Drone Warfare Escalates in Colombia Under President Abelardo de la Espriella

As Colombian troops push through the dense Amazon rainforest in a full-scale war against guerrilla militant groups, technology is reshaping how they fight.

After four years of left-wing president Gustavo Petro’s ‘Total Peace’ strategy, the new government led by far-right president Abelardo de la Espriella, is opting for violent confrontation.

But the landscape of conflict in Colombia has radically transformed since 2022.

Buzzing high above the tree canopy, unmanned drones are now terrorising civilians and government forces near the well-trodden drug corridors, through which billions of dollars worth of cocaine is trafficked.

It is an alarming development for people trying to go about their lives.

“Even when civilians are not targeted or collaterally impacted, the use of drones in combat between rival groups and [government] security forces has become traumatising,” says Tiziano Breda, Latin America regional expert at conflict monitor ACLED, who has been tracking the rapid rise of drones in Colombia in recent years.

“Whenever they hear the buzzing of drones, even when not physical[ly impacted], it has psychologically impacted civilians.”

Drones are part of the escalating war between the militia and government forces, which is being driven by de la Espriella.

His election in June this year caused significant trepidation, amid promises of total warfare and warnings to militants that they have two options: prison or death.

The millionaire lawyer, who describes himself as an outsider and a huge admirer of the US president - nicknamed by analysts as a “mini-me Trump” - beat leftist senator Iván Cepeda by just one per cent of the vote.

At the centre of his campaign was a commitment to deal forcefully with organised crime, amid a widespread view that Petro’s peace strategy has not worked.

De la Espriella’s first weeks in office were bloody. Sworn in on August 7, that month became the deadliest for clashes between Colombian security forces and armed groups since ACLED started collecting data in 2018, with 84 deaths.

The reaction by armed groups to the all-out war was instant and “centered on the new technology” they have been developing: drones.

In the first three weeks of the new government, around 30 drone attacks on security forces were recorded, mostly in the Cauca and Norte de Santander regions. This was quadruple the number in the three previous weeks.

Colombia has now become the epicentre of drone warfare in Latin America; across the region, 97 of the 182 municipalities where the analysts record weaponised drone events were Colombian.

In 2023, ACLED recorded just one event of weaponised drones, rising rapidly to around 150 in 2025. In 2026 so far, there have already been nearly 200.

The armed drones are most commonly used in areas with high levels of drug trafficking where militia - with greater financial resources with which to modernise - have been assimilating each other’s tactics, Breda says.

The far-left guerrilla National Liberation Army (ELN) started using drones after a clash with the 33rd Front, dissidents of the powerful FARC militia.

The 33rd Front - who rejected the 2016 peace accord which saw FARC lay down their arms - began using drones against the Gulf Clan, a neo-paramilitary group and Colombia’s largest drug cartel.

Now, the Gulf Clan has been using drones against the ACSN, another paramilitary group operating in coastal areas.

But caught in the crossfire of this intensifying war are the people living around Colombia’s primary cocaine trafficking routes, in northern and western areas of the country.

The technology remains imprecise. In some cases, a police station or military barrack may have been the target, but drones have actually struck nearby homes, Breda says.

Unexploded drones are also a growing problem, ending up in the hands of local communities, and sometimes children.

Armed groups have also carried out deliberate attacks against civilians in retaliation for working with rival groups, or not forcefully enough opposing their incursions.

Drones have also become a central tool for armed groups to cary out surveillance of local populations and farms, to monitor the communities and spot incursions by rivals.

“It's a cheaper way to ensure that there are no unregistered movements or something that they they cannot control in in the communities,” Breda says.

Government forces are struggling to track down drones due to their relative large ranges. Soldiers are now exposed to the constant threat of attack from the air, even when the ground is cleared.

And drones are just one aspect of an increasingly complex landscape of conflict in Colombia.

De la Espriella’s war is forcing militant to shift tactics, adds Breda. “They are blending even more with local communities, making them more difficult to locate and making the possible civilian damage, the collateral damage, even greater.”