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US turns to drones after retiring minesweepers to reopen Strait of Hormuz amid Iran crisis
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The U.S. is racing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as Iran threatens one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes, testing a Navy that has recently retired most of its dedicated minesweepers and is now relying on a smaller fleet of unmanned systems to do the job.
President Donald Trump has warned Tehran against further escalation and signaled the U.S. is prepared to act to keep the strait open, while Iranian forces have laid mines and threatened commercial traffic in the narrow waterway that carries a significant share of global oil.
The confrontation is now testing a weakness in the Navy’s mine-warfare posture. As the U.S. moves to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian mining threats, it is doing so after retiring most of the ships once dedicated to that mission and while still relying on a limited mix of legacy vessels and newer unmanned systems to clear one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
At the current moment, any mine-clearing effort is unfolding amid an active standoff in the strait. The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, while Iran has responded with attacks on commercial vessels, seizures of ships and threats to close the waterway entirely.
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The merchant vessel Seaway Hawk sails in the Persian Gulf while transporting decommissioned U.S. Navy Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships, USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator and USS Sentry. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Iain Page /U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / U.S. 5th Fleet)
At least several commercial ships have come under fire in recent days, and both sides have intercepted vessels as they attempt to move through the choke point, underscoring the risks facing any operation to restore traffic.
Iran has tied further negotiations to the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, while Washington has insisted on security guarantees and reopening the strait, leaving little immediate path to a deal.
The operation comes after a major shift in how the Navy handles mine warfare. The service retired its four Bahrain-based minesweepers last year, ending a decades-long presence of dedicated mine-hunting ships in the Middle East.
At the start of the current crisis, the Navy’s remaining minesweepers were based in Japan, not the Persian Gulf, and newer littoral combat ships equipped for mine countermeasures were not all positioned in the region.
Multiple news outlets have reported Iran has laid at least a dozen mines in the strait, citing intelligence assessments, though some estimates put the number higher.
Now, as the U.S. moves to reopen the strait, some of those assets are being brought back in. Two Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships, USS Chief and USS Pioneer, were tracked sailing west from Southeast Asia toward the Middle East in recent days as preparations for mine-clearing operations ramp up.
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Image shows the Turkish Navy’s version of the mine-sweeping drone. (Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The shift has left the Navy relying on a mix of legacy ships being surged into theater and newer unmanned systems designed to detect and neutralize mines.
«To be honest, that the minesweepers retired was never a concern to me, because we had brought in newer technology,» retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, who previously commanded the Navy’s 5th Fleet, told Fox News Digital.
But analysts say the Navy is still working through a transition as it replaces its older minesweepers with newer systems.
«We’re sort of at this nadir of the Navy’s mine sweeping capacity,» Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital.
Clark said the Navy has spent years developing unmanned systems to replace legacy ships, but currently has a limited number of those systems available for large-scale operations.
U.S. forces are not sending ships blindly into minefields. Instead, the operation begins with a wave of unmanned systems scanning the seabed to identify potential threats.
Underwater drones — some torpedo-shaped — are deployed in grid patterns to map the ocean floor and detect objects that could be mines, using high-resolution sonar to distinguish them from debris.
«They kind of look like torpedoes and they map the bottom,» Donegan said.
In parallel, surface drones tow sonar systems through narrow lanes, while helicopters equipped with sensors scan for mines closer to the surface, allowing the Navy to build a detailed picture of what is actually in the water.
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But identifying mines is only the first step.
«The mine neutralization part is really the long leg of the process,» Clark said.
Once a mine is located, operators deploy remotely controlled systems to disable it — either by detonating it in place or puncturing it so it sinks. Even then, the danger is not fully removed.
«You’ve got to then retrieve this thing with EOD personnel,» Clark said, referring to explosive ordnance disposal teams tasked with clearing debris that can still pose a hazard to passing ships.
The U.S. Navy has currently launched a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz amid a standoff with Iran. (Photo by Stephanie Contreras- U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
Clearing mines remains a slow and methodical process that can stretch timelines depending on how many devices are in the water and how they are deployed.
The Pentagon has told Congress the effort could take as long as six months, according to a Washington Post report.
Clark said recent war-gaming suggests U.S. forces could identify and begin neutralizing mines within weeks, but fully removing them from key shipping lanes could take significantly longer.
«The finding part, you could do within a couple of weeks,» he said, adding that neutralizing mines could take additional time and that removing debris and ensuring lanes are completely safe could extend operations into months.
