AINEWS
Joint Task Force Southern Border used the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser, a mobile directed energy weapon built by AeroVironment, against three drones in a single overnight window.
Late Tuesday into Wednesday, soldiers with Joint Task Force - Southern Border used a vehicle-mounted laser to down three drones they classified as hostile because the aircraft were "in direct support of activities posing a physical threat to U.S. military personnel and CBP partners," according to a Defense Visual Information Distribution Service release from JTF-SB and U.S. Northern Command. It is the first operational use of the Army's new mobile directed-energy counter-drone weapon against real adversaries, and the first data point in the southern border's run as the place where counter-drone doctrine is being written in real time.
The system is the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser, known as AMP-HEL. It is a truck-mounted directed-energy weapon built by AeroVironment. The first two prototypes were delivered to the U.S. Army in September 2025, with the company confirming the deliveries in a separate investor release the same week. JTF-SB commander Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor framed the overnight engagements as part of a layered set of countermeasures against cartel surveillance, telling reporters the task force "will not tolerate hostile surveillance" of U.S. troops along the border, per the DVIDSHUB release. Business Insider and CBS News both reported the three interceptions from the same military statement.
The broader stakes sit above the three kills. Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command, told CBS News earlier this year that the southern border is "a literal and figurative sandbox" for testing counter-drone systems, because cartels regularly fly drones over U.S. troops and law enforcement partners. The same CBS report noted that cartels use unmanned aircraft to facilitate illicit smuggling and to spy on American personnel. The southern border is the rare place where the United States is running counter-drone weapons at operational tempo against an adversary that flies them every day, and where industry can see what works under live conditions. A recent Army Recognition analysis describes the service's broader push to make high-energy lasers a permanent part of its counter-drone kit, rather than a research project.
The open questions are not abstract. Public reporting positions lasers as "potentially more sustainable" than traditional interceptors such as missiles or kinetic rounds, because the cost per shot is far lower and the magazine is limited only by fuel and power generation. The same logic cuts the other way. A directed-energy weapon that runs on a generator still has to keep that generator running, and the Business Insider account is truncated at the power-generation caveat, so the real sustainment picture is not yet public. There is also a rule-of-engagement question. The three drones this week were called "hostile" because they were judged to be in direct support of activities posing a physical threat to U.S. military personnel and CBP partners. That is a narrower standard than "surveillance of U.S. forces" and a wider one than "imminent attack," and the line between them is now an operational fact rather than a legal memo. Whether AMP-HEL graduates from a sandbox tool to a permanent counter-drone weapon will depend less on this week's three interceptions and more on what the next hundred engagements reveal about power, dwell time, and the rules for pulling the trigger.