US Laser Downs Three Cartel Drones at Border
US Laser Downs Three Cartel Drones at Border
The News
The U.S. military used a high-energy laser to shoot down three Mexican drug cartel drones near the U.S.-Mexico border this week, the Pentagon said Thursday, because the aircraft were supporting activity that threatened American troops and Border Patrol agents.
The strikes happened in southern Texas' Rio Grande Valley late Tuesday and early Wednesday, according to U.S. officials cited by Reuters.
North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command said the weapon was the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser, and that the shots were taken by Joint Task Force–Southern Border.
Timeline
A U.S. military laser-based anti-drone system accidentally shot down a U.S. Customs and Border Protection drone in the Fort Hancock area of southwest Texas, congressional aides told Reuters at the time.
The FAA briefly shut commercial airspace around El Paso after a safety dispute with the Pentagon over military drone tests near Fort Bliss that sources said involved a high-energy laser system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA and Defense Department had "acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion" and that the "threat has been normalized."
Three unmanned aircraft systems are downed by the laser near the border.
NORAD and USNORTHCOM announce the shoot-downs.
Reactions
"Cartel networks are increasingly employing unmanned aircraft systems to facilitate illicit human-smuggling and actively spy on our personnel and law enforcement partners," Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, commander of Joint Task Force–Southern Border, said in a statement. "By integrating layered countermeasures alongside advanced directed-energy capabilities like this laser system, we have made it clear that we will not tolerate hostile surveillance."
The military declined to say exactly where the drones went down or which cartels they belonged to. Asked by CBS News whether the shots were fired over U.S. or Mexican airspace, a USNORTHCOM spokesman said only that "the shots were taken in coordination with all partners operating along the border," citing operational security and ongoing counter-cartel operations.
That question is not academic. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said any unilateral U.S. action on Mexican soil would be a grave breach of her country's sovereignty, Reuters reported.
What's Next
The military has provided no further operational details and did not name the manufacturer of the laser system used. Reuters noted that AeroVironment Inc. delivered its first two multipurpose high-energy lasers to the U.S. Army last summer, and that the Army has previously deployed the company's LOCUST system — the deployment that led to a seven-hour airspace shutdown near El Paso International Airport earlier this year.
U.S. and Mexican authorities say they are working together against the rise of drones in the border region, and the task force's counter-drone operations are ongoing.
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Joint Task Force–Southern Border was established in 2025 in support of President Trump's immigration crackdown and has roughly 8,000 service members. The task force says it has run tens of thousands of detection and monitoring patrols and thousands of observation flights since it stood up.
U.S. security officials say cartels mostly fly crudely adapted off-the-shelf drones to drop drug packages or watch smuggling routes. Austin Doctor, a University of Nebraska at Omaha professor who directs strategic initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, told CBS News in February that cartels use the drones near the border for surveillance supporting narcotics, human and firearms smuggling — and that they have not used weaponized drones inside the U.S., though they do use them against rival cartels inside Mexico.
Farther from the border, inside Mexico, cartels have used drones to drop explosives in deadly attacks, Reuters reported.
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