U.S. military uses laser to down three Mexican cartel drones near border

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Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents ride hanging onto the light armoured vehicle by a border fence as they participate in a border security operation after the U.S. designated the Mexican Juarez Cartel as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO), in El Paso, Texas, U.S.. | Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.S. military used a laser in southern Texas' Rio Grande Valley to shoot ​down three Mexican drug cartel drones this week near the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. ‌officials said on Thursday (August 28, 2026).

The North American Aerospace Defence ​Command and U.S. Northern Command said in a statement ⁠that the operation took place late on Tuesday (August 25) and early on Wednesday (August 26) and used the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser.

The military did not give the precise ‌location of the strikes nor make clear whether it took place over U.S. or Mexican territory. Mexican President ‌Claudia Sheinbaum has said any unilateral U.S. action on Mexican ‌soil ⁠would be a grave breach of her country's sovereignty.

The ⁠military said the drones posed "a physical threat" to U.S. military and U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel.

"Cartel networks are increasingly employing unmanned aircraft systems to ​facilitate illicit human-smuggling and actively spy ‌on our personnel and law enforcement partners," Major General Curtis Taylor, the commander of Joint Task Force–Southern Border, said in a statement.

The announcement comes as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration ‌seeks to clamp down on immigration and cartels, seeking to ​fulfill promises from his 2024 presidential campaign.

Since its establishment in 2025, the border task force has conducted ⁠tens of thousands of detection and monitoring patrols and thousands of observation flights, the task force said.

AeroVironment Inc delivered its first two multi-purpose high-energy lasers to the U.S. Army last summer.

The U.S. Army has previously deployed AeroVironment Inc's LOCUST system. The deployment of that system led to a seven-hour airspace shutdown near Texas' El Paso International Airport earlier this year.

In February, the military ‌accidentally shot down a U.S. government drone using a laser-based anti-drone system, congressional ​aides told Reuters at the time.

U.S. security officials have expressed concern about the use of drones by Mexican ⁠cartels, which mostly employ crudely adapted versions of off-the-shelf models to ⁠drop drug packages or surveil trafficking routes.

In parts of Mexico farther from the U.S. border, cartels have used drones ‌to drop explosives in deadly attacks. U.S. and Mexican authorities are working together to combat the rise of drones in ​the border region.