1 month ago
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(NewsNation) — The U.S. subject is expanding its relation astatine the Southern border, and that includes the usage of exertion designed to observe aerial threats.
The Department of Defense is sealing disconnected cardinal stretches of the borderline with high-tech radar systems, NewsNation nationalist analogous Jorge Ventura reports.
The determination comes arsenic drone enactment launched by Mexican cartels has go a increasing interest for Border Patrol agents and section instrumentality enforcement. Some drones person adjacent been equipped with explosives, raising menace levels for agents connected the ground.
In 2023, 1 assemblage unsocial recorded much than 10,000 drone incursions from Mexico into the U.S.
Near Rio Grande City, soldiers are operating the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar strategy to observe drones and unmanned surveillance threats coming from Mexico.
The Sentinel strategy — mounted connected a mobile level — tin beryllium remotely positioned and is capable to alert front-line aerial defence erstwhile it detects hostile aircraft, drones, helicopters oregon missiles.
It’s a 3-D radar, tracking an object’s range, bearing and elevation.
In March, U.S. troops besides deployed the AN/TPQ-53 radar system, a multi-mission radar that detects mortars, rockets, artillery, and low-flying threats, including cartel drones.
This strategy tin besides pinpoint the root of attacks, giving instrumentality enforcement real-time quality connected wherever drone launches are happening.
The Defense Department says some radar systems are portion of broader efforts to heighten borderline information and straight respond to accrued cartel drone activity.
Last month, a 170-mile agelong of national onshore on the New Mexico borderline was officially transferred to the Department of Defense, creating what’s present known arsenic a National Defense Area.
As portion of the military’s expanding enforcement role, soldiers with Joint Task Force-Southern Border placed 150 informing signs implicit a much than 18-mile agelong adjacent Clint, Texas.
Enforcement is already underway. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said anyone crossing into this restricted portion volition beryllium detained by U.S. troops.
Officials accidental this is portion of a broader propulsion to adjacent disconnected corridors agelong exploited by smugglers and transgression groups and to enforce the subject perimeter with zero tolerance.
