Cartel drones packed with explosives are flying just south of Arizona’s border with Mexico, The Post has learned, alarming Senate defense hawks who are pushing for legislation to counter novel aerial incursions into the US.

Members of Los Salazar, a cell of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, are using drones “to drop explosives” on Los Pelones, an independent rival cartel, as part of ongoing conflict in Sonoyta, Mexico, according to an internal bulletin circulated by the US Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector Intelligence Unit on Tuesday.

The small town in Sonora sits roughly two miles from the US-Mexico border.

“Other confrontations between these two organizations have occurred along the border,” the bulletin also notes.

In March, a top general revealed in congressional testimony that more than 1,000 drones per month are crossing into US airspace near the border with Mexico, which he warned was a “growing” potential threat to national security.

“I don’t know the actual number — I don’t think anybody does — but it’s in the thousands,” Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of North American Defense Command and US Northern Command, said in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

“We … probably have over 1,000 a month,” Guillot estimated.

Senate Republican lawmakers are becoming increasingly concerned that the drone threat has fallen on deaf ears at the Pentagon, which is tasked with protecting US airspace as part of its Title 10 authority.

One amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act introduced by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) would force the Pentagon to take countermeasures against drones and other unmanned aircraft systems crossing the northern or southern US borders.

“On Border Czar Kamala Harris’ watch, murderous drug cartels are controlling the southern border and using drones for turf war attacks within miles of the United States,” Ernst told The Post. “These thugs must be held accountable. That’s why I’m equipping the Pentagon to respond to these incursions by any means necessary.”

The legislation would create a Counter Unmanned Aviation Systems (CUAS) task force and various reporting requirements for unmanned aerial incursions in US airspace.

Its text further includes a requirement for the Pentagon to conduct an exercise in how “to respond to a variety of threats to installations of the Department [of Defense] from unmanned aerial systems.”

The top Democrat and Republican serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee have also remarked on the national security vulnerability in an April op-ed for the Washington Post.

“Our nation lacks adequate drone detection capability,” Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) wrote. “We still rely on the early warning radars that served us so well during the Cold War.”

“Today, though, they are unable to detect, identify and track small aircraft at both high and low altitudes,” they said. “Inside the United States, we can hardly track anything other than commercial aircraft. Almost none of our domestic military bases have the sensors to identify small drones.”

The solutions had been proposed following reports of drone-operated surveillance of US military bases — as well as direct incursions into their airspace.

“There is no reason to think the challenge is limited to the skies over Iraq and Israel; it could threaten the United States, and fast,” Wicker later posted on X. “That means U.S. policymakers have no time to spare in generating a better blueprint for defenses against drones.”

While the House passed its version of the annual defense bill last month, the Senate has yet to take up the measure — with Wicker accusing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of needlessly scrapping consideration before the August recess.

Capitol Hill sources told The Post that the NDAA likely won’t be taken up until after September, with the month devoted instead to Democratic messaging priorities — including Schumer’s “No Kings Act” to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

But another source indicated there were still sticking points on bipartisan issues in the NDAA, as well as some climate-related provisions, that had to be hashed out.

A spokesman for Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.

Several border agents told The Post they’re aware of drone incursions, saying the craft often are used by cartels in Mexico to surveil law enforcement operations on the US side of the border.

In 2023, Customs and Border Protection said human smugglers were using drones “to surveil” the Border Patrol in what the agency labeled a “growing trend.”

The Mexican army recently disclosed that cartels have been using drones to drop bombs that have killed Mexican soldiers more than 1,000 miles away from the US border in Michoacán, Mexico, according to the Associated Press.

Residents in Michoacan, where the Jalisco drug cartel is fighting for control, said the attacks from the explosive drones are happening on a daily basis.

Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately provided comment when asked by The Post on Wednesday.