Drug cartels across Mexico are turning with growing frequency to car bombs, explosive-laden drones, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), a trend that could further strain the country's already tense relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened military action against the cartels. The shift matters beyond the immediate casualties: the use of military-style ordnance against police and civilians marks a qualitative change in a conflict that Mexican governments have long framed as a law-enforcement problem rather than an insurgency.

The most recent incident occurred Sunday night outside a police station in Ojocaliente, a town in the north-central state of Zacatecas, roughly 360 miles (580 km) northwest of Mexico City. While no one was killed, the detonation of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of explosives injured 11 people and damaged more than 60 homes in the city center, Mexico's security chief Omar García Harfuch said Friday during a visit to Zacatecas alongside President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Zacatecas has recorded 23 attacks involving explosives so far this year, six of them involving cars or motorcycles packed with explosives, according to state Attorney General Cristian Paul Camacho. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel have battled for years over control of the state, which sits astride key trafficking corridors linking Mexico's Pacific ports to the U.S. border — a geographic prize that has made it one of the country's most violently contested regions.

The scale of the bombings remains far below the violence seen in countries such as Colombia, where decades of conflict involving guerrilla armies and paramilitaries normalized the use of car bombs and IEDs, yet they are raising significant concern in Mexico.

A history of explosives in cartel violence

Victor Manuel Sánchez, a University of Coahuila professor who has tracked car bombings in Mexico in recent decades, said an earlier phase of such violence included a 1994 attack in Guadalajara by the Tijuana Cartel targeting Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who was later convicted in the United States. For years afterward, such large-scale bombings were rare in Mexico, making the current pattern a notable departure from the country's recent criminal history.

More recently, Sánchez said, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has increasingly deployed explosives as it expands its reach across Mexico. Authorities have attributed two recent bombings in the centers of small cities to the group: one in Michoacán in December that killed five people, and Sunday's attack outside the police station in Zacatecas. The CJNG is among the Mexican criminal organizations designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

Mexican cartels began using explosives more extensively about five years ago, dropping them from drones to attack security forces or rival groups and burying devices in the ground to defend or control territory. Drone-delivered bombs mirror tactics seen in recent conflicts elsewhere, underscoring how armed groups can adapt commercially available technology for battlefield-style attacks.

In 2023, roadway bombs planted by drug cartels in western Jalisco state killed six people and injured 14 others. A month later, the military acknowledged the growing threat and released its first figures, saying it had seized about 2,800 explosive devices nationwide over the previous 4 1/2 years. The following year, authorities deactivated nearly 3,200 explosive devices in Michoacán state alone. In 2025, an explosive device there killed eight soldiers in one of the deadliest such incidents in Mexico. Authorities have not released more recent nationwide figures, leaving unclear whether the trend has continued at the same pace.

"It is all a bad development in Mexico," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an organized crime expert at the U.S.-based Brookings Institution. "We are facing steady intensification of violence," she said. "This certainly greatly intensifies the atmosphere of fear and retaliation."

Government response and the terrorism debate

Sheinbaum said Friday that the nationwide decline in killings was clear evidence that the government's strategy against cartels was working. That claim stands in tension with the escalating use of explosives, a mismatch that analysts say reflects how overall homicide totals can fall even as tactics grow more lethal and indiscriminate.

Experts say cartels use car bombs to intimidate rivals and authorities, pressure the government, and spread fear among civilians. Carlos Pérez Ricart, an international studies professor at Mexico's CIDE university, said car bombs also draw attention and can be used to pressure authorities into negotiations, particularly when criminal groups feel under siege.

Mexico has long resisted describing cartel violence as terrorism, in part because of concerns that such a designation could invite foreign intervention and hurt tourism and investment, Felbab-Brown said. Another official argument is that terrorism generally involves political or ideological aims, while cartels are primarily motivated by profit.

Civilians have nevertheless been deliberately targeted. In 2008, grenades thrown into crowds celebrating Independence Day in Morelia, the capital of Michoacán, killed eight people and wounded dozens. Three years later, gunmen set fire to a casino in northern Mexico, killing 52 people.

The Trump administration's designation of eight Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — and its use of that framework to justify military action — has made the terminology more consequential, particularly as the legality of such actions is challenged in the United States and abroad. Each new bombing adds pressure to that debate, giving both U.S. officials and the Mexican government fresh evidence to support opposing arguments about how to respond.

Pérez Ricart cautioned against applying counterterrorism strategies to organized crime. "The answer to terrorism is the disappearance of the enemy," he said, whereas in the drug trade the adversary is not simply an armed group but an entire illegal market.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.