Latest / The President's Daily Brief / September 17th, 2026: U.S. Destroys Iranian Boats & China Supercharges Cyber Spying

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September 17th, 2026: U.S. Destroys Iranian Boats & China Supercharges Cyber Spying · The President's Daily Brief

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it's really that simple.
0:36
It's Thursday,
0:37
the 17th of September.
0:39
Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
0:41
I'm Mike Baker,
0:42
your eyes and ears on the world stage.
0:44
Alright.
0:45
Let's get briefed.
0:46
First up,
0:47
the US military opens fire on two Iranian boats
0:51
after officials say that they tried to
0:53
approach and take an American unmanned vessel.
0:56
I'll have the details
0:57
later in the show.
0:58
A new report is exposing how Chinese hackers for hire
1:02
are using AI to supercharge Beijing's cyber operations.
1:07
Plus,
1:08
the FBI says it thwarted a Russian plot to
1:11
assassinate a prominent Kremlin dissident,
1:13
get this,
1:14
in Washington DC,
1:16
and in today's Back of the Brief,
1:17
Ukraine says its drone forces
1:20
killed a decorated Russian general just weeks after Moscow awarded him
1:24
its highest honorary title.
1:26
But first,
1:27
today's PDB spotlight.
1:30
The US military says it destroyed two Iranian boats this week
1:34
after they tried to seize an American unmanned naval drone
1:37
operating near the Strait of Hormuz.
1:39
This marks yet another direct confrontation between American and Iranian forces
1:44
in one of the most heavily contested waterways in the world,
1:48
according to US Central Command.
1:49
The two small boats approached an American unmanned surface vessel on Monday
1:53
and attempted to take possession of it.
1:55
American forces intervened
1:57
and the Iranian boats were destroyed.
1:59
Axios,
2:00
citing US officials,
2:01
reports that an American drone fired two missiles at the boats,
2:04
killing most of those aboard.
2:06
CENTCOM has confirmed the attempted seizure and
2:08
says the US military responded with force,
2:11
though it has not publicly provided all the operational details.
2:15
The target was
2:16
a sail drone.
2:18
It's an unmanned surface vessel used by the US Navy
2:21
to monitor activity across the waters in the Middle East.
2:24
It's essentially a small autonomous surveillance boat.
2:27
It carries cameras and sensors,
2:29
can patrol for extended periods without a crew,
2:32
and feeds information back to American forces monitoring maritime traffic.
2:36
The Navy says the technology aboard the sail drone is commercially available
2:40
and does not include any classified components.
2:43
But this latest incident becomes much more interesting
2:46
when you consider what happened just one week earlier
2:49
on September 8th.
2:50
Iran successfully captured a different American unmanned vessel,
2:54
this one operating beneath the surface.
2:57
The Dive LD underwater drone produced by the defense company Andaril.
3:01
Apparently malfunctioned near the Strait of
3:03
Hormuz before Iranian forces recovered it.
3:07
US officials have played down the intelligence value of that capture,
3:10
describing the drone as an older defective system without classified payloads.
3:15
But analysts say Iran will almost certainly study the hardware and attempt to
3:19
reverse engineer whatever technology that it can.
3:23
So last week Iran got its hands on an American underwater drone,
3:26
and this week Iranian boats allegedly went after an American surface drone.
3:31
And this time the US military destroyed those boats.
3:34
There's also some history here.
3:36
Iran has tried to seize sail drones before.
3:39
Back in August of 2022,
3:42
the navy spotted an Iranian Revolutionary Guard support ship
3:46
towing away an American sail drone in international waters in the Persian Gulf.
3:50
The USS Thunderbolt moved in.
3:52
The Navy sent up a helicopter,
3:53
and after roughly 4 hours,
3:56
the Iranian vessel finally cut the tow line and left the drone behind.
4:00
Two days later,
4:01
Iran tried that move once again.
4:03
An Iranian navy warship actually grabbed two sail drones
4:06
operating in international waters in the Red Sea
4:09
and took them aboard.
4:10
Two American destroyers and Navy helicopters followed the Iranian ship,
4:14
repeatedly demanding that they return the drones.
4:17
The Iranians
4:18
eventually
4:20
released them the following morning.
4:21
Now the obvious difference here is
4:23
that those incidents happened before the current war.
4:26
4 years ago,
4:27
American warships shadowed the Iranians and pressured
4:29
them into giving the drones back.
