How $600 Drones Are Outsmarting Colombia’s Billion-Dollar Military

Colombian soldiers defending a state-owned oil pumping station near the border with Venezuela faced swarms of small commercial drones fitted with clawlike hooks carrying grenades. Four government security officials familiar with the operation said the troops shot down 50 of them over 15 days; on the 16th a larger, pesticide-spraying drone carrying four grenades was not detected in time and the explosives detonated, killing one soldier.

Officials across active combat zones described a wider trend: cheap, easily modified drones are disrupting the country’s decades-long war against insurgent groups and putting the government on its heels. The National Liberation Army, or ELN, is especially active in Catatumbo, where the soldier was killed, and President Gustavo Petro warned that “the narco-traffickers have the aerial advantage” after drones killed 58 soldiers and police officers and wounded 300 more over a few months.

Colombia, Catatumbo

colombia, drones, eln, catatumbo, gustavo petro, narco traffickers, grenades, oil pumping, venezuela, soldiers