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Donegan cautioned that timelines are difficult to predict, in part because U.S. forces must first confirm whether mines are actually present in the areas Iran has claimed.
«When somebody says they mined it, you have to go validate if that’s even true, and that takes time,» he said.
us navy, middle east, pentagon, war with iran, iran
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Trump vows to ‘get to the bottom’ of Fed’s multibillion-dollar building renovation after probe shift
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A day after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced she had directed her office to close its investigation into the Federal Reserve over a building project, President Donald Trump said he wants to know what happened.
«Well, I want to find out,» the president told reporters before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Saturday, after a journalist asked if he agreed with Pirro’s decision.
«You know, it’s not dropped,» he continued. «They’re looking into the whole thing about the crisis. What I want, with the IG, what I want to look at is how can a building that I could have done for $25 million cost $4 billion? That’s a big thing.»
Trump also mentioned Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying, «he was in charge.»
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President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell tour the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation project in Washington, D.C., in July. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
«So we’ll get to the bottom of it,» he added. «Yeah, I think Jeanine is fantastic. And she worked with other people on that. I tell you, I want to find out, I have an obligation to find that — this was done during Biden, but I have an obligation to find out how does it — I would have done that building for $25 million and had money left over. And it would have been open a long time ago.»
The Fed had an approved budget of $2.46 billion for the renovations, but went over budget because of things like more asbestos than expected and costs going up during the course of the renovation, the Fed says on its website.
Pirro said Friday the Fed’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, would take over the investigation, moving it from the hands of federal prosecutors into those of a longtime government watchdog.
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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced her office was closing the investigation into the Federal Reserve on Friday. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)
Powell was under investigation over statements he made to Congress related to the management of the renovation costs.
Powell revealed in a video announcement in January that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into the Fed, calling it an unprecedented attempt to use «intimidation» to force him to lower interest rates.
In the lead-up to the investigation, Trump and Powell’s relationship had grown increasingly rocky, as Trump became frustrated over interest rates and began targeting Powell, whom he nominated in 2017. Trump called Powell a «fool» and demanded in March that he drop rates «immediately.»
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has a background in finance and sits on the Senate Banking Committee, had vowed to block Kevin Warsh’s confirmation because of the DOJ’s investigation, after Trump nominated Warsh to replace Powell, whose term was set to expire on May 15.
Tillis had claimed the DOJ’s investigation was political and would improperly interfere with markets, and he accused Pirro of seeking «brownie points» with Trump by opening it. «It’s not cute,» Tillis said during a television interview in February.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in January claimed the investigation was political. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
During his confirmation hearing this week, Tillis told Warsh, who previously served on the Fed’s Board of Governors, that he had «extraordinary credentials» but that he could not vote to advance his nomination in the Senate until the DOJ ended its investigation.
Horowitz, who will now investigate the Fed building renovation costs, has drawn a mix of praise and criticism from Republicans while serving as DOJ inspector general for more than a decade. He was one of the few high-profile inspectors general spared during Trump’s historic cull of government watchdogs last year and has found allyship in key figures like House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Pirro closing the investigation could pave the way for Warsh’s nomination.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., says he couldn’t vote to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to head the Federal Reserve in the Senate until the DOJ ended its investigation. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
Trump said he wanted to see the investigation through «for the country.»
«It’s much tougher, much more expensive to build a hotel than an office,» the president said, mentioning his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., that he sold in 2022 and was renamed the Waldorf Astoria.
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He continued, «I want to find out how can a building of that size cost for whatever it’s going to be. Nobody knows, by the way, what it’s going to be. Kevin is going to be fantastic. Kevin Warsh, he may never get to be in that building.»
Trump told reporters that his nomination should now going smoothly, «but whether it is or not, somebody has to find out why that building that should have cost $25 million is costing billions of dollars. And you know why they have to find it out? For other buildings, because that’s not the only one. I think that’s the most egregious example.»
Fox News’ Ashley Oliver and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
donald trump, federal reserve, costs, investigations, politics
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Days after Iran’s leadership projected a unified front, undermining the long-cited moderate-vs.-hardliner divide, President Donald Trump canceled planned talks with Tehran in Islamabad, Pakistan, citing «infighting and confusion» inside the regime.
