Adversary Intelligence — 2026-06-21

New Antenna Array at Cuba Bejucal SIGINT Site Now Fully Operational 145 Kilometers from Florida

BLUFBejucal's completed CDAA delivers persistent HF intercept coverage over southeastern U.S. military corridors, but full triangulation capability remains constrained because active construction at the paired El Salao site is unlikely within the next twelve months.

Commercial satellite imagery analyzed by CSIS, published June 18, shows a new 32-antenna circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA) at Cuba's Bejucal SIGINT facility has completed construction and very likely begun operations 12. The array, comprising 19 outer and 13 inner antennas, is larger than any Cuban CDAA previously identified by CSIS and provides high-frequency direction finding coverage across the southeastern United States, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and portions of the Western Atlantic 1. CSIS assesses Bejucal is likely among three Cuban sites that U.S. officials have acknowledged China operates, though no publicly available evidence directly confirms Chinese involvement 1. A second suspected CDAA site at El Salao showed little development in CSIS imagery from May 2026, and a newly repositioned access road now runs through the center of the antenna array footprint, a placement that would degrade CDAA performance; whether the site will proceed as originally designed is unresolved 1.

Analysis
Bejucal's CDAA completion converts Cuba's HF intercept posture from latent to persistent, with continuous coverage across southeastern U.S. military corridors, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Without a paired eastern node, the triangulation gap over the Atlantic approaches remains open; El Salao's dormancy is the limiting constraint. Active construction at El Salao is unlikely within the next twelve months; vegetation reclaiming graded areas and absent antenna hardware indicate stall, not delay. Analytic confidence is low: CSIS's analysis rests on commercial imagery alone, with no corroborating SIGINT or human reporting on operator intent. A repositioned access road absent from prior imagery cycles may instead signal active engineering revision of the footprint, accelerating any restart timeline. If El Salao resumes, SOUTHCOM faces a two-node network closing the southeastern Caribbean coverage gap, changing the counter-ISR resource allocation timeline.

4 sources

New Activity at Possible Chinese Intelligence Facilities in Cuba - Center for Strategic and International Studies
At the Doorstep: A Snapshot of New Activity at Cuban Spy Sites - Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Peoples Liberation Army spy satellite site is now fully operational in Cuba - Global Defense Corp
China-linked spy site in Cuba is now fully operational - Defence Blog