US attacks Iran's Bandar Abbas base with kamikaze drone boats in first combat use

First combat use of US sea drones

The US military has deployed unmanned surface vessels in combat for the first time, striking the Iranian naval hub at Bandar Abbas. Three Corsair kamikaze-style drones, developed by Texas-based Saronic in 2022, hit a submarine and vessel maintenance facility at the base on Sunday night, Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed on Monday. Footage released by CENTCOM showed the roughly seven-metre boats speeding toward piers and detonating, with one approaching a docked submarine identified by specialist outlets as a Ghadir-class mini-submarine.

We have degraded Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial shipping.

Corsair drones can carry up to 450 kilograms (1,000 lbs) of payload at speeds exceeding 35 knots (about 65 km/h) and have a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles, according to the manufacturer. The same vessel type was used in June to rescue an Apache helicopter crew that went down off the coast of Oman. The Bandar Abbas operation is the first time American forces have employed sea drones as attack weapons.

Escalation around the Strait of Hormuz

The strike comes amid renewed hostilities in the strategic waterway through which roughly a fifth of global oil and gas transits. President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was reinstating a blockade of Iranian ports and declared the US would become "the guardian of the strait", adding that Washington should be reimbursed for that role. He also told Fox News he believed the ceasefire with Iran is "over", although both sides are nominally halfway through a 60-day negotiation period aimed at resolving the nuclear dispute.

We will become the guardian of the strait and we should reimbursed for that.

Trump formally notified lawmakers over the weekend that the US is at war with Iran again, granting his administration another 60 days to use military force without fresh congressional approval. CENTCOM said on Tuesday there are now more than 50,000 American service members deployed across the Middle East.

Iranian retaliation and regional strikes

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed on Monday that it had targeted US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, destroyed radar systems in Oman, and hit fuel tanks and ammunition depots in Jordan in response to the American strikes. The exchange follows four days of cross-attacks that began after the IRGC attacked a Cyprus-flagged merchant vessel, according to reports. The US military carried out a third consecutive night of strikes on Iran on Monday.

A shift in naval warfare

The employment of kamikaze boat drones mirrors tactics pioneered by Ukraine in the Black Sea, where inexpensive unmanned vessels have repeatedly struck Russian warships and infrastructure since 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as early as March that Washington had asked Kyiv for help combating swarms of Iranian drones. The US strike on Bandar Abbas is the latest demonstration of how such systems are reshaping naval conflict, with Iran having itself relied on layers of fast-attack craft, naval drones and mines throughout the war that began with US and Israeli strikes in February.