A drone attack on a Colombian military patrol in the Catatumbo region killed three soldiers and wounded eight others on July 21, 2025, according to the country’s military. The army blamed the assault on the National Liberation Army, or ELN, one of Colombia’s longest-running insurgent groups.
The strike took place outside El Carmen, in a rural part of northeastern Colombia where armed groups compete for territory and influence. The military said the patrol came under attack from rebels using a drone, a tactic that has become more common in Colombia’s internal conflict. AP reported that insurgent groups are increasingly using commercial drones packed with explosives to hit military targets and rival fighters.
The attack was described as one of the deadliest drone strikes on record in the country. That matters because Colombia has spent years trying to keep violence from spreading after the 2016 peace deal with the FARC, the largest guerrilla movement. With the FARC out of the picture, smaller rebel factions and drug gangs have filled the gap, fighting over land corridors used for trafficking and illegal mining.
The ELN has been one of the groups most able to exploit that disorder. The military says the organization has around 6,000 fighters and remains active in remote rural zones. In January, the government suspended peace talks with the ELN after a series of attacks in Catatumbo that killed at least 80 people and forced about 50,000 residents from their homes.
The July 21 attack also underscores a broader shift in Colombia’s conflict. Drones have moved from being surveillance tools to becoming delivery systems for explosives, allowing armed groups to strike from a distance and with less risk to their own fighters. Colombia’s Defense Ministry said rebel groups launched 115 drone attacks last year, a number that points to how quickly the tactic is becoming normalized in the war zones.
For the military, the attack is another sign that rural security has become harder to stabilize despite years of counterinsurgency operations. For civilians living near Catatumbo, it is another reminder that the country’s conflict now blends old-style guerrilla warfare with cheap, adaptable technology that is harder to detect and easier to repeat.
The army has not said whether the patrol was on a specific counterinsurgency mission at the time of the strike. What it did make clear is that the ELN remains capable of inflicting serious losses and that drone warfare is now part of the battlefield reality in Colombia’s northeast.
