September 17th, 2026: U.S. Destroys Iranian Boats & China Supercharges Cyber Spying

Hey, Mike Baker here, and if you're enjoying the PDB, and I certainly hope you are, you can listen ad free by becoming a premium member at PDBpremium.com. You'll also get exclusive content, regular ask me anything episodes, and our weekly news letter, the PDB Intelligence Checklist, so head on over to PDBpremium.com. It's really that simple. It's Thursday, the 17th of September. Welcome to the president's daily brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First up, the US military opens fire on two Iranian boats. After officials say that they tried to approach and take an American unmanned vessel. I'll have the details. Later in the show, a new report is exposing how Chinese hackers for hire are using AI to supercharge Beijing cyber operations. Plus, the FBI says it thwarted a Russian plot to assassinate a prominent Kremlin dissident get this in Washington, DC. And in today's back of the brief, Ukraine says its drone forces killed a decorated Russian general just weeks after Moscow awarded him its highest honorary title. But first, today's PDB spotlight. The US military says it destroyed two Iranian boats this week after they tried to seize an American unmanned naval drone operating near the Strait of Hormuz. This marks yet another direct confrontation between American and Iranian forces in one of the most heavily contested waterways in the world. According to US Central Command, the two small boats approached an American unmanned surface vessel on Monday and attempted to take possession of it. American forces intervened and the Iranian boats were destroyed. Axios, citing US officials reports that an American drone fired two missiles at the boats, killing most of those aboard. St. Thomas confirmed the attempted seizure and says the US military responded with force, though it is not publicly provided all the operational details. The target was a sail drone. It's an unmanned surface vessel used by the US Navy to monitor activity across the waters in the Middle East. It's essentially a small autonomous surveillance boat that carries cameras and sensors can patrol for extended periods without a crew and feeds information back to American forces monitoring maritime traffic. The Navy says the technology aboard the sail drone is commercially available and does not include any classified components. But this latest incident becomes much more interesting when you consider what happened just one week earlier. On September 8th, Iran successfully captured a different American unmanned vessel, this one operating beneath the surface. The dive LD underwater drone produced by the defense company Andaril apparently malfunctioned near the state of Hormuz before Iranian forces recovered it. US officials have played down the intelligence value of that capture, describing the drone as an older defective system without classified payloads. But analysts say Iran will almost certainly study the hardware and attempt to reverse engineer whatever technology that it can. So last week Iran got its hands on an American underwater drone, and this week Iranian boats allegedly went after an American surface drone. And this time the US military destroyed those boats. There's also some history here. Iran has tried to seize sail drones before. Back in August of 2022, the Navy spotted an Iranian revolutionary guard support ship towing away an American sail drone in international waters in the Persian Gulf. The USS Thunderbolt moved in, the Navy sent up a helicopter, and after roughly four hours, the Iranian vessel finally cut the tow line and left the drone behind. Two days later Iran tried that move once again. An Iranian Navy warship actually grabbed two sail drones, operating in international waters in the Red Sea, and took them aboard. Two American destroyers and Navy helicopters followed the Iranian ship repeatedly demanding that they return the drones. The Iranians eventually released them the following morning. Now the obvious difference here is that those incidents happened before the current war. Four years ago, American warships shadowed the Iranians and pressured them into giving the drones back. This week, when the US says Iranian boats tried to grab another one, well the response was lethal. And these unmanned systems have become increasingly important, as Washington tries to restore commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. They give American forces a relatively inexpensive way to keep constant eyes on the water, tracking ships, monitoring Iranian activity, and expanding surveillance without putting sailors aboard every vessel. That becomes especially valuable when tanker traffic through the Strait remains badly disrupted, and American forces are trying to keep shipping lanes open. It also makes those drones an increasingly attractive target for the Iranian regime. Alright, coming up next, we'll look at how Chinese hackers are using AI to supercharge their spying operations. What? The Chinese regime is engaged in cyber shenanigans I'm shocked. And we'll look at an alleged Russian assassination plot targeting a Kremlin dissident in Washington, DC. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, regular listeners of the PDB know that I spend a lot of time on the road. So I think I've become a bit of a travel luggage savant. That's why I'm very happy to tell you about noble travel. That's noble N-O-B-L. Look, I've traveled with plenty of luggage that looked great, but at the end of the day, now it didn't hold up onto travel conditions or just wasn't practical. That's why I love nobles all in one carry on. 