On Monday, the Jordanian Armed Forces said it shot down a small drone for the third time this month. The drone was flying in the eastern military region of Jordan, which covers the area from Ramtha near the Syrian border to the border with Iraq, it said.

The army wrote on social media that it “remains vigilant to protect national security and confront any threat to it with full force and determination.

The drone appears to have been a commercially available quadcopter that could be used by smugglers for surveillance, it said.

Jordan is facing increased threats from drug traffickers in Syria, including many groups that are connected to Iranian-backed militias. The Jordanians have talked to the Syrian regime in the last few months to urge Damascus to stop the drug trade, which they say destabilizes the border area.

Syria is a hub of the Captagon drug trade. Some of these drugs are shipped to the Gulf states and other places. The smugglers are using drones as a new method to transport their drugs as they look for new ways to evade detection.

Drones are a new way to transport drugs across borders, and media outlets in the Gulf have covered this issue, including Al-Arabiya, an Arabic news channel based in Riyadh, and The National, an English-language daily newspaper from the UAE. The National reported that a drone was also found to be carrying explosives.

The Jordanian army said in a statement that the Border Guard forces, along with the Anti-Narcotics Department and the military security services, stopped a drone from illegally entering Jordan from Syria and shot it down inside Jordanian territory, according to The National.