INTERNACIONAL
Iran’s drone swarms challenge US air defenses as troops in Middle East face rising threats
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Cheap Iranian drone attacks are forcing the Pentagon to rapidly expand layered air defenses in the Middle East, as thousands of U.S. troops stationed across the region face an escalating aerial threat that is testing the limits of traditional missile defenses.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Tuesday its air defenses detected nine ballistic missiles and 35 drones launched by Iran. Eight missiles were intercepted while one fell into the sea.
Of the 35 drones, 26 were shot down and nine crashed on UAE soil, the country said.
IRAN WAR, 11 DAYS IN: US CONTROLS SKIES, OIL SURGES AND THE REGION BRACES FOR WHAT’S NEXT
The engagement highlights how the battlefield is shifting.
Ballistic missiles travel high and fast, allowing long-range interceptors such as the Patriot air defense system and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) to engage them predictably. Drone swarms, which Iran increasingly has relied on in recent exchanges, present a different challenge to U.S. forces.
They fly lower, move slower and often arrive in clusters, making them harder to detect and more likely to strain defenses built for high-speed threats.
U.S. troops already have been directly affected by one-way attack drones in the region. In a March 1 strike near Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, six American service members were killed and dozens wounded when an Iranian drone hit a tactical operations center.
Each interception also carries a cost.
High-end missile interceptors can run into the millions of dollars per shot.
Many of the drones they are designed to defeat are far cheaper and produced in large numbers — creating what defense officials have described as a growing «math problem» in modern warfare. The U.S. can end up firing expensive missiles at relatively inexpensive drones, a dynamic that becomes harder to sustain if attacks come in waves.
That imbalance is accelerating a push inside the Pentagon to expand a layered counter-drone strategy — combining short-range interceptors, electronic warfare tools and emerging technologies such as high-energy lasers.
For U.S. forces in the region, larger drone waves increase the odds that defenses are stretched, and that even one drone could reach a base or ship.
This marks the first sustained confrontation in which U.S. forces are facing large-scale, state-backed drone waves as a central feature of the battlefield — forcing commanders to adapt in real time and draw on lessons learned from Ukraine, where mass-produced Shahed drones reshaped air defense strategy.
An Iran-made Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicle is displayed at a rally in Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11, 2026. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/via Getty Images)
Lasers and staying power
Among the new U.S. systems drawing renewed attention are high-energy lasers.
Directed energy is being developed and tested for counter-drone missions and has been used in limited domestic contexts.
U.S. defense officials say lasers offer a potentially significant advantage: Once powered, they can fire repeatedly without expending traditional ammunition.
Unlike missile interceptors, which must be replaced after each launch, a laser system can continue engaging targets as long as sufficient power is available. In theory, that provides sustained defensive capacity during large drone waves.
«It’s a function now of our procurement system, moving those things to the troops as fast as we can,» retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. 5th Fleet, told Fox News Digital.
Donegan acknowledged the technology is real but not yet fully fielded across combat zones.
Scaling high-energy systems requires power generation, integration and infrastructure — all of which take time.
A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News Digital directed energy systems have been tested and employed to counter drones in combat scenarios and the Pentagon «continues to work to scale this capability as quickly as possible.»
Central Command, the U.S. military command tasked with overseeing the Middle East, declined to comment on whether lasers are part of its current drone defense system against Iran.
A Polish Army soldier carries an AS3 Surveyor interceptor drone, part of the U.S. «MEROPS» counter-drone system, during a live-fire demonstration at the Deba training grounds in Poland, Nov. 18, 2025. (tur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Building defensive depth
While lasers represent a longer-term evolution, commanders are relying on multiple defensive layers today.
The recent deployment of the Merops drone-on-drone interceptor into U.S. Central Command reflects that approach.
