Terrorist gangs smuggling Iranian missiles and drugs in the Middle East will soon have a fleet of 100 robo-ships hunting them down, Britain's most senior military commander in the Gulf has revealed.
The new naval force, made up of drones that can operate around the clock, will be up and running by the summer, claimed Commodore Adrian Fryer.
It comes as the top officer insisted he remained 'alive' to the ever-present threat posed by Iran after a series of recent stand-offs, with the Commodore calling the Middle Eastern state the 'main destabilising country' in the region.
A small number of the unmanned vessels currently operating in the Gulf are already proving their worth, gathering invaluable data and information that's helping Royal Navy warships cut off smuggling routes and ambush gangs at sea.
During the past 12 months, frigate HMS Montrose has seized her biggest haul of narcotics in its three years in the Gulf, bagging a whopping £46.8 million, bringing the ship's total during its time in the Middle East to a staggering £111.1 million.
And in January 2022, intelligence siphoned up in the region helped Montrose make history, becoming the first Royal Navy warship to intercept a speedboat packed with sophisticated lethal weapons - including surface-to-air missiles - between Iran and Yemen.
But these victories are just a small taste of what Cdre Fryer hopes will become a regular drumbeat of successful ambushes against gangs in the Middle East.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline from his base in Bahrain, Cdre Fryer said: 'The vision here in this area is that by summer next year we will be continuously operating a fleet of 100 uncrewed vessels in the area.
'This will make a significant contribution because it will allow us to have more persistent eyes on the sea looking out. That will create a huge amount of data for us.