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Welcome back to the PDB. For years, one of the biggest questions surrounding China's sprawling cyber-espionage operations has been fairly simple. What does Beijing actually do with everything that its hackers steal? Well, we're getting a look at one answer and it involves artificial intelligence. A new report from the Wall Street Journal takes us inside a company called Xiron. That's a Chinese cybersecurity firm that Western intelligence officials say belongs to a broader network of hacking for higher companies that steal and analyze sensitive information for Chinese authorities. Internal company data reviewed by the journal suggests Xiron is offering clients something that looks increasingly like a private intelligence service. Some of the material had already circulated among cybersecurity researchers, but the journal reviewed a much larger collection, including internal records, intelligence reports, and documents, apparently obtained from foreign governments. Chinese hackers now, of course, have stolen an extraordinary amount of information over the years. We've talked about that before here on the PDB. In the US alone, law enforcement officials have linked Chinese actors to breaches involving hundreds of millions of records. Now, stealing thousands of emails, government documents, phone records, and other files, well, that's one thing. But you then need the ability to sift through that mountain of data that the hackers stole in order to identify the most useful or valuable information or intelligence. Xiron says its system can sift through that material. The company claims access to a massive database, combining public information with private data acquired from telecom operators across Asia. Its dashboard can sort information from different sources, connect individuals, and map relationships between people. Then it adds artificial intelligence. According to company materials reviewed by the journal, Xiron systems can use Chinese AI models from companies including Alibaba and Deepseek to organize massive amounts of data and build timelines and automatically generate intelligence reports. So instead of handing Chinese authorities, the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA, thousands of stolen emails or raw documents, Xiron can potentially tell them what matters and give them something much closer to a finished intelligence product. Internal chats obtained by the journal suggest Xiron markets those services to customers across China, including police units. And the information it appears to have access to is extensive. The Philippines seems to have been a major target. Spreadsheets reviewed by the journal described information associated with 19 government email addresses, including briefing material related to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. One document apparently contained briefing material prepared for a Philippine official ahead of a meeting with a director on the U.S. National Security Council in India, back in March of 2025. Another Philippine government email was marked, quote, "extremely urgent and confidential." Russia, interestingly, shows up in the files as well. Documents linked to the Kremlin reportedly include talking points for the country's civil defense minister, a letter from a Russian business executive to a foreign affairs official, and a diplomatic note analyzing a foreign ambassador's public remarks. That's notable because, well, Russia is supposed to be one of Beijing's closest strategic partners. Could China be spying on Russia? Go figure. The files go beyond governments we normally associate with Chinese espionage. The Vatican, interestingly, shows up as well. Just days after Pope Francis died last year, an apparent Vatican email and included information from Taiwan's embassy, identifying three Taiwanese delegates planning to attend his funeral, along with their flight details. Now, it's unclear whether Xeran itself stole every one of these documents. While Chats suggested the company both sells access to compromised foreign computer systems, and acquires stolen information from third parties. In other words, well, look at that. It's multitasking. Xeran appears to operate as both a hacker and a broker. Xeran also advertises tools capable of monitoring computer screens, recording keystrokes, accessing data from Apple devices, and harvesting emails. It's unclear whether the company can actually provide everything it advertises, but Chinese corporate records show that Xeran owns copyrights to software. The cyber security experts say could allow it to do much of what it claims. Now, what caught my attention here in particular is what Xeran says it can do after the information is stolen. It's essentially the marriage of hackers with advanced AI. Artificial intelligence can take mountains of hacked emails, documents, and personal information, and turn them into something far more useful. It's intelligence reports that police, security agencies, or other government clients can actually use. Alright, I want to turn our focus now to the US. As federal prosecutors say a Russian intelligence network was shopping around a murder for a higher plot, targeting a prominent Kremlin dissident believed to be living in Washington, D.C. The FBI says it managed to disrupt the alleged assassination plot before the network could carry it out, and the indictment gives us a pretty remarkable look. And now the prosecutors say they plan to pull it off. It apparently started with a relatively small surveillance job. According to the unsealed indictment, the network recruited up Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn earlier this year, and sent him after the dissident, who has not been publicly identified. Prosecutors say he was given two locations associated with the target, instructions on conducting surveillance, and an offer of between $1,000 and $1,500. Apparently he did it, photographing and recording the locations, before sending that material back to the network. Prosecutors say the recruiters came back with another