BEIRUT — For the first time, US Central Command (CENTCOM) has launched a multinational and multi-domain attack drone task force, dubbed Falcon Strike.
Task Force Falcom Strike “will employ one-way attack drones consisting of unmanned systems from above, on, and below the sea operated by military support staff from the United States and regional partners,” CENTCOM said in a statement on Thursday.
The announcement comes after months of regional conflict and traded fires between Iran and its allied militias on one side, and the US, Israel and Arab Gulf states on the other side. During this conflict, drones, including unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned surface vessels, took part in the fight — especially one-way attack drones, like Iran’s Shahed family of UAVs and the American version known as the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS.
“Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon,” said CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper.
In December 2025, CENTCOM launched Scorpion Strike, its first one-way attack squadron in the Middle East. Later, the command started officially inviting regional partners.
“As regional partners formally join, Task Force Falcon Strike will scale attack drone capabilities across the Middle East into a unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent,” CENTCOM said on Thursday.
Falcon Strike will be led by personnel from US Special Operations Command Central and unidentified “regional partners.”
Since the outbreak of the US-Iran war, CENTCOM used a number of unmanned platforms for the first time in combat. These include: LUCAS, which is the reverse engineered drone of Iran’s Shahed 136; GARC, a 16-foot unmanned surface vessel (USV); and Corsair USVs, which were used to attack Iran’s port of Bandar Abbas.
