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Short-range kamikaze drones operated by an Iran-backed militia appear to have successfully targeted a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and a critical air defense radar at an American base in Iraq. This is the first known example of a successful attack of this kind on a U.S. military aircraft. It’s also not the first time we have seen evidence of these kinds of drones zipping over the same installation in recent weeks.
The incidents underscore the reality of the threat posed by small drones in the Middle East, where a wide variety of nefarious players have already employed these systems for surveillance and attacks against U.S. forces on multiple occasions, for years now. It is also a preview of what the U.S. could end up facing on its own homefront as it grapples with constant and sometimes highly perplexing drone incursions over sensitive bases and facilities. Even since the war began, there have been very alarming drone incursions over one of America’s most important bases that houses nuclear weapons and B-52 bombers that carry them. You can read all about these developments here.
One of the videos that began circulating yesterday, filmed from a first-person view (FPV) drone, shows a pair of Black Hawk helicopters sitting in a compound, protected only by a low blast wall. The video feed cuts out just before detonation, on or close to the main rotor, but the assumption is that one of these helicopters (at least) was struck.
An Iranian-backed militia carried out a successful FPV drone strike on Camp Victory in Iraq yesterday, successfully hitting multiple targets.
Seen here, one of the FPV attack munitions hits a parked UH-60 Black Hawk. pic.twitter.com/ngY8td9ONZ — OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 25, 2026
The location has been identified as the Victory Base Complex (VBC), a cluster of U.S. military installations surrounding Baghdad International Airport close to the Iraqi capital.
As for the helicopter, this appears to be a medical evacuation (medevac) configured HH-60M, emphasized by the video editing, in which it seems the prominent identification panels marked with red crosses have been obscured.
Noticing they blurred out a portion of their attack video (green). I think they were trying to hide the fact they attacked a medevac helo. Note white mark circled in orange.
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