offer. This time it was $40,000 to quote "eliminate" or "disappear" the dissident. So what allegedly began as a paid surveillance job became an effort to recruit someone already living in America to carry out a murder in the nation's capital. Now that Venezuelan recruits refused. And according to the indictment, the recruiters asked whether he knew somebody else who could do it. Wow. They are very discreet, aren't they? One of the recruiters allegedly said they had people in Mexico who might be able to carry out the killing. Prosecutors say they then approached multiple other individuals inside the U.S., offering substantial amounts of money to surveil and potentially kill targets. And that's where the larger operation comes into view. Five people have now been charged and all remain in large. The Justice Department says the people behind the Washington plot belong to a Russian intelligence network that's been operating since at least 2024, allegedly carrying out attacks and murders around the world. Three of those charged are described as high-ranking members, former Russian intelligence Colonel Yuriy Kromayev, his son, who's an officer in Russia's FSB, and a Cuban national living in Russia. The network historically focused on Russian dissidents and defectors, but after Russia invaded Ukraine, prosecutors say it expanded to countries Moscow viewed as supporting Kiev. Last year, the network allegedly recruited a U.S. citizen to surveil another Russian dissident in Lithuania. The American was offered $200, not times too tough, to take photographs. After he did, prosecutors say Yuriy offered him roughly $25,000 to kill the dissident. That individual also refused. Yuriy then allegedly offered him a "simpler job," potentially setting fire to a warehouse or attacking an electrical substation, in quote, "all the countries that are helping Ukraine." Prosecutors say the Cuban national also have coordinated an attack in Prague, back in 2024, providing potential targets and arranging travel for a participant, followed by another attack in Lithuania several months later. So we're talking about allegations of surveillance, murder for hire, arson, attacks on infrastructure, all tied by prosecutors to the same Russian intelligence network. James Barnacle, who leads the FBI's New York office, credited the "relentless work of agents" as alleged Russian intelligence members and their affiliates conspired to quote "intimidate, threaten, or murder people on U.S. soil and around the world." All five defendants have charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism, three also face conspiracy to commit murder for hire. Even if you're wondering about a response from the Kremlin, well, the Kremlin says it wants to see "credible evidence" and "tangible facts" before commenting further. Alright, coming up in the back of the brief, Ukraine's drone forces claim another high-value target, killing a Russian general, honored by Moscow just two weeks earlier. More on that when we come back. Okay, Mike Baker here, with a health tip for all the dudes out there. 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Your business deserves a partner that moves as fast as you do. Approval in minutes, funding the same day. Visit cardiff.com/PDB, that's cardiff.co/PDB. Real growth, fast funding, cardiff, borrow better. In today's back of the brief, Ukraine says its drone forces have killed one of Russia's most decorated commanders, just weeks after he received the country's highest honorary title. Major General Anton Grunis was reportedly killed Saturday night in a drone strike on his position in a Russian-held part of Eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region. The claim comes from Major Robert Blavdi, better known by his call sign Medjar, who commands Ukraine's unmanned systems forces. Blavdi says one of his units carried out the strike, and that Grunis is now the seventh Russian military commander killed by forces under his command. Reuters has not been able to independently verify those details, and Russia's defense ministry has remained silent about the claim. But a senior Russian commander has confirmed that Grunis is dead without saying how he was killed. Back in July, Grunis appeared by video link during a televised meeting with Vladimir Putin, where he described how troops from his fourth separate guards Mona Riflebergade helped Russia capture a strategic Ukrainian city. Putin publicly congratulated Grunis, telling him, quote, "Luck comes to those who do the work." End quote. I don't believe that Putin made that quote up on the sound. Then in late August, Grunis separated his ceremony in dress uniform to receive the gold star, marking him as a hero of Russia, Moscow's highest honorary title. But a little more than two weeks later, now he's reportedly dead. This appears to have been killed at a military position inside occupied Ukraine, so this is somewhat different from the assassinations of Russian commanders that we've seen so much farther from the battlefield. In December, Lieutenant General Faneel Sardarov was killed when an bomb exploded beneath his SUV in Moscow. Russian investigators said Ukrainian intelligence was one possible culprit. Although Kiev never claimed responsibility. And in late 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Karelov, the commander of Russia's nuclear biological and chemical protection forces, was killed outside his Moscow apartment by a bomb hidden on a scooter. Ukraine's SPU later claimed responsibility for that attack. And that, my friends, is the president's daily brief for Thursday the 17th of September. If you have any questions or comments and hope you do, just reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And finally, if you're looking for an ad-free PDB experience, well, we've got you covered. Just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. [MUSIC]