According to open-source data and three US officials familiar with the missions, the US military has dramatically stepped up its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels in the last two weeks, sending advanced spy planes on at least 18 missions over the southwestern US and in international airspace surrounding the Baja peninsula.

According to current and former military sources, the 10-day flights in late January and early February mark a substantial increase in activity as President Donald Trump orders military service to control the border and prevent drug smuggling by cartels.

One former military official with extensive homeland defense expertise said that the Pentagon has usually only flown along the US-Mexico border once a month for surveillance purposes. Usually, officials use these aircraft to gather intelligence on other priorities, such Russian activities in Ukraine or the pursuit of Chinese or Russian submarines.

The exercise demonstrates how the military has already started to redirect limited US national security resources from threats abroad to the southern border, where Trump has proclaimed a state of emergency.

Navy P-8s, a highly valued aircraft with an advanced radar system that specializes in detecting submarines but can also gather imagery and signals information, have been involved in at least 11 of these recent flights near the United States.

One of the US military's most admired observation planes, the U-2 spy plane, made a nearly six-hour journey on February 3 to gather high-altitude imagery of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Former and current military personnel with extensive knowledge of border counternarcotics operations said they could not remember ever seeing a U-2 utilized for this reason.

The aircraft routes include missions in California, Arizona, and Texas, and they cross the US-Mexico border. CNN also identified at least one longer mission that looped around the Baja peninsula and passed near Sinaloa on February 4. Hoovering up communications from the ground is the specialty of such aircraft, an Air Force RC-135 "Rivet."

According to a defense officer, the flight track that circles the Baja peninsula has been in operation "for a long time." It's "getting more use now," though.

According to retired officials, these planes may gather intelligence deep into Mexico even while they are flying across US territory along the border.

The military leads the fight against drugs.
The increase demonstrates Trump's resolve to use the military as the principal force in addressing border security and counternarcotics, two concerns that have traditionally been handled by domestic law enforcement.

How the Trump administration intends to use the information it obtains is less certain. It could even be used to find information that could be sent to the Mexican military to help target cartel activities, or it could be used to establish a body of evidence for additional foreign terrorist designations.

The intelligence planes may be part of an attempt to identify targets for the US military to strike itself, some current and former US officials quietly told CNN.

Trump has threatened to send special forces to kill cartel leaders and drop bombs on fentanyl factories, which may violate Mexico's sovereignty and sour relations with the US's biggest trading partner.

Trump has sparked concerns about the possibility of direct US military action within Mexico by initiating the process of branding cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Additionally, despite the fact that the number of migrant crossings is at its lowest level since 2020, the president has directed hundreds more active-duty troops to the border.

According to those familiar with the preparations, those troops are supporting the US Border Patrol and contributing additional intelligence experts to evaluate dangers and migration movements. The military are not permitted to carry out law enforcement duties like arresting people or confiscating drugs. In addition, they are prohibited from interacting with migrants outside of assisting with their transportation.

The military, which has decades of experience combating other non-state terrorist organizations worldwide that share some operational characteristics with the cartels, is being given increased responsibility for America's counternarcotics mission, according to current and former US officials.

Border czar Tom Homan told ABC News on Thursday, "I think the cartels would be foolish to take on the military, but we know they've taken on the Mexican military before, but now we have the United States military." "Do I anticipate more violence? Yes, given that the cartels are earning unprecedented sums of money.

However, former authorities and scholars note that there are also significant differences between cartels and Islamist terror groups outside. In essence, they are business organizations rather than ideological ones. They have no interest in controlling populations or occupying land. In certain instances, they have close ties to elements of the Mexican government, which the US military actively supports and collaborates with.

Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote an essay in The New York Times that read, "Yes, some parts of the state collude with the cartels, but there are others resisting, and we need them — and [Mexican President Claudia] Sheinbaum most of all — to work with us."

Because cartels are a fundamentally different threat than the Defense Department is accustomed to fighting, the majority of the military's counternarcotics efforts have up until now been conducted in support of law enforcement organizations like the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

ISIS, Boko Haram, and Hamas are just a few of the organizations that have been classified as international terrorist organizations.