Iran’s use of small drones major threat to US forces: commander

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran’s use of small drones poses a major threat to United States forces in the Middle East, a top US general said, less than a week after troops in Erbil were targeted by an explosives-laden drone.

“Small, commercially-available drones are one of the most persistent and dangerous threats that we see at the Central Command AOR, I am very concerned about it,” US Central Command commander General Kenneth McKenzie told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

McKenzie added “for the first time since the Korean War, we are operating without complete air superiority,” because “it’s a lot harder to deal with small, commercially off-the-shelf, bought and modified” drones.

Erbil International Airport was hit by an explosives-laden drone on April 14. The attack and other similar incidents targeting international zones taking place across Iraq have widely been blamed on pro-Iran militias, and have increased since the US assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

“Until we are able to develop and field a networked capability to detect and defeat UAS [unmanned aerial systems], the advantage will remain with the attacker,” he said on Iran’s use of small and medium-sized drones, saying there are “a variety of systems” being tested but “we are not there yet, and it remains a very concerning priority of mine.”

McKenzie said attacks from Iran’s “Shia groups are going to continue” after in 2020 Iran tried and failed to eject the United States from the region and Iraq through “political action.”

“While Iran itself has avoided state on state attacks on US forces since last January strikes on the al-Assad and Erbil air bases, it continues to menace regional partners and a free flow of commerce through the use of proxies and a proliferation of armed unmanned aerial systems and other munitions."

A top Iranian official in Iraq, Hassan Danaeifar, on Monday said that the US will still face attacks in Iraq, even if they “concentrate their troops more in the Kurdistan Region” claiming that Iraqi youth do not want foreign troops to be present in the country.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi has denied Iran’s involvement “directly or indirectly” in the rocket attacks in Iraq against US troops in the country.

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