Developed by U.S.-backed defense firm Perennial Autonomy, Merops is a mobile counter-drone system that launches small interceptor drones from a truck-mounted platform to disable incoming threats. The system was battle-tested against Shahed drones in Ukraine and fielded in NATO countries such as Poland before being accelerated into the Middle East as drone activity intensified.
A former defense official familiar with counter-drone operations said effective counter-UAS capability depends on overlapping systems integrated around high-value targets rather than reliance on a single interceptor.
«Effective counter-UAS capability is overlapping,» the official said. «No one system solves the drone problem by itself.»
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U.S. ships in the region rely on short-range missile systems such as the Rolling Airframe Missile and Sea Sparrow, along with the Close-In Weapon System, a radar-guided rapid-fire gun that can engage threats at close range.
Ground-based defenses incorporate radar detection with specialized interceptors such as Raytheon’s Coyote family, designed to defeat small unmanned aircraft. Industry systems like Anduril’s Roadrunner add autonomous interceptor drones capable of engaging airborne threats and, in some configurations, returning for reuse.
Success begins with early detection. Radar systems track low-flying drones and give operators time to choose whether to jam, intercept or destroy incoming threats.
«We’ve built into the weapon systems of all our military platforms that are combatants counter-drone capability,» Donegan said.
The recent deployment of the Merops drone-on-drone interceptor into U.S. Central Command reflects that approach. (WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Lessons from Ukraine
Iran’s Shahed drones were refined during Russia’s war in Ukraine, where cities faced nightly waves of low-cost one-way attack aircraft. There, layered defenses combining short-range interceptors, electronic warfare and evolving technologies proved essential in absorbing sustained attacks.
Ukrainian officials have said some cities faced more than a hundred drones in a single night, forcing air defense crews to remain on alert for hours at a time.
Ukraine has since offered to share its battlefield experience with the United States and Gulf partners as Iranian drone activity expands in the Middle East.
Officials say those lessons are influencing U.S. planning.
«JIATF-401 is accelerating procurement of multiple counter-UAS capabilities across several combatant commands, including sensing radars, kinetic interceptors and other available systems, not just Merops, to expand layered defenses in the U.S. Central Command area of operations,» a U.S. official said.
«Some of the capabilities being surged to support our warfighters reflect lessons we are learning and technology we are transferring from the battlefield in Ukraine.»
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The result is expanding defensive depth — designed to absorb and defeat a threat that is inexpensive, persistent and increasingly central to modern warfare.
For the troops stationed at those bases and aboard those ships, that layered defense is what stands between a drone intercepted in the sky and one that reaches its target.
As drone production scales and tactics evolve, the contest between low-cost attack drones and layered air defenses playing out in Iran the future of warfare itself.
drones,war with iran,ukraine,conflicts defense
INTERNACIONAL
Trump-backed affordable housing overhaul clears Senate, while House GOP raises red flags
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A massive bipartisan swell advanced a Trump-backed affordable housing package out of the Senate on Thursday, but its fate in the House is up in the air.
The bill, renamed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act to incorporate a previous Senate housing bill that stalled last year, easily sailed through the upper chamber, given that many lawmakers support the wide-ranging slate of measures designed to increase the supply of affordable housing.
In its original form, the legislation was primarily intended to help first-time homebuyers and lower-income Americans enter the housing market or gain access to more affordable housing options.
BIPARTISAN HOUSING PUSH ADVANCES, BUT TRUMP-BACKED INVESTOR BAN FACES RESISTANCE
President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The Senate tweaked the legislation, adding a ban on institutional investors sought by President Donald Trump, who earlier this year signed an executive order barring the practice. During his State of the Union address last month, Trump urged Congress to codify the ban and said, «We want homes for people, not for corporations.»
That provision gave some heartburn, notably to Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and several industry groups, who warned that the way it was designed — forcing owners of 350 or more units to sell after seven years — would kneecap the build-to-rent market and harm the supply of rentals throughout the country.
