Intel Report: US military engagement in Ecuador begins
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Date: 06/03/2026
Executive Summary
Ecuador is entering an active phase of US-supported military operations against domestic criminal groups designated as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOSs) by the United States government.
On 3 March 2026, US Southern Command announced joint operations with Ecuadorian forces targeting “terrorist groups.” The US has designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, the two principal armed criminal networks controlling the country's drug trafficking infrastructure, as FTOs. However, the first action was aimed at Comandos de la Frontera, a Colombian drug trafficking group also operating in northern Ecuador.
The same day, a coordinated US-Ecuador-Europol operation dismantled a Los Lobos trafficking network operating into Belgium and the Netherlands. Ecuador's President Noboa has imposed nightly curfews across four provinces, including Guayas, home to Guayaquil's José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport, effective 15–31 March 2026.
Interior Minister John Reimberg also told people in these provinces on March 3 to “stay at home. We are at war.”
On March 4, Ecuador revealed US assets had helped plan the operation against Comandos de la Frontera, a heavily armed Colombian drug trafficking group which also operates in Ecuador. While the full extent of US involvement was not revealed, Ecuador’s Joint Command said the US provided logistical and operational support.
For aviation operators, the immediate operational consideration is a NOTAM issued in January 2026 covering the Eastern Pacific, citing military activities and GPS interference, valid through 17 March 2026. This reflects active US maritime interdiction operations against narco-trafficking vessels, a campaign that has intensified significantly since late 2025. Ground operations and curfew enforcement in the Guayas province present secondary considerations for crew movements and ground handling.
This is assessed as an elevated but stable risk environment. Scheduled commercial operations at GYE are not currently disrupted. The situation is developing, with military engagement expected to deepen through March 2026 and potentially beyond.
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Who | US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Ecuadorian armed forces and National Police joint operations against Comandos de la Frontera, as well as Ecuador's Los Choneros and Los Lobos, both designated FTOs by the US. |
What | Ecuador is simultaneously the subject of overlapping but distinct operations. At sea, US forces are conducting maritime interdiction in the Eastern Pacific targeting narco-trafficking vessels. On the ground, Ecuador is operating under a national state of emergency declared in January 2026, with nightly upcoming curfews imposed across four provinces, including Guayas, home to Guayaquil's international airport, set to run 15–31 March 2026. Since March 3, US assets supported Ecuadorean troops against drug trafficking interests, a situation which may ramp up through March. These lines of operation are coordinated: the maritime campaign disrupts outbound shipments, the ground operations target the domestic infrastructure of the organisations moving them, and international takedowns close off the European end of the supply chain. The result is the most significant security mobilisation Ecuador has seen since President Noboa declared an internal armed conflict in January 2024. |
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Why | Ecuador sits between Colombia and Peru, the world's two largest coca producers, and handles an estimated 70% of global cocaine exports, the bulk of it leaving through the Port of Guayaquil. The money and weapons received over the past decade have turned gangs like the Choneros and Lobos into transnational criminal enterprises with the resources to challenge the state directly. Faced with an Ecuadorian state both incapable of dismantling these groups alone and an administration willing to cooperate closely with Washington, the US administration views Ecuador as the next step in militarizing the Latin American drug war after strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean, seizing President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, and assisting in the killing of Mexican drug trafficker and CJNG boss, El Mencho. |
How | The precise nature and extent of US military involvement as of 3 March 2026 is not fully established. SOUTHCOM's announcement of joint operations against designated terrorist organisations was deliberately unspecific, and Ecuador's Ministry of Defense declaration of a "new phase against narco-terrorism" offered no operational detail. But the convergence of simultaneous developments on 3 March, the SOUTHCOM announcement, the curfew decree, Interior Minister Reimberg's declaration that "we are at war," and the Europol takedown, alongside an active Eastern Pacific NOTAM citing military activities and GPS interference, suggests a coordinated operational activation rather than an incremental policy step. |
Analysis
Los Choneros and Los Lobos are not conventional criminal targets. Over the past 7-10 years, sustained income has transformed them from street gangs into groups with the financial resources, territorial control, and institutional penetration of a parallel state. Their prison infrastructure alone illustrates the problem: Ecuador's penitentiary system, the site of more than 450 inmate deaths in gang massacres since 2021, functions as an operational headquarters from which leadership communicates, coordinates, and commands.
The corruption penetration runs deeper still. The December 2025 arrest of Ecuador's former national police chief on charges of collaboration with Los Lobos confirmed that the institutions being deployed against these organisations, including in collaboration with the U.S., have been systematically compromised by them. Vetted units and HSI-trained TCIUs partially address this problem, but they operate within a broader institutional environment that these organisations have spent years corrupting at every level, from beat officers to the head of the national police.
Territorial entrenchment compounds the problem further. In significant parts of Guayas and Los Ríos, Los Choneros, Los Lobos, and other gangs are a form of government. They provide jobs, collect revenue, enforce orders, and even deliver basic services the state does not. Displacing an structure with that degree of community embeddedness requires not just military pressure but sustained state presence and service delivery afterward. Ecuador has demonstrated neither the capacity nor the resources to provide that at scale.
All four curfew provinces matter, Guayas is where sustained operations carry the heaviest economic consequences. The Port of Guayaquil is Ecuador's primary trade gateway, the exit point for the bulk of the country's agricultural exports, including bananas, shrimp, and cut flowers, and the entry point for a significant proportion of its imports. José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport handles the majority of Ecuador's international passenger and cargo air traffic. Both operate within a province soon to be under nightly curfew, elevated military presence, and active security operations of uncertain duration.
In the short term, curfew hours create manageable but real friction: crew transport, ground handling schedules, and cargo movement require coordination with local operators who are themselves operating under constrained conditions. The more significant risk is duration.
Curfews imposed in environments where the underlying security problem is structurally resistant to rapid resolution tend to get extended.