The American military and CIA are apparently ramping up aerial surveillance of deadly Mexican drug cartels inside of Mexico. The Pentagon has been deploying various reconnaissance aircraft along the border, while the Agency has been using unarmed MQ-9 Reaper drones.
Officially, all this reconnaissance is reportedly being done in partnership with the Mexican government outside of Mexican airspace. Unofficially, it might be different.
Earlier this month, it was disclosed that the U.S. military had carried out at least 18 spy plane missions over the Southwestern U.S. and international airspace around Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in the past two weeks.
These missions were conducted by Navy P-8 Poseidon planes, U-2 spy planes and Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft.
As Newsweek reported: “The P-8 Poseidon, typically used for tracking submarines, has been repurposed to gather imagery and signals intelligence on cartel movements.”
It added:
For the first time, the U-2 spy plane—a Cold War-era aircraft designed for high-altitude reconnaissance—has been used in cartel tracking. Meanwhile, the RC-135 Rivet Joint, which specializes in intercepting ground communications, has flown missions along the U.S.-Mexico border and near cartel strongholds in Sinaloa, a state in northwestern Mexico.
Until recently, the Pentagon conducted just one surveillance flight per month over the border.
Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum dismissed White House accusations that her government was colluding with cartels and criticized the potential terrorist designation of drug cartels as a threat to Mexican sovereignty.
White House border czar Tom Homan told ABC News: “Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely, because the cartels are making record amounts of money.”
Meanwhile, we are now learning that the CIA has launched unarmed Reaper drones on secret missions to spy on drug cartels in Mexico and the military may use them later for armed operations. These operations are assessing the cartels and their labs across the southern US border in preparation for a potential aerial strike to destroy them, CNN reported.
The MQ-9 drones can be fitted with payloads to carry out a variety of missions, including reconnaissance and surgical strikes.
They are frequently employed to target alleged terrorists in Somalia, Iraq and Syria. For Mexico, the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has used unarmed Predator Bs in the past in partnership with Mexican authorities.
President Donald Trump publicly urged for the deployment of military force against deadly drug cartels during his first term, saying the U.S. was prepared to “wage war” on such organizations.
After the January 20 executive order preparing to designate the cartels as terrorists, the State Department created a list of drug cartels that it thinks should be labelled as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).
Last week, the State Department sent this list to Congress. According to reports, the list includes international gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, along with several Mexican cartels, such as Sinaloa, Jalisco, Zetas, Gulf Cartel, Cartel Unidos and La Nueva Familia Michoacana (LNFM).
However, until now, only the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang has been designated an FTO.
When questioned about American military spy planes flying near the border, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and other officials stressed that these flights were in international airspace or over U.S. territory, not in Mexico’s.
According to reports, the CIA is not permitted to deploy drones for deadly attacks under the program; instead, they are to collect intelligence on drug smuggling activities and send it to Mexican authorities.
However, one U.S. official told The New York Times that the drone flights, which were begun under the Biden administration but previously unreported, go “well into sovereign Mexico.”
CIA flying spy drones ‘well into Mexico’ as part of Trump crackdown on deadly drug cartels https://t.co/Uhj7K9GDI5 pic.twitter.com/TqUt0IPUQD
— New York Post (@nypost) February 18, 2025
“The CIA has flown surveillance drones to hunt cartels inside Mexico before, according to a former and a current U.S. official, under at least one small program that partnered with Mexican authorities,” one report noted.
“It’s part of this little campaign,” Sheinbaum later added about the reported CIA drone flights. According to Fox News, the intelligence gathered by the CIA’s surveillance operations is shared with Mexican officials, who can then take action against the cartels.
“This is not the Pakistan model,” a senior U.S. official said. “It is being done in partnership with the Mexican government.”
The War Zone reports:
Current generation Reapers can stay aloft for more than a day at a time depending on their configuration and loadout. MQ-9s can carry an array of precision-guided bombs and missiles, as well as a wide variety of sensors internally and in underwing pods, along with other stores. There is also considerable evidence of a very close working relationship when it comes to drone operations between the CIA and the U.S. military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as Air Force Special Operations Command.
In response to Trump’s escalating rhetoric and actions on the border, Mexico has stepped up its measures over the illegal fentanyl trade and human trafficking, deploying thousands of troops to the border this month to try and crack down on smuggling.
And we just learned that U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) are in Mexico now training their Marines in counter cartel ops.
Asked by reporters at the time if he would send special operations forces over the border, the president replied, “Stranger things have happened.”
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has called for offensive action against Mexican cartels, co-introducing legislation in 2023 while in Congress that would have authorized military force against them.
Secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has also said he is open to using force within Mexico. “All options will be on the table if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.”
So, what can these drones do, and how might they be used against the cartels?
TWZ explained:
Depending on their exact sensor configuration, CIA drones, including MQ-9s, would be able to gather other kinds of data via cameras and radars, as well as collect signals intelligence, such as communications chatter between cartel members. Uncrewed aircraft could also use sensors to geolocate emitters like radios and cellphones and otherwise track the movements of targets of interest. This, in turn, could be used to help establish so-called “patterns of life” for a specific individual or group of individuals. That data can then be used to further refine intelligence-gathering efforts, as well as support the planning and execution of targeted raids or strikes. The U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence community have honed the ability to use sensor-packed aircraft, crewed and uncrewed, to find and fix often hard-to-locate targets after two decades of counter-terrorism operations. These skill sets continue to be actively demonstrated in places like Syria on a regular basis.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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IF the USA kills Mexican citizens (cartels or other wise) on Mexican soil, it is an act of war.
I live legally in Mexico as an ex-pat for 14 years. This action will result in retaliation from the Cartels against Americans living in Mexico. They will hunt us down and kill us. This is NOT a JOKE. They kill their own members in cold blood. They’ll be hanging us off bridges and chopping us up, putting us in coolers and leaving us on the beaches for tourists to find, like they did several years ago with their rival cartel members.
DO NOT DRONE MEXICO FOR GODSSAKE. It is an ACT OF WAR. Plus, besides the population of Mexico IN Mexico, you have what, 50+ BILLION hispanics LIVING in the INTERIOR of the USA. So, that is a potential of 180 MIL + pissed off Mexicans, Hispanics, etc. Almost 1/2 of the entire population of the USA.
If the USA strikes citizens of mexico, no American legally living in mexico will be safe. I live in mexico
So is the Trump administration ready to be responsible for the potential slaughter of millions of Americans? I hope not .
Drone the cartels on USA soil and break the USA network of all drug cartels, the mafia, the Koreans, the Mexican, the south American, the Chinese, etc etc IN THE USA
And in the mean time, maybe RFK, Jr can come up with a viable anti- drug addict campaign and and anti human trafficking and anti human parts trafficking campaign