That was not enough to slow the bill down in the Senate, but Trump’s declaration that he wouldn’t sign any bills unless the Senate passed voter ID legislation, along with House Republicans grumbling over changes to the bill, could spell trouble ahead.
Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., co-lead of the House’s version of the bill, told Fox News Digital, «It seems to me that there are outstanding concerns with the Senate’s housing bill as currently drafted.»
HOUSE PASSES BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL AS TRUMP ZEROES IN ON AFFORDABILITY CRISIS
Rep. Mike Flood speaks at a press conference with other House Republicans on the 15th day of the government shutdown in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
He echoed Schatz’s concern about the build-to-rent supply consequences and added that the bill was «intended to cut costs, but the Senate removed important bipartisan House provisions that would have slashed barriers to building more homes.»
«Their process is still ongoing, and I am holding out hope for some fixes, but time runs short,» Flood said. «Given the bill’s current state, I think a conference may be the most viable path forward.»
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he believes that once the bill makes it through the Senate, «the White House will be wanting to work with our House counterparts to try and get it passed over there and get it on the President’s desk.»
BIPARTISAN PLAN AIMS TO MAKE THE AMERICAN DREAM AFFORDABLE AGAIN FOR MILLIONS OF FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questions former executives of failed banks during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on May 16, 2023, in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
«We know we’ve added some things to the bill here in the Senate that were designed to make it more palatable to the House. I know there are other issues they would like to address in it, some of the banking issues too, but I think this is, by and large, a housing bill.»
«So, we think we have really put together a strong bill,» Thune continued. «It’s something that hasn’t been done in over a decade.»
It’s a product of negotiations between Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the chair of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., its top Democrat.
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The pair argued that the changes made should make the legislation more palatable to their House counterparts.
«The package includes the vast majority of the Senate’s unanimously supported ROAD to Housing Act, incorporates bipartisan ideas from the House, and takes a good first step to rein in corporate landlords that are squeezing families out of homeownership,» Warren said earlier this month. «Congress should pass this package and continue working on further legislation to combat our nation’s housing crisis.»
politics,senate,house of representatives politics,donald trump,elizabeth warren
INTERNACIONAL
La “batalla del agua” en Medio Oriente: las monarquías del Golfo temen un ataque iraní a sus plantas desalinizadoras
Las monarquías del Golfo son reinos de petróleo, gas y agua salada.
Son Estados supermillonarios, pero tienen una gran debilidad. Kuwait, Arabia Saudita, Bahréin, los Emiratos Árabes Unidos, Qatar y Omán carecen de suficiente agua potable natural.
Nadan en petróleo, pero no en agua dulce. Dependen, con diferentes matices, necesidades y urgencias, de las numerosas plantas desalinizadoras construidas en la región.
Leé también: Irán busca extender la guerra para causar un caos económico que ponga en aprietos a Trump en un año electoral
Irán lo sabe. Esa es una carta marcada que los ayatollah guardan en su búnker más secreto. Mientras buscan incendiar el Estrecho de Ormuz, por donde pasa el 20% del comercio petrolero mundial, el objetivo es extender el caos económico a todo el mundo.
El domingo pasado dio una primera muestra de lo que podría venir: bombardeó una planta desalinizadora en Bahréin, un país que alberga a la Quinta Flota de los Estados Unidos.
“La interrupción intencional de la infraestructura hídrica constituye una clara violación del derecho internacional humanitario y, ante todo, una carga para los civiles, quienes carecen de iniciativa y capacidad de decisión en esta guerra”, alertó a TN el científico iraní Kaveh Madani, exsubdirector del Departamento de Medio Ambiente de Irán y actual director del Instituto para el Agua, el Ambiente y la Salud (INWEH) de las Naciones Unidas.
El agua, el recurso más preciado
El agua es otra batalla estratégica para presionar a las monarquías del Golfo, aliadas de Estados Unidos. Es un recurso esencial. Irán también tiene enormes problemas hídricos por una extensa sequía que llevó a las autoridades a pensar en trasladar Teherán, la capital.
“Todo el mundo piensa en Arabia Saudita y en sus vecinos como petroestados. Pero yo los llamo reinos del agua salada. Son superpotencias hídricas creadas por el ser humano y alimentadas por combustibles fósiles. Es a la vez un logro monumental del siglo XX y una forma particular de vulnerabilidad”, resumió Michael Christopher Low, director del Middle East Center de la Universidad de Utah, citado por Euronews. Mujeres iraníes se manifiestan en Teherán en apoyo al gobierno de los ayatollah (Foto; EFE)
El académico Abdullah al-Arian, de la Universidad de Georgetown, en Qatar, advirtió a TN que “el riesgo de una escalada” de este tipo está latente y más aún si se extienden los ataques estadounidenses e israelíes.
“Irán busca aumentar los costos de esta guerra para los países vecinos e incluso para la economía global, en un intento de obligar a Estados Unidos a retractarse de su política de cambio de régimen y, en última instancia, a poner fin a sus ataques”, afirmó.
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Al-Arian, especialista en historia de la política estadounidense hacia Medio Oriente, dijo que “las represalias iraníes intentaron reconfigurar el panorama de seguridad en los países del Golfo y perturbar cada vez más los viajes, el comercio e incluso la vida cotidiana en países que actúan como importantes centros de la economía global”.
“Este tipo de ataque supondría una gran presión sobre el suministro de agua de estos países y requeriría planes de contingencia para fuentes alternativas de agua», indicó.
La dependencia hídrica de los países del Golfo
Irán atacó en los últimos días infraestructura energética de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Kuwait que causaron daños a plantas desalinizadoras. El domingo un dron iraní había golpeado a una planta en Bahréin, según denunció el gobierno de ese país. Teherán también denunció ataques de este tipo en su territorio.
Un informe del Centro Árabe de Washington, citado por el diario El Mundo, reveló que los estados del Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo producen el 40% del total de agua desalinizada del mundo.
Según el reporte, el país más vulnerable del área es Kuwait. El 90% de sus recursos hídricos sale de sus complejas plantas desalinizadoras que toman el agua de mar, la procesan y la convierten en agua dulce. Omán lo sigue con un 86% y Arabia Saudita con el 70%. El menos dependiente es Qatar. Religiosos chiítas paquistaníes portan imágenes del asesinado guía supremo iraní Ali Jamenei y su hijo y sucesor, Mojtaba Jamenei (Foto: REUTERS/Imran Ali)
En el área del Golfo hay 450 plantas desalinizadoras que surten a unas 100 millones de personas. Según el periódico español, las monarquías del área gastaron más de U$S 50.000 millones en inversiones en este sector entre 2004 y 2024.
Otro blanco posible: el sistema financiero y bancario
Pero no solo el agua está en la mira de Irán. También el sistema bancario y financiero.
Las Fuerzas Armadas iraníes acusaron el miércoles a Estados Unidos e Israel de atacar un banco estratégico del país utilizado para pagar salarios a efectivos del ejército.
Según advirtió el mando unificado de las Fuerzas Armadas, este ataque “ilegítimo y no convencional” podría tener una “respuesta recíproca y dolorosa”.
Además, pidió a la población en Medio Oriente a no aproximarse a un kilómetro de bancos estadounidenses o israelíes.
Leé también: Trump acusó a España de “no cooperar en absoluto” y volvió a amenazar con cortar el comercio bilateral
La amenaza fue tomada muy en serio en las monarquías del Golfo.
El grupo financiero estadounidense Citi y numerosas empresas occidentales, como la consultora Deloitte, pidieron a sus empleados evacuar sus oficinas en el Centro Financiero Internacional de Dubái (DIFC), reveló AFP.
