Readers can get caught up on what is known about the clampdown in the skies above El Paso on Wednesday in initial reporting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Multiple outlets had already reported yesterday that the use of a laser counter-drone system was a key factor in the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s (FAA) sudden decision to impose the temporary flight restrictions over El Paso. Reuters\u2018 report says \u201ctwo people briefed on the situation\u201d identified the laser system in question as LOCUST. TWZ has reached out to AeroVironment and the U.S. Army for more information. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees U.S. military operations in and around the homeland, declined to comment.<\/p>\n Last July, the U.S. military released a picture, seen below, showing Army personnel assigned to Joint Task Force-Southern Border<\/a> (JTF-SB) conducting sling-load training with a LOCUST mounted on a 4\u00d74 M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicle<\/a> (ISV) at Fort Bliss. This had prompted some speculation<\/a> that LOCUST systems might be in use along the U.S. border with Mexico. JTF-SB was established in March 2025 to oversee a surge in U.S. military support to the border security mission. Fort Bliss, situated in El Paso, is a major hub for those operations. It is also home to the 1st Armored Division and a significant number of Army air defense units.<\/p>\n As of December 2025<\/a>, the U.S. Army was known to have taken delivery of LOCUST systems in at least three different configurations, including the ISV-based type. The service has also received 4\u00d74 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles<\/a> (JLTV) equipped with the laser and a palletized version. In 2022, the Army confirmed the operational deployment<\/a> of two of the palletized systems to unspecified foreign locales. The full extent of the service\u2019s operational use of LOCUST since then, abroad or at home, is unclear.<\/p>\n The U.S. Marine Corps has also moved to acquire JLTV-based LOCUST systems<\/a>, and other configurations have been put forward<\/a> in the past. AeroVironment completed is acqusition of BlueHalo<\/a>, the original developer of LOCUST, last year.<\/p>\n At LOCUST\u2019s core is a 20-kilowatt-class laser directed energy weapon. This is at the lower end of the power spectrum for this new era of laser directed energy weapons, and the system is explicitly geared toward the countering small drones mission set. <\/p>\n The turreted system also includes built-in electro-optical and infrared video cameras for target acquisition and tracking. It can be cued to threats by tertiary sensors, including small-form-factor high-frequency radars and passive radio frequency signal detection systems mounted on the vehicles themselves, as well as traditional radars, and other capabilities positioned elsewhere. The Army\u2019s ISV and JLTV-based configurations both feature small radars.<\/p>\n \t\t \n\t\t\t\tLOCUST Laser Weapon System\t\t\t<\/p>\n As a relatively small system itself, LOCUST offers additional benefits in terms of mobility and flexibility. Road-mobile versions can readily deploy and redeploy to different locations in response to shifting threats. As the sling load training picture shows, versions of the system can be readily airlifted by helicopters, allowing for rapid movement to remote locales. Palletized configurations offer different types of flexibility for providing point defense at sites on land, and could potentially be installed on ships, as well.<\/p>\n In general, laser directed energy weapons offer the promise of functionally unlimited magazine depth, as long as there is sufficient power and cooling capacity. They also present a drastically lower cost-per-intercept proposition compared to traditional anti-air interceptors. This is all advantageous for engaging drones, particularly smaller and cheaper designs that can still present very significant threats. The dangers posed by uncrewed aerial systems are only set to grow as networked swarming and automated targeting capabilities, enabled by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning<\/a>, become more accessible. Defenders already face real risks of just being overwhelmed by attacks involving volumes of drones.<\/p>\n Depending on their power level, laser weapons are envisioned as being employed against larger, as well as higher and faster flying targets, such as cruise missiles, in the future. As already noted, LOCUST is not in that power category and is focused on going after small drones, like quadcopter. <\/p>\n With these promised benefits in mind, the Army has been very active in its pursuit of multiple tiers of ground-based laser directed energy weapon systems, with power ratings ranging from 5<\/a> to 300 kilowatts<\/a>, for years now<\/a>. This includes the 50-kilowatt Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense<\/a> (DE M-SHORAD) system based on the Stryker light armored vehicle<\/a> and a truck-mounted 300-kilowatt design for the Indirect Fires Protection Capability-High Energy Laser<\/a> (IFPC-HEL) effort. Many of these systems have been primarily intended to serve as stepping stones to future operational capabilities. In recent years, there have been a number of additional laser directed energy development efforts, often focused on the counter-drone mission, across the U.S. military<\/a>, and for use in the air<\/a> and naval domains<\/a>, as well as by forces on land.<\/p>\n As mentioned, the Army received its first versions of LOCUST in the early 2020s, as part of a rapid prototyping effort called the Palletized-High Energy Laser (P-HEL). The service tested multiple laser weapon designs under P-HEL<\/a>. The Army has acquired the ISV and JLTV-based configuration through a follow-on effort called the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser<\/a> (AMP-HEL).<\/p>\n At the same time, a laser like LOCUST can only engage a single target at once. Lower-powered lasers need to dwell on their targets for a longer period of time in order to cause significant damage by burning a hole in them, as well. This limits the number of targets a single system can engage in a given window of time.<\/p>\n In addition, the power of any laser beam drops as it propagates through the atmosphere further and further away from its source. Weather and other environmental factors like smoke and dust can also distort the beam and reduce its power. All of this only adds to the aforementioned dwell time. Adaptive optics<\/a>, and just more power overall, can help produce useful effects at greater distances, but laser weapons continue to have short ranges, typically measured in handfuls of miles, as a general rule. As an aside, LOCUST was originally described as a 10-kilowatt system and a version has at least been demonstrated with a 26-kilowatt power rating. How much more can be scaled up within the existing form factor is unclear.<\/p>\n The Army, as well as other branches of the U.S. military, have repeatedly acknowledged challenges in fielding<\/a> laser directed energy weapon systems. Sensitivity to vibration, humidity, dust, and sand, as well as fragile optics and cooling demands, have all created further complications for operating and sustaining these systems in real-world environments. In 2024, Doug Bush, then Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, did tell members<\/a> of the Senate Armed Services Committee that unspecified laser weapons emplaced at fixed sites \u201care proving successful\u201d for \u201csome\u201d users. This was seen at the time as a likely reference to the overseas deployment of the palletized version of LOCUST.