US to send anti-drone system to Mideast after successful use in Ukraine, officials say

An American anti-drone system proven to work against Russian drones in Ukraine will soon be sent to the Middle East to bolster U.S. defenses against Iranian drones, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

While the U.S. has used Patriot and THAAD missile systems to take down Iranian missiles successfully, there are limited effective anti-drone defenses now in the Middle East, according to a U.S. defense official, one of two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

The U.S. response to countering Iran’s Shahed drones has been “disappointing,” the other U.S. official said, 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 effort to bolster U.S. anti-drone capabilities in the Middle East underscores concerns about the planning for an Iranian retaliatory response across the region to the American and Israeli strikes. Persian Gulf countries have complained they were not given adequate time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their territory.

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.

Drones are hard to pinpoint on radar systems calibrated for spotting high-speed missiles and can be mistaken for birds or planes. The Merops system is designed to spot them and take them down. Crucially, the system also is cheaper than firing a missile that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars at a drone that costs less than $50,000.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, 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 U.S. 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.”

Merops was deployed in NATO nations Poland and Romania in November after Russian attack drones repeatedly entered NATO airspace. The U.S. defense official says America has learned lessons from the deployment of the system and others like it in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that the U.S. 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 U.S. defense official said the Merops system is a part of it.

When asked about Zelenskyy’s comments, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “Certainly, I’ll take, you know, any assistance from any country.”

In the Middle East, Merops will be deployed to various locations, including where U.S. 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 defenses in Europe, the official said.

Perennial Autonomy did not immediately respond to questions about the use of Merops in the Middle East.

Pentagon officials conceded this week in closed-door briefings with lawmakers they are struggling to stop waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some U.S. 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.

Michael Robbins, president and CEO of AUVSI, a drone industry group, said lessons from the Middle East and Ukraine show that the U.S. must accelerate deployment of sophisticated counter-drone technologies, so “our forces can defend bases and populations without spending a million dollars to stop a $50,000 threat.”

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Didi Tang, David Klepper, Michelle L. Price, Ben Finley and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report from Washington.

两名美国官员周五告诉美联社，一种已被证明在乌克兰对付俄罗斯无人机有效的美国反无人机系统很快将被送往中东，以加强美国对伊朗无人机的防御。

据一位美国国防官员称，虽然美国已成功使用“爱国者”和“萨德”导弹系统击落伊朗导弹，但目前中东地区有效的反无人机防御能力有限。这位官员是两名要求匿名讨论敏感军事问题的官员之一。

另一位美国官员表示，美国对伊朗“沙赫德”无人机的应对措施“令人失望”，尤其因为伊朗发射的无人机只是俄罗斯在乌克兰战争中不断改进和升级的同款无人机的更基础版本。

美国在中东地区加强反无人机能力的举措，凸显了人们对伊朗可能在该地区对美以空袭进行报复的担忧。波斯湾国家抱怨说，他们没有足够的时间来应对伊朗无人机和导弹对其领土的猛烈轰炸。

这套名为Merops的系统，利用无人机进行对抗。它体积小巧，足以装进一辆中型皮卡的后车厢，能够识别并接近目标无人机，并在卫星和电子通信受到干扰时利用人工智能进行导航。

无人机很难在专为探测高速导弹而设计的雷达系统上精确定位，而且容易被误认为是鸟类或飞机。Merops系统旨在发现并击落无人机。更重要的是，该系统比发射一枚价值数十万美元的导弹攻击一架价值不到5万美元的无人机要便宜得多。

众议院情报委员会首席民主党议员、康涅狄格州众议员吉姆·海姆斯本周表示，“我们很擅长拦截导弹。对我们来说，更棘手的是伊朗庞大的无人机库存，这些无人机难以探测，也难以击落。”

海姆斯表示，无人机袭击带来了一个“数学难题”，因为美国不能继续依赖昂贵的军事拦截器（如爱国者系统）来击落伊朗快速且廉价制造的无人机。

“击落一架廉价无人机真的非常非常昂贵，”他说。“要用巨型导弹去追击一架又小又破的无人机。”

在俄罗斯攻击型无人机多次侵入北约领空后，美国于11月在北约成员国波兰和罗马尼亚部署了Merops系统。一位美国国防官员表示，美国已从该系统以及在乌克兰部署类似系统的经验中吸取了教训。

乌克兰总统泽连斯基周四表示，美国已请求乌克兰协助打击伊朗的“沙赫德”无人机，俄罗斯已在乌克兰大量使用该型无人机。泽连斯基并未具体说明乌克兰将提供何种援助，但美国国防官员表示，“梅罗普斯”无人机系统是援助的一部分。

当被问及泽连斯基的言论时，特朗普周四告诉路透社：“当然，我会接受任何国家的援助。”

这位国防官员表示，在中东，Merops系统将被部署到多个地点，包括美军未驻扎的地区。该官员还表示，大部分系统将由Perennial Autonomy公司直接交付——该公司由谷歌前首席执行官埃里克·施密特支持——并且不会影响欧洲的防御。

Perennial Autonomy 没有立即回应有关在中东使用 Merops 的问题。

五角大楼官员本周在与国会议员的闭门简报会上承认，他们难以阻止伊朗发动的无人机浪潮，这使得美国在海湾地区的一些目标变得脆弱。

“这并不意味着我们可以阻止一切，但我们确保在发起进攻之前，已经建立了最大程度的防御和最大程度的部队保护，”国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯本周告诉记者。

无人机行业组织 AUVSI 的总裁兼首席执行官迈克尔·罗宾斯表示，中东和乌克兰的教训表明，美国必须加快部署先进的反无人机技术，以便“我们的部队能够在不花费一百万美元来阻止价值五万美元的威胁的情况下，保卫基地和民众”。

美联社记者 Lisa Mascaro、Didi Tang、David Klepper、Michelle L. Price、Ben Finley 和 Seung Min Kim 从华盛顿对此报道亦有贡献。