La consultora británica PwC anunció que cerrará hasta nuevo aviso sus oficinas en Arabia Saudita, Qatar, Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Kuwait.
Irán, Israel, Donald Trump
INTERNACIONAL
Israel hits back after coordinated Iran-Hezbollah missile, drone strikes, urges Beirut to rein in terrorists
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JERUSALEM: Iran proxy Hezbollah fired some 200 missiles and drones into the Jewish state overnight and into Thursday in what Israeli media described as an «integrated Hezbollah and Iran joint attack.»
The attacks prompted fierce retaliatory strikes from the Israeli Defense Forces into Hezbollah strongholds in the Beirut suburbs.
The Israel Defense Forces said, «The IDF is operating with determination against the Hezbollah terrorist organization following its deliberate decision to attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime. The IDF will not tolerate any harm to Israeli civilians and will forcibly respond against any threat posed to the State of Israel.»
Calling its new operation «Eaten Straw,» the terror group claimed to have targeted Israeli military sites in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, among other targets.
ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH BORDER TENSIONS RISE AS TERROR GROUP REARMS, RESISTS US- BACKED CEASEFIRE
Hezbollah members salute and raise the group’s yellow flags during the funeral of their fallen comrades Ismail Baz and Mohamad Hussein Shohury, who were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicles, in Shehabiya in south Lebanon on April 17, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, told Fox News about Eaten Straw. «The term comes from a Koran verse about destroying one’s enemies to the point that they are destroyed like grains of straw husks. In fact, it is going to lead to a massive Israel response.»
Just days prior to Wednesday’s attacks, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun charged Hezbollah with pushing Lebanon into becoming «a second Gaza.»
An Israeli security expert from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, Sarit Zehavi, told Fox News Digital, that «I think that Hezbollah is trying to scare Israel from launching further operations and I truly hope that we will not be afraid, and our government will do what it has to do.»
IRAN COULD ‘ACTIVATE’ HEZBOLLAH IF US TARGETS REGIME, TRUMP’S INNER CIRCLE TO DECIDE: EXPERT
A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani / AFP via Getty Images)
The Lebanese armed forces also failed to meet President Trump’s deadline to disarm Hezbollah terrorist organization in 2025.
The Lebanese government announced on Tuesday that it is interested in direct talks with Israel to end the current conflict with Hezbollah, yet one Israeli official claimed Beirut was not «affecting Hezbollah’s behavior in any way,» the Times of Israel cited a report from news site Y-Net reported.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, speaking Wednesday, told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York that, «Lebanon now faces two options: either the Lebanese government takes real actions and restrains Hezbollah, or Israel uses its force to dismantle this terrorist organization. There is no other option.»
Edy Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli scholar of Hezbollah, dismissed the Lebanese government overtures to Israel as political theater. He referenced the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that concluded with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, requiring the Lebanese state and army to disarm Hezbollah, as a failed effort.
A woman uses a mobile phone as she lies on a mattress in a railway station used as an underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2026. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images)
Cohen told Fox News Digital: «I don’t believe the Lebanese government. It is a game between them and Hezbollah. The Lebanese offered, for the first time since 1982, it would agree to dialogue with Israel. The first condition is a ceasefire. Hezbollah told the Lebanese government give the Israelis this offer. Hezbollah wants to stop this war. And that is how the government of Lebanon jokes about us.»
Speaking during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Ambassador Ahmad Arafa told the council, «The Lebanese people do not want war, and the Lebanese government is moving forward in implementing its decisions and will not backtrack,» The National reported.
According to the National report, Arafa said, «In our modern history, no Lebanese government has demonstrated this level of courage and determination to reclaim the state authority, to restrict weapons to legitimate state institutions and to extend the state’s control exclusively through its own forces over all Lebanese territory.»
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An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that «The Lebanese government needs to get a grip on their country or Hezbollah parts of Beirut will soon look like Gaza.»
war with iran,israel,terrorism,conflicts,lebanon
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