The U.S. Department of State's Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $15 million for information on six senior officials at Kimia Part Sivan Company, known as KIPAS, the drone-production arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. The program posted its appeal on X, urging tipsters to "help us put a dent in the IRGC's revenue stream."
The six men named by Washington are Hassan Arambonjad, Abolfazl Ramazanzadeh Mushkani, Mehdi Ghaffari Naghneh, Reza Nahardani, Abbas Sartaji, and Hadi Jamshidi Zavarki. A U.S. statement described them as leading members of the Iran-based company who "have been actively involved in the testing, development and supply of the company's drones, particularly to Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria."
That single sentence captures the scope of the problem. KIPAS doesn't just build drones for parades. Its officials and members have reportedly conducted flight tests for the Quds Force and provided technical support for weapons transferred to three active conflict zones, the same zones where American personnel, allied forces, and civilians face Iranian-backed fire.
KIPAS is also accused of procuring drone components from foreign-based firms for use by the Islamic regime, The US Sun reported. That procurement pipeline matters. Iran's Shahed-series drones have become a cost-effective tool for striking targets across the Middle East, and analysts estimated before Operation Epic Fury that Iran possessed tens of thousands of one-way attack drones, along with substantial capacity to build more.
Tens of thousands. That figure alone explains why Washington is willing to pay $15 million for intelligence on the men running the factory floor.
The Rewards for Justice post leaned into blunt language, calling the six targets "bad boys" and asking the public to "send us a tip on these bad boys, who manage this drone manufacturer." The tone was casual. The stakes are not. Iran-aligned militias armed with KIPAS drones have threatened shipping lanes, attacked coalition-aligned positions in Iraq, and extended Tehran's reach into conflicts where it can project force without putting its own uniformed soldiers at risk.
The reward represents the latest effort by the United States to disrupt Iran's drone production while negotiations for a broader deal to end hostilities continue.
Even as Washington dangles bounties, the diplomatic track remains open, and contentious. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared he has "no trust" in the Trump administration to help bring about peace. At the same time, Araghchi acknowledged that Iran has received messages from the U.S. indicating Washington is seeking continued talks. He added that Iran is prepared to return to fighting if necessary.
That posture, talking while threatening, is Tehran's signature move. It buys time, keeps sanctions pressure at bay, and lets the drone factories hum.
Araghchi also said his government would welcome any efforts by China to help address the situation, a remark timed to President Donald Trump's recent engagement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Before flying home to Washington, Trump held key talks with Xi in which both leaders agreed the conflict must come to an end.
Trump was direct about what he and Xi discussed. In remarks after the meeting, the president said:
"We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar on Iran, we want that to end and we don't want them to have a nuclear weapon."
He went further on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes. Trump said the U.S. wants the Strait open and is applying pressure to make that happen.
"We want the Straits open. We're closing it now. They closed it and we closed it on top of them. But we want the Straits open, and we want them to get it ended because it's a crazy thing."
The president also addressed Iran's nuclear ambitions plainly: "They cannot have a nuclear weapon." He described his talks with Xi as productive, saying, "I think we're very much on agreement."
The timing of the $15 million reward is not accidental. Washington is running a two-track strategy, diplomatic engagement paired with aggressive disruption of Iran's military supply chain. The bounty targets the men who keep KIPAS operational, the managers and technicians who translate Tehran's ambitions into airborne weapons that land in the hands of Houthi fighters in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq, and proxy forces in Syria.
This approach follows a pattern of decisive executive action aimed at applying maximum pressure while keeping the door to negotiation cracked open. Whether Iran walks through that door depends on how much pain its drone infrastructure absorbs.
The six names on the bounty list, Arambonjad, Mushkani, Naghneh, Nahardani, Sartaji, and Zavarki, are not household names in America. But they sit at the center of a network that arms some of the most dangerous non-state actors in the world. KIPAS doesn't just build hardware. It conducts flight tests, provides field support, and sources components from foreign suppliers to keep the production lines running.
Disrupting that chain matters more than any single airstrike. A drone factory that can't get parts is a drone factory that can't arm a militia.
Araghchi's claim that Iran is "prepared to return to fighting" is worth examining. Tehran has spent years building a drone arsenal precisely because it offers asymmetric leverage, cheap weapons that impose expensive costs on adversaries. But that leverage has limits. The U.S. bounty targets the human capital behind the program, not just the hardware. Engineers and managers are harder to replace than sheet metal.
Iran's willingness to invite Chinese mediation also signals something. Tehran knows its negotiating position depends on outside support. If Beijing leans on Iran to make concessions, as Trump's remarks suggest both leaders discussed, the regime's room to maneuver shrinks.
The Trump-Xi summit produced at least a stated agreement that the conflict must end and that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons. Whether that agreement translates into coordinated pressure remains an open question. But the fact that both Washington and Beijing are publicly aligned on the goal is itself a form of pressure Tehran cannot ignore.
Several questions remain unanswered. It is unclear whether the $15 million reward applies collectively to the six named individuals or separately to each. The specific titles and positions held by the six men within KIPAS have not been publicly detailed. And the exact date the bounty was formally issued has not been specified in available reporting.
The Rewards for Justice program has a long track record of producing actionable intelligence. It has paid out more than $250 million since its creation, and bounties of this size signal that Washington views the target as a high-priority national security matter. Placing KIPAS leadership on a most-wanted list sends a message not just to the six men named, but to every engineer, procurement officer, and logistics coordinator in Iran's drone supply chain: the United States knows who you are, and it is willing to pay handsomely for information about what you do.
That message extends to the foreign firms supplying components. KIPAS's accused practice of procuring parts from companies outside Iran means the supply chain has international nodes. Every one of those nodes is now on notice.
Meanwhile, the State Department continues to manage a sprawling set of Iran-related challenges, from hostage situations to sanctions enforcement to diplomatic back channels. The bounty on KIPAS leadership is one tool among many, but it is a pointed one.
For years, Iran built its drone program in relative obscurity while the world focused on its nuclear ambitions. That era is over. Washington has named names, posted prices, and made clear that the men who run the factories are as much a target as the weapons they produce.
When a government puts a $15 million price tag on your colleagues, "no trust" in the other side starts to sound less like defiance and more like a concession that the pressure is working.