4:31
This week,
4:32
when the US says Iranian boats tried to grab another one,
4:35
well,
4:35
the response was lethal,
4:37
and these unmanned systems have become increasingly
4:39
important as Washington tries to restore commercial traffic
4:42
through the Strait of Hormuz.
4:44
They give American forces a relatively inexpensive way
4:47
to keep constant eyes on the water,
4:49
tracking ships,
4:50
monitoring Iranian activity,
4:52
and
4:52
expanding surveillance without putting sailors aboard every vessel.
4:56
That becomes especially valuable when tanker
4:58
traffic through the Strait remains badly disrupted
5:01
and American forces are trying to keep shipping lanes open.
5:04
It also makes those drones
5:06
an increasingly attractive target
5:08
for the Iranian regime.
5:10
Coming up next,
5:11
we'll look at how Chinese hackers are using AI
5:14
to supercharge their spying operations.
5:17
What
5:17
the Chinese regime is engaged in cyber shenanigans.
5:21
I'm shocked.
5:22
And we'll look at an alleged Russian assassination plot
5:25
targeting a Kremlin dissident in Washington DC
5:28
I'll be right back.
5:31
Hey,
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For years,
6:59
one of the biggest questions surrounding China's sprawling
7:02
cyber espionage operations has been fairly simple.
7:05
What does Beijing actually do
7:07
with everything that its hackers steal?
7:10
Well,
7:10
we're getting a look at one answer,
7:12
and it involves artificial intelligence.
7:15
A new report from The Wall Street Journal takes us inside a company called Xeron,
7:19
that's a Chinese cybersecurity firm.
7:21
That Western intelligence officials say belongs to
7:24
a broader network of hacking for hire companies
7:26
that steal and analyze sensitive information for Chinese authorities.
7:31
Internal company data reviewed by the journal
7:33
suggests Xeron is offering clients something that
7:36
looks increasingly like a private intelligence service.
7:40
Some of the material had already circulated among cybersecurity researchers.
7:43
But the journal reviewed a much larger collection including internal records,
7:47
intelligence reports,
7:48
and documents apparently obtained
7:50
from foreign governments.
7:52
Chinese hackers now,
7:53
of course,
7:53
have stolen an extraordinary amount of information over the years.
7:56
We've talked about that before here on the PDB.
7:59
In the US alone,
8:00
law enforcement officials have linked Chinese hackers to
8:03
breaches involving hundreds of millions of records.
8:06
Now
8:07
stealing thousands of emails and government documents and phone records and
8:11
other files,
8:12
well,
8:12
that's one thing.
8:13
But you then need the ability to sift
8:16
through that mountain of data that the hackers stole
8:19
in order to identify the most useful or valuable information or intelligence.
8:24
Xeron says its system can sift through that material.
8:28
The company claims access to a massive database combining public information
8:32
with private data acquired from telecom operators across Asia.
8:36
Its dashboard can sort information from different sources,
8:40
connect individuals,
8:41
and map relationships between people.
8:44
Then it adds artificial intelligence.
8:46
According to company materials reviewed by the journal,
8:49
Xeron Systems can use Chinese AI models
8:52
from companies including Alibaba and DeepSeek
8:55
to organize massive amounts of data,
8:58
build timelines,
8:59
and automatically generate intelligence reports.
9:02
So instead of handing Chinese authorities,
9:04
the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA,
9:07
Thousands of stolen emails or raw documents,
9:10
Xeron can potentially tell them
9:12
what matters and give them something much
9:14
closer to a finished intelligence product.
9:17
Internal chats obtained by the journal suggest Xiran
9:20
markets those services to customers across China,
9:23
including police units,
9:25
and the information it appears to have access to is extensive.
9:29
The Philippines seems to have been a major target.
9:32
Spreadsheets reviewed by the Journal
9:34
described information associated with 19 government email addresses,
9:38
including briefing material
9:40
related to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
9:44
One document apparently contained briefing
9:46
material prepared for a Philippine official
9:48
ahead of a meeting with a director on the US
9:50
National Security Council in India back in March of 2025.
9:55
Another Philippine government email was marked
9:57
extremely urgent and confidential.
10:00
Russia
10:01
interestingly shows up in the files as well.
10:04
Documents linked to the Kremlin reportedly include talking
10:06
points for the country's civil defense minister,
10:08
a letter from a Russian business executive to a foreign affairs official,
10:12
and a diplomatic note analyzing a foreign ambassador's public remarks.
10:17
That's notable because Russia is supposed to
10:19
be one of Beijing's closest strategic partners.
10:22
Could China be spying on Russia?
10:24
Go figure.
10:25
And the files go beyond governments we normally associate with Chinese espionage.
10:30
The Vatican
10:31
interestingly
10:32
shows up as well.
10:33
Just days after Pope Francis died last year,
10:35
an apparent Vatican email included information from Taiwan's embassy
10:40
identifying three Taiwanese delegates planning to attend his funeral,
10:43
along with their flight details.
10:46
Now it's unclear whether Xeron itself stole every one of these documents.
10:51
Internal chats suggest that the company both
10:53
sells access to compromised foreign computer systems
10:56
and acquires stolen information from third parties.
10:59
In other words,
11:00
well,
11:01
look at that,
11:01
it's multitasking.
11:02
Xeron appears to operate as both a hacker and a broker.
11:06
Xeron also advertises tools capable of monitoring computer screens,
11:10
recording keystrokes,
11:11
accessing data from Apple devices,
11:14
and harvesting emails.
11:16
It's unclear whether the company can actually provide everything it advertises,
11:20
but Chinese corporate records show that Xeron owns copyrights to software
11:25
that cybersecurity experts say could allow it to do much of what it claims.
11:30
Now what caught my attention here in particular is what
11:32
Xeron says it can do after the information is stolen.
11:35
It's essentially the marriage of hackers with advanced AI.
11:39
Artificial intelligence can take mountains of hacked emails,
11:42
documents,
11:43
and personal information
11:44
and turn them into something far more useful
11:46
organized intelligence reports that police,
11:49
security agencies,
11:50
or other government clients
11:52
can actually use.
11:55
I want to turn our focus now to the US as federal prosecutors
11:59
say a Russian intelligence network was shopping around a murder for hire plot
12:04
targeting a prominent Kremlin dissident believed to be living in Washington DC
12:08
The FBI says it managed to disrupt the alleged
12:11
assassination plot before the network could carry it out,
12:14
and the indictment
12:15
gives us a pretty remarkable look at how the prosecutors say they plan to pull it off.
12:20
It apparently started with a relatively small surveillance job.
12:23
According to the unsealed indictment,
12:25
the network recruited a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn earlier this year
12:31
and sent him after the dissident,
12:32
who has not been publicly identified.
12:35
Prosecutors say he was given two locations associated with the target,
12:39
instructions on conducting surveillance,
12:41
and an offer of between $1000
12:43
and $1500.
12:45
Apparently he did it,
12:46
photographing and recording the locations
12:49
before sending that material back to the network.
12:51
Prosecutors say the recruiters came back with another offer.
12:54
This time it was
12:55
$40,000 to eliminate or disappear the dissident.
13:00
So what allegedly began as a paid
13:02
surveillance job became an effort to recruit someone
13:05
already living in America
13:06
to carry out a murder in the nation's capital.
13:09
Now that Venezuelan recruit refused,
13:13
but according to the indictment,
13:14
the recruiters asked whether he knew somebody else who could do it.
13:17
Wow,
13:18
they are very discreet,
13:19
aren't they?
13:19
One of the recruiters allegedly said they had people in
13:22
Mexico who might be able to carry out the killing.
13:24
Prosecutors say they then approached multiple other individuals inside the US,
13:29
offering substantial amounts of money to surveil and potentially kill targets.
13:33
And that's where the larger operation comes into view.
13:36
5 people have now been charged,
13:38
and
13:38
all remain at large.
13:40
The Justice Department says the people behind the
13:42
Washington plot belong to a Russian intelligence network
13:45
that's been operating since at least 2024,
13:48
allegedly carrying out attacks and murders around the world.
13:51
Three of those charged are described as high
13:53
ranking members former Russian intelligence colonel Yuri Kromayev,
13:58
his son,
13:58
who's an officer in Russia's FSB,
14:00
and a Cuban national living in Russia.
14:03
The network historically focused on Russian dissidents and defectors,
14:06
but after Russia invaded Ukraine,
14:08
prosecutors say it expanded to countries Moscow viewed
14:12
as supporting Kiev.
14:14
Last year,
14:14
the network allegedly recruited a US citizen
14:17
to surveil another Russian dissident in Lithuania.
14:20
The American was offered
14:21
$200.
14:23
Times are tough
14:24
to take photographs.
14:25
After he did,
14:26
prosecutors say Yuri offered him roughly $25,000 to kill the dissident.
14:31
That individual
14:32
also refused.
14:34
Yuri then allegedly offered him a
14:36
simpler job,
14:37
potentially setting fire to a warehouse or attacking an electrical substation
14:41
in
14:41
all the countries that are helping Ukraine.
14:44
Prosecutors say the Cuban national also helped coordinate an attack in Prague
14:48
back in 2024,
14:49
providing potential targets and arranging travel for a participant,
14:53
followed by another attack in Lithuania several months later.
14:57
So
14:58
we're talking about allegations of surveillance,
15:00
murder for hire,
15:01
arson,
15:01
attacks on infrastructure,
15:03
all tied by prosecutors
15:05
to the same Russian intelligence network.
15:07
James Barnacle,
15:08
who leads the FBI's New York office,
15:10
credited the relentless work of agents
15:13
as alleged Russian intelligence members and their affiliates
15:17
conspired to intimidate,
15:19
threaten,
15:19
or murder people on US soil
15:21
and around the world.
15:23
All 5 defendants are charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism.
15:26
3 also face conspiracy to commit murder for hire.
15:30
And if you're wondering about a response from the Kremlin,
15:33
well,
15:33
the Kremlin says it wants to see
15:36
credible evidence and tangible facts
15:39
before commenting further.
15:42
Alright.
15:42
Coming up in the back of the brief,
15:43
Ukraine's drone forces claim another high value target,
15:47
killing a Russian general
15:49
honored by Moscow just two weeks earlier.
15:51
More on that
15:53
when we come back.
15:55
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In today's back of the brief,
18:11
Ukraine says its drone forces have
18:13
killed one of Russia's most decorated commanders
18:16
just weeks after he received the country's
18:18
highest honorary title.
18:20
Major General Anton Grunis was reportedly killed Saturday
18:24
night in a drone strike on his position
18:26
in a Russian-held part of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
18:29
The claim comes from Major Robert Brody,
18:32
better known by his call sign Madyar,
18:34
who commands Ukraine's unmanned Systems forces.
18:37
Brovti
18:38
says
18:38
one of his units carried out the strike and that
18:40
Grunis is now the 7th Russian military commander killed by forces
18:45
under his command.
18:46
Reuters has not been able to independently verify those details,
18:50
and Russia's Defense Ministry has remained silent about the claim.
18:54
But a senior Russian commander has confirmed that Grunis
18:57
is dead without saying how he was killed.
19:00
Back in July,
19:01
Grunis appeared by video link during a televised meeting with Vladimir Putin,
19:06
where he described how troops from his
19:08
4th Separate Guards motor rifle brigade
19:11
helped Russia capture a strategic Ukrainian city.
19:14
Putin publicly congratulated Grunis,
19:16
telling him,
19:17
quote,
19:17
Luck comes to those who.
19:19
The work end quote.
19:20
I don't believe that Putin made that quote up on his own.
19:23
Then in late August,
19:24
Grunis appeared at a ceremony in dress uniform
19:27
to receive the Gold Star,
19:29
marking him as a hero of Russia,
19:31
Moscow's highest honorary title.
19:33
But a little more than 2 weeks later,
19:35
now he's reportedly dead.
19:37
Grunis appears to have been killed at a military position inside occupied Ukraine,
19:42
so this is
19:43
somewhat different
19:44
from the assassinations of Russian commanders that we've
19:47
seen so much farther from the battlefield.
19:49
In December,
19:50
Lieutenant General Fanil Souvaov was killed when a
19:53
bomb exploded beneath his SUV in Moscow.
19:56
Russian investigators said Ukrainian intelligence was one possible culprit,
20:00
although Kiev never claimed responsibility.
20:02
And in late 2024,
20:04
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov,
20:06
the commander of Russia's nuclear,
20:08
biological,
20:09
and chemical protection forces,
20:11
was killed outside his Moscow apartment by a bomb hidden on a scooter.
20:15
Ukraine's SPU
20:16
later claimed responsibility for that attack.
20:20
And that,
20:20
my friends,
20:21
is the President's Daily Brief for Thursday,
20:23
the 17th of September.
20:24
If you have any questions or comments,
20:26
and I hope you do,
20:26
just reach out to me at PDB@thefirstv.com.
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And finally,
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I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB
20:45
afternoon bulletin.
20:46
Until then,
20:47
stay informed,
20:48
stay safe,
20:49
stay cool.