US forces stationed at the southern border used a laser weapon to shoot down three cartel-linked drones this week, the military said Thursday.
Drug cartels have been increasingly using uncrewed aerial systems to support operations. US troops at the border have responded with a range of counter-drone weapons, including directed-energy systems like lasers, to shoot down or disable the threats.
This week, Joint Task Force – Southern Border “successfully defended US military personnel and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] by mitigating three adversarial unmanned aircraft systems using directed energy capabilities this week,” the US Northern Command task force said in a release.
The engagements started late Tuesday and continued into Wednesday. Task force personnel used the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser system to shoot down the drones. The UAVs were determined to be hostile because of “their use in direct support of activities posing a physical threat to US military personnel and CBP partners,” the task force said.
The Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser is a mobile counter-drone system mounted on a vehicle. Built by AeroVironment, prototypes were first delivered to the US Army last fall as part of the service’s broader push for more kinetic and non-kinetic ways to defeat drones and other aerial threats.
“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 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.”
The southern border has become a hotbed for drone activity. Earlier this year, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of NORTHCOM, said drug cartels were regularly flying drones over US troops. In response, US forces have been treating the area as “a literal and figurative sandbox” for testing hundreds of counter-drone systems, Guillot said.
Some of those weapons are still emerging technologies, and using them against cartel drones gives the military and industry a chance to see which systems work best against real-world drone threats.
Laser weapons have long been touted as potentially more sustainable and more feasible options for destroying small drones than traditional interceptors. However, they also come with questions about power generation requirements and how these systems will fit into the broader layered-defense network.
The Joint Interagency Task Force 401, a cross-agency counter-drone initiative, has also tested systems at the border, including a long-range autonomous platform called SkyValor that can detect, track, identify, and defeat drones non-kinetically.
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