Iran’s military claimed Thursday it has an enormous supply of suicide drone boats, which it is using to choke off crucial Strait of Hormuz, in chilling footage taken from its underground “missile city.”

Footage from Iranian state media purportedly shows underground tunnels full of naval drones, anti-ship missiles, and sea mines, with dramatic footage also showing some of them being fired.

It is not clear when the footage was recorded, or if the depot has since been hit by US and Israeli forces. 

The naval drones have already proved to be a massive threat to tanker and shipping vessels trying to make it through the chokepoint at Hormuz. They were responsible for striking two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. 

Also known as unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), these small drone boats either operate just below or on the surface of the water.

They are packed with explosives for their kamikaze mission, and are particularly difficult to defend against, especially at night.

On March 1, a crude oil tanker 44 miles off the coast of Oman was hit, killing one crew member.

Just days later, Bahamas-flagged crude oil tanker Sonangol Namibe was hit by a drone near Iraq’s Khor al Zubair port.

Dramatic video shared online shows what appears to be a naval drone slamming into the side of a tanker, triggering a huge explosion and sending a plume of smoke into the sky.

Iranian-made USVs have been used by the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, targeting trade vessels passing through the crucial Red Sea waterway.

USVs have also been used with great effect by Ukraine in its war with Russia.

USVs are particularly difficult to defend against because established methods used to prevent aerial drone attacks don’t always apply, according to a study from UK-based security, defense, and cybersecurity analysts, Westland Advisory.

For instance, radio frequency detection, geolocation, and jamming have all been well-developed for aerial drones, but, waterborne targets require different tacitics to target.

Utilizing advanced radar and sonar systems to detect USVs, developing better capabilities to intercept and jam USV communication links, and deploying autonomous underwater vehicles with the specific purpose of neutralizing USVs have all been suggested as possible countermeasures.

But Iran also showed off aslew of other weapons in the propaganda footage. Experts described the ordinance to CNN:

“We have missiles that are fired from underwater, and their speed is 100 meters per second, and we may use them in the coming days,” Brig. Gen. Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told state television on Wednesday.

The regime in Tehran has threatened to use the terrifying arsenal to cripple the global economy and send oil prices as high as $200 a barrel.

Iran has also threatened to make the Persian Gulf run red with the “blood of invaders” if the US and Israel don’t end their airstrikes on the country.

“Any aggression against soil of Iranian islands will shatter all restraint. We will abandon all restraint and make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders,” Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said.

It comes as Iran’s savage revenge plot to attack California and the West Coast with its army of drones was revealed in an FBI memo.

The bureau said it had intelligence that drones could be sent to attack targets from an unidentified vessel off the US coast.

This is not the first time the Islamist regime has highlighted its underground “missile city.”

In January and February 2025, the IRGC held a series of major “unveilings,” including its “strategic missile base” on the Gulf Coast, independent Kurdish outlet Channel 8 reported at the time.

The footage also highlighted large bays for suicide drone boats, hundreds of cruise and ballistic missiles — including the Ghadr-380 — primed on mobile launchers, and stacks of sophisticated naval mines ready for deployment in the Strait of Hormuz.

The earliest mention of Iran’s “missile city” was in March 2021, when the IRC released footage showing rows upon rows of anti-ship missiles and electronic warfare equipment, as reported by the Jerusalem Post at the time.

The IRGC claimed it had built the base deep underground to protect it from naval bombardment.

With Post wires