The US military is employing Iranian-style one-way attack drones in its airstrikes against Iran.

In July, Secretary of the Army Pete Hegseth issued a memo titled "Maximizing Drone Dominance," which laid the groundwork for the Department of Defense to utilize unmanned aerial vehicles in operations it now calls "Epic Fury."

The United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Tehran early Saturday, assassinating Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and weakening Iran's military apparatus.

The US Central Command announced the joint operation, revealing for the first time the use of expendable drones.

The US military stated, "Precision-guided munitions were launched from air, land, and sea during the initial hours of the operation. Additionally, Task Force Scorpion Strike from CENTCOM utilized low-cost, expendable attack drones in combat for the first time."

CENTCOM also revealed that the low-cost drones were modeled after Iran's Shahed drones and are currently carrying out retaliatory strikes for the United States.

Military industry publication 'Military Times' reported that the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drone platform is an "expendable attack drone reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136."

The publication added that the drones are manufactured by SpektreWorks in Arizona and can be launched by catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff devices, and mobile ground systems.

With a maximum weight of approximately 180 pounds (about 82 kg), they are significantly lighter than Iranian Shaheds and are estimated to cost around $35,000 per unit.

In his memo last summer, Secretary Hegseth pointed out, "Drones are the biggest innovation on the battlefield in a generation, accounting for most of the casualties in Ukraine this year. Adversaries produce millions of low-cost drones annually."

He criticized, "Despite a surge in global military drone production over the past three years, the previous administration responded with bureaucratic procedures. US military units are not equipped with the lethal small drones required for the modern battlefield."

Left-leaning media outlets reported that the US military faces a dilemma in using $4 million interceptor missiles to shoot down Iranian drones, but they do not mention the US drone attack or the incapacitation of Iran's air defense systems.

United States NNP= Hong Seong-gu, Chief Reporter / Special Correspondent for this paper NNP info@newsandpost.com