Multiple news outlets report that the CIA is now stepping up drone flights over Mexico. The currently unarmed flights are said to be searching for fentanyl labs run by Mexican cartels designated by President Donald Trump as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
One U.S. official told the New York Times the flights “go well into sovereign Mexico.”
The flights reportedly began during the Biden administration but were stepped up by CIA Director John Ratcliff after President Trump made the foreign terrorist designation.
The flights are not authorized to use lethal force at this time. The CIA officers are gathering the intelligence data and passing it along to Mexicn officials, the Times reported.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that the CIA is flying MQ-9 Reaper drones. The drones are equipped to deliver lethal payloads but are not currently armed.
“The MQ-9 drones used for the missions are not currently armed,” CNN reported. “But they can be equipped with payloads to carry out precision strikes. The U.S. regularly uses them to target suspected terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Somalia.”
CNN added, “Some current and former officials say designating cartels as terrorist groups could potentially lay the groundwork for direct U.S. strikes against the cartels and their drug labs in Mexico.”
It is not clear if the U.S. notified Mexico of the surveillance flights prior to entering Mexican airspace.
On February 13, Breitbart Texas’s Ildefonso Ortiz reported the U.S. Department of State was expected to designate certain factions of Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Those include: the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco New Generation, The Gulf Cartel, The Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas (Northeast Cartel), Carteles Unidos, and Familia Michoacana as foreign terrorist organizations. The official designation is reported to be published on February 19.
Ortiz wrote:
Breitbart Texas and Breitbart News Foundation have reported extensively on the Gulf Cartel, the reign of terror that they have unleashed on northern Mexico and the protection that they receive from the Tamaulipas government as well as Mexico’s federal government.
In addition to mass killings, widespread kidnapping, and torture, each of the six cartels has also been linked to the indiscriminate use of explosives and some of them to the use of land mines to protect their territories.
All of those organizations have a long history of receiving government protection, as well as legal protection, with Mexican judges routinely releasing captured cartel figures, Breitbart Texas reported.
It appears the government of Mexico is denying overflights in Mexican airspace, CNN reported.
“We cannot rule out espionage because we do not know exactly what was done,” Mexican Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla last week. “However, they did not violate national airspace.”
The CIA did not publically address the issue of Mexican airspace but a spokesman stated, “countering drug cartels in Mexico and regionally is a priority for CIA as a part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to end the grave threat from narco-trafficking, [and] director [John] Ratcliffe is determined to put CIA’s unique expertise to work against this multifaceted challenge,” the CNN article stated.
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday morning talk show. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products.
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