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The U.S. military announced Thursday the creation of its first multinational, multi-domain drone task force in the Middle East, expanding a program that has already carried out strikes at sea and from the deck of a Navy warship.
U.S. Central Command said the new unit, Task Force Falcon Strike, will bring together one-way attack drones operating in the air, on the water and underwater, staffed by personnel from the United States and regional partner nations. The announcement marks a significant scaling up of a drone warfare initiative that began less than a year ago.
Falcon Strike builds directly on Task Force Scorpion Strike, which CENTCOM established nine months earlier as the U.S. military's first dedicated one-way attack drone squadron in the Middle East. In that short span, Scorpion Strike notched several firsts, including the first-ever launch of an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December.
The squadron's drones were also used during Operation Epic Fury, and in July they were deployed in strikes on Iranian port facilities using unmanned attack vessels at sea.
Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM's commander, said the new task force is designed to capitalize on technological advances among the United States' allies in the region. "Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike's success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners," Cooper said, adding that combining capabilities would let the command "rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon."
Cooper cast the effort as an extension of existing military ties in the region. "The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region," he said. "We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together."
CENTCOM said it has begun consulting with and formally inviting regional partners to join the task force. As countries come on board, the command said, Falcon Strike will grow into a unified deterrent spanning multiple military domains across the Middle East.
The task force will be led by personnel from U.S. Special Operations Command Central, the same unit that stood up Scorpion Strike, working alongside representatives from the United States and partner nations. SOCCENT, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, plans and conducts special operations across CENTCOM's area of responsibility, which spans 21 countries across the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia.
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