Bloomberg reported on Thursday that during the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran that began on February 28, Iranian forces destroyed more than two dozen US MQ-9 Reaper drones, or nearly $1 billion worth of the unmanned aircraft.
The number represents about 20% of the Pentagon’s MQ-9 inventory. The drones have been used for nearly two decades in strikes as part of the US “War on Terror,” which continues today in Somalia, Yemen, and now Nigeria, but when used against an enemy with air defenses, the MQ-9 is extremely vulnerable.
During the US bombing campaigns in Yemen in 2024 and 2025, the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, shot down about 20 MQ-9s. The more than two dozen that were destroyed in the Iran war include drones that were shot down by Iranian air defenses and drones that were destroyed by Iranian attacks on US bases across the region.
In the war against Iran, previous reports have said that the MQ-9 was armed with 250-pound small-diameter bombs, which have a longer range than the Hellfire missiles the drones are usually equipped with, likely an effort to make them less exposed to Iran’s air defenses.
Despite the heavy loss of the MQ-9s, Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, the chief of the US Air Force, dubbed the drones the “most valuable player” of the US-Israeli bombing campaign, which killed more than 3,400 Iranians, around half of whom were civilians.
“No other platform is even close to the MQ-9” in terms of the number of strikes launched in Iran, Wilsbach told Congress on Wednesday. “It’s an unmanned platform, so we get a lot of utility out of them, and don’t put our folks at risk,” he said.
According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, MQ-9s are still deployed against Iran, flying in the Strait of Hormuz to enforce the US blockade of Iranian ports and for surveillance.
