The FBI warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News.
“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 US 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 Trump administration launched its ongoing assault against the Islamic Republic. Iran has been retaliating with drone strikes against targets throughout the Mideast.
I live in Hawaii, which has banned most fireworks and gets almost every import by ship that comes through a handful of ports. We’re blanketed with fireworks every New Years anyway. Literal shipping containers full of gunpowder. Just mixed in with all the legal goods. We’ve also had Chinese fishing vessels in US waters multiple times without consequence.
It’s not about being invisible, it’s about looking like you’re doing mundane things until you’re not. Most ships don’t have schedules that are both known by the US and precise enough that dropping anchor would be meaningful. And all they need is a shipping container of drones to do some real damage to infrastructure. That’s nothing.
I can totally believe this is bullshit by Trump, but it’s not because doing it would be especially hard or implausible.
Shipping mildly-illegal goods via a third party is completely different than launching a literall terrorist attack on the strongest, most aggresive, north violent police states in the world
Not while it’s at sea. The whole point is illegal containers pass all the way through ports without any knowledge of their contents. We’ve had fireworks busts at port. You know how many people got charged for that? Zero. No one could be proven to be responsible. And drones don’t even need to make it to through the very limited inspections we have at port. Or even travel to the United States at all. San Diego is like 30 miles from a major Mexican shipping hub.
The police and surveillance state will not protect us. Because it is and has always been a sham. Being as secure as you imagine would restrict profit, annoy consumers, and require manpower they don’t want to pay for. They’d rather just take the hit and funnel the money through arms manufacturers for the response.
I totally agree about the security theater aspect but youre talking abour something completely different. There is no chance Iran could sneak drones into a shipping container then use them WITHIN the usa (even less likely than the ship), to attack americans.
Does that gunpowder originate from Iran, a place the US has placed strict sanctions on and is under constant surveillance by US allies?
There is no point in Iran striking California. They are doing plenty of damage to the US by closing the Straight of Hormuz. The cost benefit analysis doesn’t pan out. Iran would have to be as stupid as America to overextend like that.
Iran smuggles weapons into freaking Gaza. They have proxy groups around the region they arm and ship these exact drones to Russia. They are definitely not being tightly contained for small arms transfers. The United States has little to no insight into what’s actually in any particular shipping crate leaving Iran. We’re talking about an actual state actor covert service rather than a smuggling ring. They can definitely get drones out undetected.