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Israel struck its key target in Tehran Saturday in what a defense expert has described as a multimillion-dollar precision-guided attack alongside a broader offensive involving U.S. waves of lower-cost kamikaze drones.
Cameron Chell, CEO of drone manufacturer Draganfly, told Fox News Digital the campaign would have likely paired advanced and costly assets against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound, while U.S. forces used cheaper drones to “overwhelm” on land, air and sea.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) also confirmed that the drones were deployed for the first time in history.
“CENTCOM’s Task Force Scorpion Strike — for the first time in history — is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury,” it said in an X post before adding that the “low-cost drones, modeled after Iran’s Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution.”
“Saturday saw an overwhelming daytime attack with incredible intelligence to target the leadership and a strike on the compound possibly costing tens of millions,” Chell said.
“That would likely have included expensive, precision-strike drones or manned aircraft in highly coordinated attacks to ensure success, not necessarily the lower-cost, one-way version of the suicide drones,” he explained.
“The U.S. has this lower-cost alternative to hit everything at once, but then the very expensive, high-precision assets would likely have gone directly after leadership on Saturday,” Chell added.
A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the compound strike was a “wildly bold daytime attack.”
“It caught the senior leadership off guard on a Saturday morning during Ramadan and on Shabbat in the daytime,” the official added.
“We hit the senior leaders right out of the gate,” the source told Fox national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin.
Iran’s military, government and intelligence sites were targeted, an official briefed on the operation also told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
A handful of top Iranian leaders were killed, including the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
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President Donald Trump also announced Saturday that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed in the strike.
“If drones were involved in that top target attack, it would have been the very sophisticated MQ-type or Global Hawk-type drones,” Chell said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said other attacks across the country were being done “to remove threats.”
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, those targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command and control centers, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields.
Chell described how those secondary targets would have been hit by the U.S. with the cheaper one-way “kamikaze” drones before adding that the strikes “seemed to be an excellent example of mass overwhelm at a new level.”
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Chell suggested Iran’s defenses were likely degraded well before the strike began because of the coordination.
“I think likely the defense systems, communication systems, were overwhelmingly compromised,” he added. “And so I think they just overwhelmed them,” he said.
“I’m sure there would have been days, if not even weeks, of work and preparation to take out those defense communication systems.
“They would have compromised those defense communications in some way through electronic warfare or cyberattack.
“The battlefield now is so multidimensional,” Chell emphasized.
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“It’s about cyber warfare, misinformation and electronic warfare as well.
“This was seemingly so swift because it was incredibly well-planned and coordinated by the U.S. and Israel on a massive level that’s not been seen before.”
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