The consequences of Trump's (and Israel's) war with Iran could hit very close to home if Iran, or one of its proxies, were able to launch a drone strike from a vessel in the Pacific aimed at California.

The warning was vague but nonetheless chilling. As ABC News reported Wednesday morning, law enforcement agencies around California were warned by the FBI in February that Iran could be seeking to retaliate against the US by launching a drone strike somewhere in the state.

The text of the late February alert was as follows:

We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.

We are just 12 days into this war — or conflict, as many in the Trump administration want to call it — with Iran, and Tuesday marked the heaviest day of attacks so far within the country.

Iran has continued launching missile and drone attacks at US allies across the Mideast region, and the idea that they would like to attack somewhere on US soil only makes sense.

A threat assessment issued by the Department of Homeland Security last week suggested that Iran and its proxies "probably" pose a threat of targeted attacks in the US, as Reuters reported. But, the agency said, a large-scale physical strike was unlikely.

ABC News notes that the FBI issued a similar warning about potential drone attacks on the West Coast or along the US-Mexican border back in September, but that warning was about Mexican drug cartels seeking to attack the US.

Per Reuters, Governor Gavin Newsom's office downplayed the FBI bulletin, saying it was "one of many security updates ‌the ⁠state received from federal partners daily."  And Newsom spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo added, "The Governor's Office of Emergency Services is actively working with state, local and federal security officials."

This should be cold comfort, but a reporter asked President Trump at a briefing outside the White House Wednesday if he was concerned about Iran attacking on US soil, and he said, "No, I'm not."

Top image: NOWA DEBA, POLAND - NOVEMBER 18: A decoy drone flies during a NATO live-fire demonstration of a counter-UAS system on November 18, 2025 in Nowa Deba, Poland. The exercise, hosted by the Polish Ministry of Defense, came as Polish soldiers, along with Romanian and U.S. forces, completed training on a counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) system used successfully in Ukraine. NATO members Poland and Romania fielded these systems as part of Operation Eastern Sentry, NATO's response to recent incursions of Russian drones into European airspace. (Photo by Omar Marques/Getty Images)

The United States has launched a direct military strike on Iran, targeting three major nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. President Trump announced the operation Saturday evening, saying US B-2 stealth bombers “successfully” completed the mission and safely exited Iranian airspace.

“A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,” he wrote on Truth Social, calling it a “very successful military operation” and adding, “This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR,” as reported by KRON4.

As Associated Press reports, Trump is expected to address the nation at 10 p.m. ET from the White House. The strikes mark a dramatic escalation of tensions in the region, with the US joining Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. According to CNN, the decision came after more than a week of Israeli air raids that had already degraded Iran’s air defenses and damaged several military and nuclear sites.

The three sites targeted are central to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Fordow is an underground enrichment facility built into a mountainside near Qom, considered one of the most heavily fortified sites in Iran. Natanz is Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facility, while Isfahan hosts a major nuclear research complex. The US is the only country with the bunker-busting GBU-57 bombs required to strike deeply buried targets like Fordow.

Iranian state media acknowledged explosions near Qom but claimed the facilities had been evacuated “some time ago.” Satellite and other intelligence assessments are now underway to determine the extent of the damage, according to retired Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who spoke with CNN.

Reactions to the strike were divided. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it “the right call,” while Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib warned that it risks dragging the US into another war. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized the attack as “grossly unconstitutional.” Trump’s decision not to consult the full “Gang of Eight” ahead of the strikes also drew criticism; top Republicans were briefed, while Democratic intelligence leaders were not.

While President Trump maintains that the operation is limited to Iran’s nuclear program and not the start of a broader war, Iranian retaliation remains a real risk. “This is not an expanded campaign,” one administration official told CNN. “They still want to get back to the path of a diplomatic arrangement.”

See live updates via CNN and Al Jazeera.

Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 21: A man who asked not to be identified holds an Iranian and an upside down American flag while people gather for a "No War with Iran x Israel and Immigrants" on June 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. President Donald Trump announced air strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)

According to the Asian Law Caucus, dozens of American citizens who may have been born in Yemen are being held in the war-torn country, stranded, and unable to return to the U.S. because the embassy there stripped them of their passports. Among those was 64-year-old San Francisco resident Mosed Shaye Omar who left Yemen for the U.S. in 1972 and has been a citizen here since 1978.

As Bay City News reports, Omar traveled to Yemen in 2012 in order to retrieve a young daughter, then 13, and bring her back to the U.S., where he has multiple children and grandchildren. After trying to get her a passport, he was called into the embassy where his own passport was confiscated. He then says after a lengthy delay he was tricked into a signing a confession that said he'd been issued a Yemeni passport in 1972 under a false name, and that his real name was Yasid Mohammed Ali Alghazali.

That was in December 2013. In February 2014 he was granted a one-way travel document that allowed him back to U.S., to return to his family in San Francisco. But now he's suing Secretary of State John Kerry and the State Department for the return of his passport, because he wants to return to Yemen in order to help his daughter escape.

"I want to help her get out of the war," Omar said to the Chronicle outside a federal courthouse Monday.

The lawsuit, brought on Omar's behalf by the Asian Law Caucus, alleges that there are dozens more like Omar on whom the State Department has turned their backs. Al Jazeera America and the Guardian have both reported on similar circumstances in which Yemeni-Americans were detained and interrogated, as Omar was, and whose passports were also confiscated at the U.S. embassy in Sana’a.

Meanwhile, because there is no longer a working airport in Sana'a, the embassy issues regular statements on their website about ships passing through that can take U.S. citizens to Djibouti and elsewhere. As of today there was an announcement that Saudi Arabia may have ended its airstrike campaign in the country.

Previously: SF Man Gets Out Of War-Torn Yemen, With Great Difficulty

It's been a story in local TV news broadcasts the past week, and SFist noted it briefly here: 26-year-old Mokhtar Alkhanshali, who grew up in San Francisco, became trapped in the capital city of Yemen, Sana'a, on March 27 after Saudi bombing raids destroyed the city's civilian airport. Alkhanshali, whose parents are from Yemen, has an Oakland-based coffee start-up called Mocha Mill, named for the Yemeni town of Mocha where a 14th century Muslim monk wrote what's believed to be the first text on coffee. He's spent the last five months meeting with Yemeni coffee farmers as part of his business, but quickly realized amid the bombing that he was not going to have an easy time getting home — the U.S. has no embassy in Yemen, and there has been no U.S. effort to evacuate Americans from the country. As KTVU reports, it took him three days to get back to San Francisco, and he says what he saw and heard that first few days was "like Armageddon. All hell broke loose."

Much of Yemen has fallen under the control of the Shiite Houthis in recent months, as well as factions of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and as a result the Saudi Arabian government has begun a highly risky campaign of airstrikes in the country.

Alkhanshali previously communicated with ABC 7 by Skype describing a horrific scenario in which he attempted, last week, to escape via the port city of Aden, a seven-hour drive from Sana'a, where he'd heard there was a ship taking U.S. citizens. But when he arrived there, he and friends in the same car were yanked out and blindfolded by a local militia group. "They assumed I was a Houthi rebel," he said, "[They] blindfolded us and threw us in the back of a truck."

Ultimately they were let go, but now fully scared for his life, and knowing he could not make the 28-hour, westerly drive through the desert to Oman, he made his way to the port town of Mocha where he managed to find a man with a small boat, with "a small 40 horse-power Yamaha engine," who would take him to Africa. “After a few hours it started to sink in," he said to KTVU. "I'm in the middle of the ocean with no navigation equipment."

They landed in Djibouti in northeast Africa, where as the BBC reports, many evacuees from Yemen are ending up. And from there he made his way to an airport in Kenya and boarded a flight to Amsterdam. Then he caught a non-stop home to SFO, all his coffee samples intact.

