Hundreds of 10th Mountain Division soldiers deploying to Latin America

The Army is sending 500 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division to Latin America and a headquarters company to Florida as the Army finds itself further involved in the U.S. campaign in the region against drug trafficking groups.

Hundreds of soldiers from the division are heading to Panama to train in jungle warfare, while a contingent of troops will support the task force command overseeing renewed U.S. military efforts in Latin America. The deployment marks a major escalation in U.S. troop presence in the region and a surge in conventional forces, as Washington looks to send more personnel into more countries.

The New York Times first reported on the Latin America deployment. A spokesperson for the 10th Mountain Division told Task & Purpose that roughly 100 soldiers of a headquarters element will head to Miami, where they will augment Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere with “command and control, intelligence, planning, communications, and other staff functions.”

That task force, the successor to Joint Task Force-Southern Spear, has carried out strikes on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean since this summer, and is overseeing the troops deployed on an anti-cartel mission.

Meanwhile, around 500 soldiers are heading to countries in Latin America. The division spokesperson said that soldiers with 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, are “deploying to the U.S. Southern Command area of operations to provide host nation security cooperation and conduct training with their host nation counterparts.” The New York Times reported that they are first heading to Panama to train at the Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course-Panama at Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón and could support ongoing special operations forces-led direct missions against cartel groups.

The Pentagon and wider Trump administration have been trumpeting the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition or Shield of the Americas partnership, a multi-national political and military agreement focused on targeting groups seen as drug trafficking organizations. In recent months, following elections of friendly right-wing governments, Colombia and Honduras have joined the coalition. 

The U.S. arm of that partnership, dubbed Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere, includes Marines who have been boarding and then sinking boats that U.S. Southern Command claims were serving as refueling stations for drug smugglers. Those Marines are from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, operating as Littoral Combat Force-24, and have been active in the waters off of Ecuador for several weeks, working with two Navy ships. 

Meanwhile, Green Berets from 7th Special Forces Group were confirmed to be carrying out joint operations with Ecuadorian forces, officials there said. Southern Command published photos and video of a joint U.S.-Ecuador raid on cartel members last month, which included members of U.S. Army and Marine Corps special operations units. 

The ongoing and expanding U.S. military operations against drug trafficking groups — specifically ones the U.S. has designated as foreign terrorist organizations — has largely focused at sea, although Southern Command has carried out two major strikes on land this spring. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gen. Francis Donovan, the head of Southern Command, said additional land strikes were a possibility.