The United States will deploy a new anti-drone missile system in the Middle East to bolster US defences against Iran, after it proven to work in Ukraine, US officials told news agency Associated Press.According to officials, the system that is being sent – known as Merops – flies drones against drones. It is small enough to fit in the back of a midsize pickup truck, can identify drones and close in on them, using artificial intelligence to navigate when satellite and electronic communications are jammed.
This comes as US is using Patriot and THAAD missile systems to take down Iranian missiles. However, the US officials claimed that there are limited effective anti-drone defenses now in the Middle East.
While talking to AP, an official said that US response to countering Iran’s Shahed drones has been “disappointing,” particularly because the drones fired by Iran are a much more basic version of the same drone that Russia is continuously refining and updating in its war in Ukraine.The efforts points to Iran’s retaliatory response across the Middle East to the American and Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, many Gulf countries have also complained they were not given adequate time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their territory.
Earlier, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, said this week that “we’re pretty good at taking missiles down. What is much more problematic for us is the huge inventory of Iranian drones, which are hard to detect and hard to take down.”Himes said the drone attacks present a “math problem” in that the US cannot keep relying on expensive military interceptors, like Patriot systems, to down the quickly and cheaply made Iranian drones.
“It’s really, really expensive to take down a cheap drone,” he said. “A giant missile going after a tiny little crappy drone.”How Merops system worksEarlier on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the US asked for his country’s help in combating Iran’s Shahed drones, which Russia has used in huge numbers in Ukraine.Zelenskyy did not specify the type of assistance Ukraine would provide, but the US defense official said the Merops system is a part of it.Merops system is designed to spot them and take them down. Additionally, the system is cheaper than firing a $500,000 missile at a $50,000 drone.Merops was deployed in Poland and Romania in November after Russian attack drones repeatedly entered NATO airspace.In the Middle East, Merops will be deployed to various locations, including where US forces are not present, the defense official said.Most of the systems will be sent directly by Perennial Autonomy — the manufacturer backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — and will not affect defences in Europe, the official said.Earlier this week, Pentagon officials accepted in closed-door briefings with lawmakers they are struggling to stop waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some US targets in the Gulf region vulnerable.“This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters this week.
