More than 200 Ukrainian drone specialists have been deployed abroad in recent weeks to advise partners across the Middle East on drone defense, including protection of US installations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has sent drone experts to help protect US military bases in Jordan.

In the opening weeks of the war, Iran launched more than 3,600 exploding Shahed drones across the region. Iran has sustained near-daily drone barrages often combined with missile attacks, and Iran's drone and missile attacks have increased pressure on critical infrastructure and global energy markets.

Iranian-designed Shahed drones produce a low, persistent buzzing sound before striking targets. The drones, which cost between $20,000 and $50,000 each and have a wingspan of nearly 10 feet, have been used to attack apartment blocks and industrial plants.

A Shahed drone slammed into a radar dome near the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. A Shahed drone blast hit a luxury district in Dubai, while a Saudi refinery caught fire after a Shahed drone attack. Strikes by Shahed drones damaged energy infrastructure in Kuwait. In March, an Iranian drone damaged a high-rise building in Manama, Bahrain.

Ukraine has become the world leader in defending against attack drones after four years of war with Russia. Ukraine has adapted its defenses to defeat Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia has mass-produced.

"Ukraine has built what is arguably the world's most combat-tested, multi-layered drone defense architecture," said Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst. "Its uniqueness lies in the acceptance that no single system — no silver bullet — can defeat a mass drone threat, and that the answer must be a diverse, layered and economically sustainable ecosystem of capabilities."

David Petraeus, retired general and former CIA director, returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he accompanied an air defense unit outside Kyiv defending against Shahed drones. "I don't think that any military in the world has learned sufficiently from Ukraine about what is required to deal with the kind of drone threat posed by Russia — or, frankly, the drone threat posed by Ukraine to Russia, which is also extraordinary," Petraeus said.

According to US Central Command, the United States is targeting Iran's one-way attack drone capabilities. The United States has not decisively halted Iran's Shahed drone attacks. Shahed drones have a range of up to 1,000 miles and can carry up to 90 kilograms of explosives.