"It really feels like I was in some sort of action adventure novel," he said.

Meanwhile, a website has sprung up called StuckInYemen which is collecting names — 300 and counting — of U.S. citizens still trapped in the country. Among them are Alkhanshali's aunt and her five children.

KTVU -

After being grounded in 2013 due to budget cuts, the U.S. Navy promises the loud and awesome Blue Angels will return in 2014 as part of the annual Fleet Week celebration.

Not to be outdone by this weekend's much tamer Wharf Fest, the noted flight team announced 65 total shows in 34 city locations next year, with two demos over San Francisco on October 11th and October 12th, 2014. (And yes, a couple days of screeching practice flybys the week before.)

No word yet on whether the Parade of Ships or the showy disaster drills, which both got nixed due to budget sequestration and the subsequent government shutdown, will be back as well.

Previously: All Fleet Week coverage on SFist
[BCN/Appeal]

The recent uptick in gun violence in Oakland, including last weekend's shocking number of shootings (fifteen), can be tied back, in large part, to the August murder of a 16-year-old East Oakland girl. Oakland Police have told the Chronicle that some large percentage of recent shootings are connected to this escalated gang war between a group calling themselves The Money Team and another, unnamed gang, leading to multiple rounds of violent retaliation. The Money Team is said to have joined forces with the West Oakland-based gang Ghost Town, and they're being blamed for several home invasion robberies around the Bay in recent months.

One of those robberies resulted in the November 30 murder of 66-year-old Raveesh "Ravi" Kumra, a cell-phone entrepreneur and former owner of Mountain Winery in Saratoga. His wife found him dead in their San Jose Hills home, after it was ransacked. Santa Clara authorities said in a news conference this week that they've connected the crime to The Money Team, and they say that the gang was given a map of the layout of the home by 22-year-old Raven Dixon, a prostitute whom Kumra had hired and brought to the home multiple times.

The Money Team likes to target wealthy people who belong to ethnic groups that are known to keep large sums of money and valuables in their home. Two members of the group, Deangelo Austin, 21, and Lukis Anderson, 26, and one member of Ghost Town, Javier Garcia, 21, have been arrested and charged in the murder, and Dixon has been charged as an accessory.

We would also surmise that there is a likely connection here to the gruesome, unprovoked murders of two teenage best friends in late November in East Oakland, which could have been retaliation for the earlier, August murder of the 16-year-old girl.

[Chron]
[CBS 5]

Previously: Oakland Tries Operation Ceasefire Once Again

Here's some Cold War fun for a warm day: Bhautik Joshi snapped these pics of the Nike Hercules Missile Site in Marin County. Can't you just picture Harrison Ford and/or Alec Baldwin action-packing these shots? We sure can. A bit more on the missile sites, care of the Golden Gate National Park Service:

During the tense years from 1953 to 1979, the United States Army built and operated a total of 280 Nike missile firing batteries in the United States. These missile sites were emplaced as the last line of defense against Soviet bombers. Today, a dedicated group of volunteers works in partnership with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area on the continuous task of restoration at site SF-88, which has been turned into a museum. This valuable historical resource is the only restored Nike missile site in the entire country. It's a great chance for you to see the tools of the Cold War up close.

You can visit SF-88 during the week, Wednesday through Friday, 12:30 to 3:30. A guided walk begins from the Testing and Assembly Building every hour, with the last tour leaving at 3 p.m. On the guided walk you will be able to see the tools of the Cold War up close, and it includes an amazing trip down the missile elevator into the underground storage area.

You can find these explosive gems in Sausalito. Check out more images here.

