Iran is building a decentralized drone warfare capability in Tehran’s apartment building basements, powered by inexpensive technology sourced from China, a leading defense expert has warned.

Draganfly’s Cameron Chell also said that this emerging system — centered on first-person-view (FPV) drones — could pose a threat not only across the Middle East but potentially to the U.S. homeland itself.

“The FPVs are Iran’s Hail Mary because they are very hard to defend, are incredibly effective, and can be delivered in a manner without having to have a central command,” Chell told Fox News Digital.

“So whether it’s the Iranian army, whether it’s militia groups or Iranian patriots, they can all create or procure their own FPVs and get offensive,” Chell said.

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He added that “Iran could be reiterating FPVs and churning out more than 100,000 a month over time.”

“Iran’s got either militias or sleeper cells in the States who can, in my estimation, already build this equipment,” Chell clarified.

Chell’s warning comes as recent incidents in Iraq highlight the growing use of FPVs.

At Baghdad International Airport, Iranian-backed militias operating under the “Iraqi Islamic Resistance” umbrella have launched multiple FPV drone attacks.

Footage released in March 2026 allegedly shows an FPV drone striking a U.S. UH-60M or HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, while another attack successfully hit a U.S. AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar unit at the same base.

“FPVs are a central core theme, and Iran is building these itself, suspecting they’re pulling parts in from China and getting the parts through some pretty porous borders, so it is very difficult to stop that,” Chell said.

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He warned that Iran’s strategy mirrors what has already occurred in Ukraine, where decentralized drone manufacturing has flourished.

“There will be, or already is, an underground industry for FPV and drone manufacturing, which will or is swelling up inside Iran, the exact same way that we saw it swell up inside Ukraine,” he explained.

“This is going to be happening in people’s homes in Iran, people’s basements, the basements of apartment blocks, where they can construct makeshift assembly lines.”

“I am confident China and Russia are shipping in parts to help support the development of drone assembly or manufacturing capability – which is a de facto decentralized cottage industry,” he warned.

Concerns extend beyond overseas battlefields as about 1,500 Iranians were intercepted at the U.S. border during the Biden administration.

Officials warn the unknown number who evaded detection raises fears of potential “sleeper cells.”

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President Trump acknowledged the issue on March 11, saying, “A lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border, but we know where most of them are: We’ve got our eye on all of them, I think.”

“It is the beginning of an asymmetric capability that the Iranians will use against their neighbors and U.S. assets in the region, but also the U.S. homeland,” Chell said.

“We may even want to call it terrorist attacks, using FPV’s against their neighbors and practically anywhere in the world,” he added.

“It’s a matter of when we see FPV attacks, probably swarm, probably sophisticated, on U.S. soil.”

“Within the next eight months, the Iranians are going to have sophisticated drone systems that can defeat some RF/radio frequency jamming. They will start to use tactics like swarming or spoofing,” he warned.

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“It will be very, very difficult for the U.S. to take out these little drone factories in the basements of apartment blocks where civilians help. Cutting supply chains will also be difficult.”

“The primary choke point for the Iranians is to establish supply chains from China to have enough supply to constitute precision mass capability and/or consistent, pervasive asymmetric capability,” Chell said before stating that if this happens, “the war between Iran and the U.S. just gets a lot longer.”

Beirut, Lebanon – On March 24, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi declared Iran’s ambassador to Beirut persona non grata and gave him until March 29 to leave the country.

But two days after the deadline, Ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani is still in Lebanon.

The incident comes amid another Israeli war and invasion of Lebanon, which has so far killed more than one thousand people and displaced more than 1.2 million others in just one month.

It has also highlighted a deep political divide in the country – between supporters and opponents of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah. The debate over Hezbollah’s weapons and Iran’s role in Lebanon has taken on a new dimension with the US-Israeli war on Iran and with Hezbollah’s re-entry into war with Israel, reportedly under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“The ambassador’s refusal to leave reflects a deeper political contest over legitimacy and authority,” Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University, told Al Jazeera.

IRGC calling the shots

Iran’s influence on Lebanon started to take shape in 1982, when the IRGC helped fellow Shia Muslims form Hezbollah as a response to Israeli invasion and occupation. Over the years, Hezbollah became the most powerful actor in Lebanon, both politically and militarily, in large part due to billions of dollars in Iranian funding.

Hezbollah peaked in popularity in 2000, when the group drove the Israeli military out of south Lebanon, ending an 18-year occupation. But subsequent events, which include engaging in the 2006 war with Israel, deploying fighters to the streets of Beirut in 2008, joining the Syrian civil war in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2011, and sending partisans to attack protesters during a 2019 uprising, eroded much of the group’s support outside of its core constituency.

When Hezbollah entered war with Israel on October 8, 2023, the group had few supporters outside the Shia Muslim community. By the time a ceasefire was agreed with Israel in November 2024, the group was also at its lowest politically and militarily. Israel had killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, mostly Shia, including Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of its military leadership.

With Hezbollah weakened, many in the international community began demanding the disarmament of Hezbollah,  and the Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun made it a priority.

But the IRGC reportedly used the calm brought on by the ceasefire to send officials to Lebanon to help Hezbollah restructure. And some analysts believe it was Tehran that made the call for Hezbollah to re-enter the war with Israel on March 2, just a couple of days after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated in Tehran.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Salam recently made a similar claim, saying that the IRGC is “managing the military operation in Lebanon”. He also accused the Iranian group of firing an attack at Lebanon’s island neighbour to the west, Cyprus.

Ambassador won’t leave

In light of the IRGC’s perceived role in Lebanon, Raggi declared Sheibani persona non grata, effectively removing his diplomatic immunity and asking him to leave the country.

“The Lebanese government’s decision to order the ambassador of Iran out of the country represents a landmark decision in Lebanese politics, given Iran’s profound role in Lebanese politics and its backing for Hezbollah’s militia,” Dania Arayssi, a senior analyst at New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, told Al Jazeera.

But Iran’s Foreign Ministry has said Sheibani won’t leave.

Sheibani’s stay in Lebanon is being backed by Hezbollah, whose officials have made stark statements in local media in recent weeks indicating that the government will have to rescind its decisions on Hezbollah’s disarmament.

“The cabinet decision to disarm Hezbollah triggered the group to make explicit threats to ‘punish’ those involved,” Arayssi said.

Also in Sheibani’s corner is Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Though Berri is a longtime Hezbollah ally,  following Hezbollah’s reentry into the war in March, he initially supported the government’s decision to ban Hezbollah’s military activity.

‘Authority on paper’

The war on Iran and Hezbollah’s reenergised war campaign, in which it is still firing dozens of attacks and militarily engaging with Israeli troops on the ground in Lebanon, is shifting political fortunes, making it more difficult for the government to remove Hezbollah’s military power.

The group, considered badly weakened before its re-entry into the war, is now exerting more confidence militarily and politically in Lebanon.

That is likely connected to Iran’s fortunes, as the government there appears to be holding on to power despite a month of attacks and assassinations.

For his part, Sheibani cannot be stopped or arrested as long as he stays inside the Iranian compound.

Hezbollah’s critics say that the Iranian government’s refusal to abide by the government decision undermines the state’s authority, which has been faltering since the war began. Many of Hezbollah’s most fervent opponents have continued calling for their disarmament, but analysts say that is increasingly difficult while the group is actively fighting Israel, particularly on Lebanese territory.

“The state is asserting its authority on paper,” Salamey said. “But it is constrained in practice by internal divisions and competing claims of legitimacy, with each step testing the boundaries of Lebanon’s power-sharing system.”

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey on Monday in the wake of anti-LGBTQ comments and remarks about religion he made in videos on his Instagram account.

“They proclaim Pride Month in the NBA,” he said. “They proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say come join us for Pride, for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness. So how is it that one can’t speak righteousness? How are they to say that this man is crazy?”

Coach Billy Donovan said the Bulls have employees from “all different walks of life” and Ivey’s comments don’t reflect the values of the organization.

“Everybody comes with their own personal experiences, but one is we’ve got to all be professional,” Donovan said prior to Chicago’s game at San Antonio. “I think there’s got to be a high level of respect for one another, and we’ve got to help each other and then be accountable to those standards.”

In an Instagram live conducted on an airplane hours after the Bulls let him go, Ivey again spoke at length about religion. He said the championship rings LeBron James and Michael Jordan earned are “not gonna matter on judgment day.”

He also insisted he “didn’t get myself waived” and that other teams won’t sign him because they think “he’s too religious.” He said he was in the gym, rehabbing and “doing what was required of me in my job” on Monday.

At one point, a flight attendant asked him to end the session because the plane was about ready to depart and the cellphone could interfere with the communication systems. He continued to discuss religion for about another minute before wrapping it up.

Ivey has spoken this season about dealing with depression. He recently started posting lengthy videos expressing his thoughts about religion on Instagram.

“How is it when the gospel is preached that people hate it?” Ivey said. “That people don’t want to hear it? And they think it’s strange when someone preaches the gospel, the true gospel?”

Chicago acquired Ivey from Detroit in a three-team trade on Feb. 3. He had an expiring contract.

The Bulls shut him down for the remainder of the season last week after being sidelined since Feb. 11 with a sore left knee. He averaged 8.5 points in 37 games this season, including four for Chicago.

“I don’t want to get into what he put out there, but certainly, I hope for him he’s okay,” Donovan said. “I’ve had conversations with Jaden and he’s always been about rehabbing his knee and trying to get on the court and wanting to play. But I think organizationally, there are certain standards we want to have as an organization and try to live up to those each and every day.”

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