Published 30 May, 2026 16:59
ARCHIVAL PHOTO. Unmanned USAF aircraft kind MQ-9 Reaper. © Getty Images / NurPhoto / Nicolas Economou
According to Bloomberg, citing its source, about 5 U.S. military and contract workers suffered insignificant injuries during a fresh Iranian rocket attack on an aviation base in Kuwait. According to reports, at least 1 MQ-9 Reaper-type drone was destroyed.
The incidental occurred seemingly on Thursday, during the last limited exchange of blows between the US and Iran.
The American military has declared that it destroyed 5 Iranian kamikaze drones, ‘which posed a clear threat in the Strait of Ormuz and its vicinity’, and besides carried out a hit on a military facility close the port town of Bandar Abbas.
The muslim Revolutionary defender Corps in Iran, in turn, stated that in retaliation he had targeted an American air base in the region.
On Saturday, Bloomberg reported that an Iranian Fateh-110-type rocket was intercepted by Kuwaiti air defence systems, nevertheless falling shrapnel hit Ali Al Salem Air Base.
These fragments caused insignificant injuries to about 5 U.S. personnel and caused material damage.
As the portal was handed to an anonymous individual with direct cognition of the attack, 1 MQ-9 Reaper drone stationed in the base was destroyed and at least 1 another suffered serious damage.
The American-Israeli run against Iran took a advanced toll in the U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet – about a 5th of these machines were destroyed.
Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that the US military had lost up to 30 drones of this kind with a full value of nearly a billion dollars.
Most of them are believed to have been destroyed or severely damaged by Iran's shelling, while respective machines were lost in accidents or destroyed on the ground during far-reaching strikes on US military installations in the region.
These losses constitute a serious harm to the U.S. MALE class drone fleet (average ceiling and advanced flight autonomy), utilized for reconnaissance missions and precise strokes.
The number of MQ-9 Reaper drones in the American inventory fell well below the minimum threshold of 189 machines, designated by the Air Force, presently oscillating within 135 copies.
The lost drones will not be easy replaced due to the fact that their maker – General Atomics – stopped production of this flagship model last year, now producing only variants intended for abroad customers.
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/60773-us-reaper-drones-destroyed/