Iranian-American experts argue that social media posts from Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and other key officials reveal that the «good cop, bad cop» tactic that the regime exploited to deceive adversaries and secure generous concessions in nuclear negotiations has collapsed.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump announced he canceled the trip, citing «too much time wasted on traveling» and «too much work!»
«Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership,’» the president added, noting «nobody knows who is in charge, including them.»
President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 1, 2026, updating the nation on the war in Iran. (Getty Images)
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«Also, we have all the cards, they have none!» Trump wrote. «If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!»
The implosion of the hardline-moderate dichotomy within the regime could have profound consequences for Trump’s approach to the atomic talks in Islamabad, experts said. Trump appeared to allude to a blurry divide between factions within Iran last week.
«Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), and it is CRAZY!» Trump wrote in an X post Thursday.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of Iran and second son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran. (Hamed Jafarnejad/ISNA/WANA/Reuters)
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei quickly fired back, claiming «due to the strange unity created among compatriots, a fracture has occurred in the enemy.»
«With practical gratitude for this blessing, cohesion has become even greater and more steel-like, and the enemies will become more wretched and diminished,» Khamenei wrote in a reply. «The enemy’s media operations, by targeting the minds and psyches of the people, intend to undermine national unity and security; may our negligence not allow this sinister intent to come to fruition.»
Mariam Memarsadeghi, a senior fellow at The Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder and director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, told Fox News Digital the Islamic Republic has, for decades, fooled Western policymakers by sending moderates to negotiations as a «window dressing for its terror and subjugation.»
A poster of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is pasted on a motorcycle windshield as government supporters gather in Tehran on April 9, 2026, marking the 40th day since the killing of his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
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The officials would then tell their counterparts that they are under pressure from hardliners, implying that the West must make concessions to strengthen them internally.
«Because of the war, the Trump administration is in a remarkably advantageous situation vis-à-vis the imperial terror state, one never before attempted, much less achieved,» Memarsadeghi said. «But every time Trump says regime change has already happened, he denies America the opportunity to finally, truly be rid of the world’s top sponsor of terror and the existential threat it poses not just to the people of Iran but to all the world.»
Navid Mohebbi, who worked as a Persian media analyst for the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau, cautioned that while rivalries and factions do exist within the Islamic Republic, they are united on the regime’s core principles.
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«Their disagreements are primarily over tactics, not fundamental direction,» Mohebbi told Fox News Digital, stressing that real decision-making power in Iran has always rested with the supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
«So-called moderates have never had the final say on key strategic issues and are often used to soften the regime’s image abroad,» he said. «From the perspective of the Iranian people, there has been little difference. Across administrations labeled ‘moderate’ or ‘hardline,’ the system has consistently relied on repression.»
Mohebbi cited the example of Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani, who presented himself as a moderate, but whose security forces violently killed 1,500 protesters during the November 2019 uprising.
Members of security forces watch over the crowd during a funeral procession for IRGC Navy Chief Alireza Tangsiri and other senior naval commanders killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes in late March in Tehran, Iran, on April 1, 2026. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
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«The same pattern has continued under Masoud Pezeshkian in the January 2026 protest massacre, reinforcing the reality that these labels have not translated into meaningful change on the ground,» he said.
A regional official, however, insisted there are clashes between moderates and hardliners in Iran. The official told Fox News Digital that Pezeshkian is a moderate, but he «could not even make good on his campaign promise regarding internet freedom. To be honest, he’s not even been able to do s—.»
«The joint reaction by the heads of the three branches of power was in response to Trump’s reference to the issue of rift, and also to the fact that there are indeed hardliners and moderates,» the official added. «Look, whenever Iran wants to make concessions, they throw moderates under the bus so that the moderates make a deal, and then, the hardliners blame them for the same concessions all of them had agreed to make.»
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Lawdan Bazargan, who was imprisoned by the Islamic Republic in the 1980s for her political dissident activities, told Fox News Digital that what officials are seeing now is not the disappearance of the divide, but the exposure of what that divide actually was.
«In reality, all of these figures — Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf [speaker of Iran’s parliament], Saeed Jalili [member of the Expediency Discernment Council], Pezeshkian, Ahmad Vahidi [head of the IRGC], Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei [head of Iran’s judiciary] — operate within the same ideological framework,» Bazargan said. «They are all committed to the preservation of the system, the projection of power in the region, and confrontation with what they define as ‘the forces of evil,’ namely the United States and Israel.»
mojtaba khamenei, middle east foreign policy, donald trump, war with iran, iran
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