake