Illustrative image. (Islamic Republic of Iran Army)
The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned police departments in the state of California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, ABC News reported on March 11, citing an alert by the security agency.
“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran,” according to the alert distributed at the end of February. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”
The warning came just as the U.S. and Israel launched their ongoing attack against the Islamic Republic, according to the report.
Iran has launched hundreds of retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones since the start of the war, targeting Israel, as well as bases housing or supporting the U.S. military across the Middle East. It has also repeatedly warned that it could escalate further.
There are more than 40 major military installations located on the U.S. West Coast, mainly across California and Washington.
The Islamic Republic has developed mulpile types of long-range suicide drones, the most known of is the Shahed-136, which carries a warhead weighting 30-50 kg and can strike a target located up to 2,500 kilometers away from its launch point.
Less than two years ago, Iran unveiled a completely new version of the drone, the Shahed-136B, with 90 kg warhead and a range over 4,000 kilometers.
With such suicide drones, Iran could in theory launch strikes against the U.S. West Coast from commercial vessels sailing from ports in Latin America, or even from Eastern and Southern Asia.
Smuggling such large drones, and hiding the nature of the real nature of the vessels would be extremely difficult, however. And even if such a covert operation was carried out successfully, the early warning assets of the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard could detect the incoming drones early on, allowing for a quick response.
Of course, as seen in drone warfare so far, there will likely be a margin of error. An early warning, even a very early one, does not mean that a few of the drones will not end up slipping in and hitting their targets.
The last attack by a country on U.S. territories took place during World War II, a war Americans fought with full force, even going as far as using nuclear weapons.
Any attack by Iran could end up giving the administration of President Donlad Trump an execution to escalate the ongoing war. Due to this reason, as well as to the technical difficulty of such an operation, it is highly unlikely that the Islamic Republic would even attempt such a thing.
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i’d love to see an iranian drone kill gavin newscum and his entire fucking family…lol
this is a nothing burger.