U.S. military assets headed to the Middle East could face a serious threat from Iranian drone swarms as reports emerge that Iran’s supreme leader has gone underground, according to a leading military drone expert.

Cameron Chell, CEO and co-founder of Draganfly, warned that Iran’s growing reliance on low-cost unmanned systems poses a credible danger to high-value U.S. naval assets, including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group.

“Iran’s drone capabilities are worth well into the tens of millions of dollars,” Chell told Fox News Digital.

“By pairing low-cost warheads with inexpensive delivery platforms, essentially remotely piloted aircraft, Iran has developed an effective asymmetric threat against highly sophisticated military systems.”

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Chell said Iran can launch large numbers of relatively unsophisticated drones directly at naval vessels, creating saturation attacks that could overwhelm traditional defenses.

“If hundreds are launched in a short period of time, some are almost certain to get through,” Chell said.

“Modern defense systems were not originally designed to counter that kind of saturation attack. For U.S. surface vessels operating near Iran, warships are prime targets.”

The warning comes as a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News Digital that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group had not yet crossed into U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility in the Indian Ocean.

“It is close, but technically not in CENTCOM yet,” the source said. This would indicate the carrier strike group is not yet in a position to strike Iran.

U.S. officials say Washington is reinforcing its military posture in response to growing instability inside Iran, boosting its presence by air, land and sea, while closely monitoring developments in Syria.

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A squadron of F-15 fighter jets has deployed to the region, and C-17 aircraft carrying heavy equipment have arrived.

Once the aircraft carrier strike group enters the CENTCOM area of operations, which should be soon, it will still take several days before the strike is fully on station.

Chell noted that U.S. and allied militaries are rapidly developing defenses but uncertainty over new capabilities on the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier groups for managing multiple Iranian drones flying in formation remains.  He emphasized that Iran’s drone fleet is a concern.

“These drones give Iran a very credible way to threaten surface vessels,” he said. “U.S. assets in the region are large, slow-moving and easily identifiable on radar, which makes them targetable.”

“Iran’s strength lies instead in these low-cost, high-volume drone systems—particularly one-way strike drones designed to fly into a target and detonate.”

Chell explained that Iran gained an early advantage in what are known as Category One and Category Two drone systems—low-cost platforms that can be produced in large numbers and used effectively in asymmetric warfare.

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“Category Three systems are a completely different matter,” he said. “In that area, Iran is decades behind the United States.”

The U.S. military buildup coincides with widespread unrest inside Iran. Protests erupted Dec. 28 amid mounting public discontent.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said the casualty figures had reached 5,459 as of Sunday, with 17,031 cases under investigation.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been reported to have moved into a fortified underground shelter in Tehran after senior officials assessed an increased risk of a potential U.S. strike, according to reports.

President Donald Trump also addressed the deployment on Jan. 21, telling reporters, “We have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens. We have a big force going towards Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration and his (Make America Great Again) MAGA allies have disseminated a flurry of misinformation about the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in the US city of Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sunday claimed that Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, had “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun”, and that agents had “attempted to disarm the suspect, but the armed suspect violently resisted”.

Video footage shot by bystanders shows Pretti filming a group of US Border Patrol agents on Saturday before stepping in to defend a woman who was shoved to the ground by one agent.

In footage shared by US-based Drop Site news, Pretti can be seen trying to help the woman before at least five agents tackle him to the ground and shoot him multiple times after a scuffle on the icy road.

Analysis of footage by US media and Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, shows that Pretti’s gun had already been confiscated by an agent before he was shot dead.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara later told reporters that Pretti was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit, and that his only criminal history was a few traffic tickets.

Despite the video evidence, Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino told a news conference that Pretti’s gun showed that he “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement”.

Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security, claimed without evidence that Pretti was an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents”, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said he had “violently” resisted arrest.

Popular right-wing influencers amplified the Trump administration’s claims on X.

The MAGA-allied account “Libs of TikTok” labelled Pretti a “lunatic” and an “assassin”.

Right-wing influencer Alexander Muse told his 681,000 followers that Pretti was “expecting a firefight at a distance” with federal agents despite there being no evidence that he ever took out or brandished his gun.

Some right-wing influencers went even further than echoing the Trump administration’s narrative, piling blatant misinformation on top of officials’ baseless accusations.

Trump ally Nick Sorter, who has 1.4 million followers on X, falsely claimed that Pretti, a US citizen, was an “illegal alien” who was “armed with a gun and attempted to PULL IT on agents as he was being apprehended”.

Conservative podcaster Jesse Kelly smeared Pretti as a “soldier for the communist revolution” who had “died fighting in a war” in an X post that included a photo of Pretti on a hike.

MAGA-affiliated accounts also shared digitally altered images purporting to be pictures of Pretti dressed in female clothing.

In a statement, Pretti’s parents said their son was a “kindhearted soul” and that the administration’s “sickening lies” about him were “reprehensible and disgusting”.

Claims that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and scrutiny of his political beliefs mirror similar accusations levelled at Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman who was also fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Trump administration officials also described Good as a “terrorist” and claimed that she was trying to run over an immigration officer with her vehicle despite video evidence casting doubt on those claims.

Officials have also spread misleading information seemingly aimed at discrediting protests against Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown more generally.

The White House last week shared an image of an arrested activist, Nekima Levy Armstrong, that had been altered with artificial intelligence to make her look emotionally distressed.

Some Republicans have pushed back on the narrative pushed around Pretti’s death, including Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, who said on X that “carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right”.

The National Rifle Association, a pro-gun lobby group, also rejected a suggestion by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor  that approaching a law enforcement officer with a gun could be grounds for being shot.

Minnesota law enforcement officials have also contested statements by Trump administration officials, including a claim by Vice President JD Vance that local authorities refused to assist their federal counterparts in the investigation into Pretti’s killing.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said on Sunday that it was state authorities who were being obstructed, stating in a statement on X that its officers had been denied access to the crime scene by the DHS.

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies including Target, Best Buy and UnitedHealth signed an open letter posted on the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce website on Sunday calling for state, local and federal officials to work together, as businesses grapple with how to address tensions in the state and across the country following two fatal shootings by federal agents amid a massive immigration enforcement operation that has spurred protests.

“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the open letter reads.

CEOs that signed the letter included 3M CEO William Brown, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening, Target incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke, UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Helmsley, and others.

Before the letter, most of the biggest Minnesota-based companies had not issued any public statements about the enforcement surge and unrest.

But the issue has become more difficult to avoid. Over the past two weeks protesters have targeted some businesses they see not taking a strong enough stand against federal law enforcement activity, including Minneapolis-based Target. Earlier in January a Minnesota hotel that wouldn’t allow federal immigration agents to stay there apologized and said the refusal violated its own policies after a furor online.

Meanwhile, the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities cited devastating economic impacts in a lawsuit filed this month imploring a federal judge to halt the immigration operations. The lawsuit asserted that some businesses have reported sales drops up to 80%.

“In this difficult moment for our community, we call for peace and focused cooperation among local, state and federal leaders to achieve a swift and durable solution that enables families, businesses, our employees, and communities across Minnesota to resume our work to build a bright and prosperous future,” the letter reads.