US military uses high-energy lasers to shoot down three Mexican cartel drones over the southern border — narcos suspected of using UAVs for surveillance and reconnaissance to support illegal activities
The U.S. military shot down three drones that were suspected of operating for Mexican cartels earlier this week. According to CBS News, the uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) were destroyed by an “Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser System” operated by U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.
“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 the southern border’s Joint Task Force, 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.” It’s unclear if the drones were shot down over American or Mexican airspace, but a military spokesperson told the outlet that they “were taken in coordination with all partners operating along the border.”
This isn’t the first time that a laser weapon has been used to defend American airspace. Back in February, the Pentagon used a similar system after it detected and shot down unknown aerial targets. This resulted in the emergency closure of a major airport, resulting in massive disruptions, and it also turned out that the targets were later reported to be just party balloons. Another incident involving the use of laser weapons happened a couple of weeks later, and it resulted in the shooting down of an actual drone this time. Unfortunately, the targeted drone turned out to be from the Customs and Border Protection unit, not a hostile one operated by the Mexican cartels. The military refused to release further details about the recent drone shoot-downs, citing operational security and ongoing operations, but they’ve hopefully hit the correct targets this time.
The U.S. isn’t alone in deploying drones for protecting its assets and territories. The UK has recently revealed that it’s deploying its DragonFire laser weapon on Royal Navy destroyers by 2027, while China has developed a backpack-sized man-portable anti-drone laser system that can hit targets up to 1,600 feet away. While these systems are expensive to acquire, they’re much cheaper to operate compared to traditional man-portable air defense systems or MANPADS, with each shot costing as little as $13 (versus the thousands to millions of dollars for missiles). This makes them more economically feasible for defending against drones, whose effective use in the battlefield has been made prominent by Ukrainians as they defended against the much larger Russian military. But even if you’re a civilian, you can get your own laser air defense system for around $1,000 and protect your home from flying bugs.
