The Mexican military has confirmed that drug cartels are using drones equipped with bombs to kill soldiers.
Defense Secretary Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval did not disclose the exact number of casualties resulting from these attacks, according to the Associated Press.
Sandoval stated on Friday that the attacks targeted patrol units and included over 260 drone-bomb incidents in 2023 alone.
“Our personnel have sustained injuries, and some of our troops have even died” in the attacks, Sandoval said.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known for equipping drones with metal bomb casings, has transformed the region into a warzone with improvised explosive devices, trenches, and armored vehicles.
Sandoval told the AP that the army continues to encounter more conventional improvised explosive devices than those dropped by drones.
According to officials, the only other reported cartel bomb attacks took place back in August 2023.
The defense department told the AP during that time, a total of 42 soldiers, police and suspects were wounded by IEDs in the first seven and a half months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022.
The Mexican army is now incorporating anti-drone systems to combat these threats.
Mexico’s Navy also acknowledged on Friday that two military helicopter crew members died earlier this year when their chopper went down in the Pacific Ocean while pursuing cocaine-smuggling boats.
Officials told the AP that the U.S. Navy had agreed to assist in recovering the sunken helicopter and the crew members’ remains.
The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels have also inundated major U.S. cities with fentanyl and use violence to protect their territories, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a May report.
“The deadly reach of the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels into U.S. communities is extended by the wholesale-level traffickers and street dealers bringing the cartels’ drugs to market, sometimes creating their own deadly drug mixtures,” the DEA report says. “Together, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have caused the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history.”
In late April, 12 cartel members were sentenced to 4.5 to 40 years in federal prison after they were apprehended in Del Rio, Texas, in 2021 for coordinating a shipment of nearly 200 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine worth $9.9 million.
Last week, during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” former President Trump said strikes against Mexican drug cartels are “absolutely” still on the table as fentanyl and overdose deaths continue to plague the United States.
Digital’s Chris Eberhart and Ashley Carnahan and