September 17th, 2026: U.S. Destroys Iranian Boats & China Supercharges Cyber Spying

Mike Baker (0:00)

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It's Thursday, the 17th of September. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the US military opens fire on two Iranian boats after officials say that they tried to approach and take an American unmanned vessel. I'll have the details. Later in the show, a new report is exposing how Chinese hackers for hire are using AI to supercharge Beijing's cyber operations.

Plus, the FBI says it thwarted a Russian plot to assassinate a prominent Kremlin dissident in Washington, DC.

And in today's Back of the Brief, Ukraine says its drone forces killed a decorated Russian general just weeks after Moscow awarded him its highest honorary title. But first, today's PDB spotlight.

The US military says it destroyed two Iranian boats this week after they tried to seize an American unmanned naval drone operating near the Strait of Hormuz. This marks yet another direct confrontation between American and Iranian forces in one of the most heavily contested waterways in the world. According to US Central Command, the two small boats approached an American unmanned surface vessel on Monday and attempted to take possession of it. American forces intervened and the Iranian boats were destroyed. Axios citing US officials reports that an American drone fired two missiles at the boats, killing most of those aboard. CENTCOM has confirmed the attempted seizure and says the US military responded with force, though it has not publicly provided all the operational details. The target was a sail drone. It's an unmanned surface vessel used by the US. Navy to monitor activity across the waters in the Middle East. It's essentially a small autonomous surveillance boat that carries cameras and sensors, can patrol for extended periods without a crew, and feeds information back to American forces monitoring maritime traffic. The Navy says the technology aboard the sail drone is commercially available and does not include any classified components. But this latest incident becomes much more interesting when you consider what happened just one week earlier. On September 8, Iran successfully captured a different American unmanned vessel, this one operating beneath the surface. The Dive-LD underwater drone, produced by the defense company Anderil, apparently malfunctioned near the Strait of Hormuz before Iranian forces recovered it. US officials have played down the intelligence value of that capture, describing the drone as an older, defective system without classified payloads. But analysts say Iran will almost certainly study the hardware and attempt to reverse engineer whatever technology that it can. So, last week, Iran got its hands on an American underwater drone. And this week, Iranian boats allegedly went after an American surface drone. And this time, the US military destroyed those boats. There's also some history here. Iran has tried to seize sail drones before. Back in August of 2022, the Navy spotted an Iranian Revolutionary Guard support ship towing away an American sail drone in international waters in the Persian Gulf. The USS Thunderbolt moved in, the Navy sent up a helicopter, and after roughly four hours, the Iranian vessel finally cut the tow line and left the drone behind. Two days later, Iran tried that move once again. An Iranian Navy warship actually grabbed two sail drones operating in international waters in the Red Sea and took them aboard. Two American destroyers and Navy helicopters followed the Iranian ship repeatedly demanding that they return the drones. The Iranians eventually released them the following morning. Now the obvious difference here is that those incidents happened before the current war. Four years ago, American warships shadowed the Iranians and pressured them into giving the drones back. This week, when the US says Iranian boats tried to grab another one, the response was lethal. And these unmanned systems have become increasingly important as Washington tries to restore commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

They give American forces a relatively inexpensive way to keep constant eyes on the water, tracking ships, monitoring Iranian activity, and expanding surveillance without putting sailors aboard every vessel. That becomes especially valuable when tanker traffic through the Strait remains badly disrupted and American forces are trying to keep shipping lanes open. It also makes those drones an increasingly attractive target for the Iranian regime.

All right, coming up next, we'll look at how Chinese hackers are using AI to supercharge their spying operations. What? The Chinese regime is engaged in cyber shenanigans? I'm shocked. And we'll look at an alleged Russian assassination plot targeting a Kremlin dissident in Washington, DC. I'll be right back.