Mission Bicycle recently unveiled via Facebook a bicycle for children named after the area's neighboring 'hood, Noe Valley (a neighborhood stereotypically teeming with families and lesbians and lesbians with families) called "The Noe." Cute, right? Well, according to the Mission Bicycle employe SFist spoke with today, it's a joke. Said employee claimed it was a potshot at poor, innocent Noe Valley. Heh. Then again, the Mission District also bubbles over with, dare we say, native Latino kids residing in many, many parts of the Mission. But that's... well, it's not something any self-respecting Zeitgeist-going, Brian Wilson beard-growing, Tartine-queuing young adult chooses to think about too much. Kills the magic, you know?

Mission Bicycle adds, "Our pre-orders were dismal so we've decided to scrap the project. And if you believe any of this we've got a timeshare we'd love to talk to you about."

Anyway, our good friends over at Uptown Almanac bring this adorable bit of humor to our attention. UA's Kevin Montgomery notes, "After years of exclusively selling fixies and single speeds to the neighborhood 20-somethings which the company was named after, the bike shop thought it wise to expand their reach to the burgeoning 'out-of-the-stroller-and-into-the-saddle' market up the hill."

Your move, Noe Valley.

[Via Mission Bicycle's Facebook page]

At 11 a..m. (PST) today, radio broadcasters and TV will take part in the first-ever nationwide emergency alert system test. Although emergency alert system tests have been done at the local level, we've never had one performed at the national level. This type of alert should come on handy when, say, slimy aliens attack (because they will), nuclear warfare erupts, a huge comet comes barreling toward planet Earth (you must see Melancholia; it's an actual masterpiece), or Harold Camping's premonitions of apocalyptic doom come true.

Expect to hear a 30-second "eeeeeeee" and familiar "this is only a test" messages during your TV or radio broadcasts.

Again, this is only a test. Don't panic. Not yet, anyway.

It was only a matter of time before conspiracy gibberish surrounding Osama bin Laden's death sprang forth. Enter Cindy Sheehan. Today, the American anti-war activist angrily denied reports of the the Al-Qaeda leader's death. Via Facebook page, Sheehan fumes:

I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you're stupid. Just think to yourself--they paraded Saddam's dead sons around to prove they were dead--why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent--just put your flags away and THINK!

She also notes:

It's also easier just to swallow the lies of the Empire like Monica Lewinsky swallowed Clinton's sperm. It works for me.

Huh.

Sheehan's son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed in the Iraq War. In response, she created a campsite outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch to protest the war and Bush Administration. In 2008, she ran a failed campaign against Nancy Pelosi for U.S. Congress.

Former San Francisco resident Sgt. David Gutierrez, CBS 5/AP reports, "died early on Christmas Day in Kandahar from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device went off." Gutierrez, it seems was patrolling in a town called Howz-e Madad at the time of the explosion. He leaves behind a wife and three kids.

While we typically like to poke fun at Cindy Sheehan and the loopy ladies of Code Pink --because, let's face it, they usually deserve a good ribbing -- we have too hand it to local anti-war protester Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, for shoving a megaphone in the face of an old man in uniform. Not only was it humorous, but it made a beautiful statement. See, during a protest against unmanned military drones at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield this weekend, Sheehan and other members of Code Pink got into a shouting match with some old man dressed as a veteran.

Then, things got ugly. Well, sort of ugly. Sheehan describes what went down:

After we got there we were informed that we had to move off the base and were shown by MPs where we could protest. As good warriors for free speech and peace, we groused about it and we were moving forward to where we were supposed to go, when a very angry older man pulled up and started yelling at us to: “Don’t go, I want to counter protest you.” I told him, first of all, he shouldn’t be drinking so early in the morning, and secondly not to worry, that we were going anywhere, we were just moving about 100 yards away.

And:

I was giving a little speech denouncing the drone-bombing program and the upcoming 50 percent troop escalation to Afghanistan, when the angry old man, now dressed in a military uniform, charged around the corner and got right into my bullhorn—I told him to get out of my face and he very violently slaps the bullhorn away from me.

Read more about Sheehan's (very long) version of events at Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox.