Oscars to Boost Security Amid Concerns of Imminent Iran Drone Attack
Left: Mojtaba Khamenei (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via AP) RIGHT: Ukrainian anti-air interceptor drone (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The organizers of the 98th annual Academy Awards are ramping up security for March 15th’s star-studded night amid concerns of an allegedly imminent Iranian drone attack on California.
Although the organizers of the event did not comment directly on the FBI alert warning of a potential, unverified attack, news of the security beef-up comes amid recent reports.
“Every year we monitor what’s going on in the world,” executive producer Raj Kapoor said at a press conference on Wednesday. “We have the support of the FBI and the LAPD, and it’s a close collaboration. This show has to run like clockwork. But we want everybody that is coming to this show, that is witnessing the show, that is even a fan of the show when they’re standing outside the barricades, we want everybody to feel safe and protected and welcome, so it’s our job as a producing team to make sure that that translates.”
Copy from an FBI alert sent to police departments in CA warned of the possibility of a retaliatory Iranian drone strike on the West Coast, according to a bombshell report by ABC News on Tuesday.
“We recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran,” the alert published by ABC read. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”
The alert published by ABC and other outlets initially did not include the word “unverified.”
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called on ABC News to “immediately” retract the story.
“This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people,” Leavitt wrote. “They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even states the tip was based on *unverified* intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY? TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.” ABC News later updated its story.
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