The Mexican military has confirmed that a bomb-dropping drone operated by a drug cartel killed a soldier in the western state of Michoacan.
Defense Secretary Luis Crescencio Sandoval did not give an exact figure for the number of casualties in the attack, according to the Associated Press.
Sandoval said Friday that attacks have targeted patrol units and that there have been more than 260 drone bomb incidents in 2023 alone.
“The attack left our service members injured and some soldiers killed,” Sandoval said.
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Mexican Army troops patrol the city of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico, on January 31, 2023. (David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images)
The Jalisco cartel, known for equipping drones with metal bomb casings, has turned the area into a battlefield with IEDs, trenches and armored vehicles.
Sandoval told the Associated Press that the military will continue Roadside bombs are far more common than those dropped by drones.
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Members of the self-defense group Pueblos Unidos perform security duties to protect avocado plantations threatened by drug cartels that control the area, in Ario de Rosales, Michoacan, Mexico, on July 8, 2021. (Photo by Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty Images)
The only other reported cartel bombing occurred in August 2023, authorities said.
A total of 42 soldiers, police officers and suspects have been injured by IEDs in the first 7 1/2 months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022, the Pentagon told The Associated Press at the time.
The Mexican military is now adding anti-drone systems to combat these threats.
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Mexican soldiers prepare for a search operation for four Americans kidnapped by armed groups in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, March 6, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the four Americans were planning to buy drugs and were caught in a gunfight between two gunmen after entering Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday. (AP Photo)
The Mexican Navy also confirmed on Friday that a military helicopter crashed in the Pacific Ocean while pursuing a cocaine-smuggling ship earlier this year, killing two crew members.
Officials told The Associated Press that the U.S. Navy has agreed to help recover the sunken helicopter and the remains of its crew.
The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels have been vying for power in major U.S. cities. Methamphetamine and fentanyl The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a May report that DEA agents are using violence to protect their turf.
“The deadly influence of Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels US Community “It is amplified by wholesalers and street dealers who bring the cartel’s drugs to market, sometimes creating their own deadly drug mixtures,” the DEA report said. “The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are responsible for some of the worst drug trafficking. The drug crisis This is a first in American history.”
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Late April, 12 Traffickers with ties to the Jalisco Cartel He was arrested in Del Rio, Texas, in 2021 for orchestrating the transportation of approximately 200 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine valued at $9.9 million and sentenced to 4.5 to 40 years in federal prison.
During an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters last week on “Primetime with Jesse Watters,” former President Trump said: Mexican drug cartels Those measures are “definitely” still under consideration as fentanyl and overdose deaths continue to plague the U.S.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Eberhart and Ashley Carnahan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
