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The Pentagon is preparing to reassign most of its Africa-based MQ-9 Reaper drones to U.S. Southern Command, six sources told CNN, though the exact number moving remains undisclosed.
- Colombia, Ecuador and Panama are each expanding drone or joint-operations partnerships with Washington, while some Reapers may instead be diverted to the Middle East after U.S. losses during the Iran conflict.
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The shift builds on a legal framework — a classified 2025 opinion allowing cartels to be treated as "enemy combatants" — and lands inside the broader Operation Southern Spear campaign that led to Nicolás Maduro's January 2026 capture.