<\/p>\n U.S. military officials regularly stress that lasers are not a \u2018silver bullet\u2019 solution to the problem of drones or other aerial threats, and they expect to field them as part of layered defense networks. High-power microwave directed energy weapons<\/a> and electronic warfare systems<\/a> have also steadily emerged as key parts of future counter-drone ecosystems, especially for responding to swarm attacks. The pursuit of lasers<\/a>, specifically, to defeat drones<\/a>, as well as cruise missiles and potentially other targets, is a growing trend globally<\/a>, as well. In the naval domain, lasers are also seen as valuable additions to ships for point defense<\/a> against small watercraft.<\/p>\n Drones, especially smaller types, present their own additional challenges, in general, when it comes to detection and tracking, let alone engaging them with any effector. This has been underscored in reporting surrounding the recent temporary flight restrictions over El Paso.<\/p>\n Official statements so far from the Trump administration have said that the clampdown on the airspace around El Paso resulted from the response to a cross-border incursion of drones operated by Mexican drug cartels, something that happens on a near-daily basis<\/a>. Questions have since been raised<\/a> about exactly when the incident the administration has cited may have occurred and whether any drones were actually involved in that particular case.<\/p>\n The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. <\/p>\n The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. <\/p>\n The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming. https:\/\/t.co\/xQA1cMy7l0<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe [laser] anti-drone technology was launched near the southern border to shoot down what appeared to be foreign drones,\u201d according to a story yesterday from CBS News<\/a>, which was among the first to report on that detail. \u201cThe flying material turned out to be a party balloon, sources said. One balloon was shot down, several sources said.\u201d<\/p>\n Other outlets, also citing anonymous sources, have since reported<\/a> on the use of a laser directed energy weapon to down one or more innocuous balloons<\/a> along the southern border earlier this week. However, the exact relationship between those engagements and the temporary flight restrictions remains murky.<\/p>\n However, \u201cthe Mexican cartels have been running drones on the border lately, the sources said, but it was unclear how many were hit by the military\u2019s anti-UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) technology this week,\u201d CBS News\u2018 report yesterday had also noted. \u201cOne official said at least one cartel drone was successfully disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n It has also now been widely reported<\/a> that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel have been the ones actually operating<\/a> the laser systems along the border through an agreement<\/a> with the U.S. military. This speaks to additional ongoing complications surrounding domestic authorities for responding to drone threats, something TWZ has explored in detail<\/a> in the past. This is despite significant changes to policies<\/a> that allow for broader and more rapid responses within the United States, at least on the U.S. military side, just in recent weeks.<\/p>\n Furthermore, a breakdown in coordination<\/a> between the Army, CBP, and the FAA over the use of lasers along the border<\/a>, operationally and\/or in testing, looks to have been a central factor in the decision to shut down the airspace around El Paso based on the reporting to date<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMy team has been working with the FAA, DOW [Department of War], and others to gather more information about this morning\u2019s temporary airspace closure in El Paso,\u201d Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, wrote in a post on X yesterday. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful more details can be publicly shared in the coming days on interagency coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n My team has been working with the FAA, DOW, and others to gather more information about this morning’s temporary airspace closure in El Paso. <\/p>\n I\u2019m hopeful more details can be publicly shared in the coming days on interagency coordination. https:\/\/t.co\/MyguEKk3XF<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) February 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of misinformation being spread\u00a0\u2013 including by the White House \u2013 is alarming and unhelpful,\u201d Veronica Escobar, the Democrat who currently represents the El Paso area in the House of Representatives, also wrote yesterday in a series of posts on X. \u201cTo be clear: this was the result of incompetence at the highest levels of the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n The amount of misinformation being spread\u00a0\u2014 including by the White House \u2014 is alarming and unhelpful.<\/p>\n \u2014 Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) February 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n To be clear: this was the result of incompetence at the highest levels of the administration. \u00a0<\/p>\n Next for me and my team is\u00a0ensuring our community gets all the answers we deserve and that no other community has to deal with what we had to endure.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/locust-laser-sling-load-fort-bliss-2025.jpg\")
Army personnel assigned to JTF-SB prepare to sling load a LOCUST-equipped Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) under a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during training as part of an Air Assault Sustainment Course at Fort Bliss on July 16, 2025. US Army <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/isv-locust-us-army.jpg\")
A stock picture of a LOCUST-equipped ISV. US Army <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/locust-laser-el-paso-airspace-closure.jpg\")
A JLTV-based LOCUST system. AeroVironment <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/palletized-locust-laser-us-army.jpg\")
An example of the palletized version of LOCUST, also known as the Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL), seen during testing in 2022. US Army <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770941666_452_hqdefault.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/de-m-shorad.jpg\")
One of the initial prototypes of the Army\u2019s Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) system, which is based on the 8\u00d78 Stryker light armored vehicle. US Army One of the Army\u2019s initial prototype DE M-SHORAD vehicles. US Army<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/quad-copter-drones-p-hel-testing.jpg\")
A picture that the Army released in 2022 of quadcopter-type drones damaged during testing of P-HEL systems. US Army <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/army-border-patrol-el-paso-2025.jpg\")
Senior US Army leaders meet with Customs and Border Patrol personnel near El Paso, Texas, in November 2025. US Army <\/p>\n