L3Harris is the world’s 10th largest arms company, according to SIPRI. It was formed in July 2019 as a merger of two American companies: communications, intelligence and surveillance firm L3 Technologies and defence contractor Harris. In 2024, L3Harris made revenues of US$ 16.2 billion from its arms business, approximately 76% of its total revenues. L3Harris produces a wide range of electronics and communications systems, including avionics, command and control, and electronic warfare systems. It produces equipment and technology for land, sea, air, space, and cyber domains.
Headquartered in Florida, the company has offices globally in Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, the UAE and the UK. It employs over 41,000 staff.
L3Harris in the UK
L3Harris operates at 11 sites in the UK; it reports that its current and predecessors companies have provided services to the UK’s military for over 100 years. Some recent services to the UK’s armed forces are profiled below.
L3Harris is part of the Airseeker/ Rivet Joint programme, a reconnaissance aircraft operated by No 51 Squadron at RAF Waddington. L3Harris also produces its T7 and T4 multi-mission robots at its UK sites. It is developing a new tactical radio product Morpheus in the UK, and previously supplied the Bowman tactical C4I system to the UK Armed Forces. It has also as delivered 100 autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) systems to the Royal Navy. In 2025, L3Harris in the UK partnered with Thales UK to develop an integrated short-range air defence (SHORAD) command and control capability.
Aircraft and autonomous weapons
In the field of avionics, L3-Harris’ systems are integral to several combat aircraft including the F-22, F/A-18 and F-35. It also manufactures bomb-release mechanisms for the F-35 combat aircraft and General Atomics Reaper drone. L3Harris provides mission systems for the Bombardier Global 6500 AEW Aircraft, most recently acquired by South Korea. L3Harris also has contracts worldwide to maintain and upgrade aircraft fleets. These include Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules[ transport aircraft. In 2025, it won a contract from the Moroccan air force to modernise its C-130 fleet. In 2023, IAI was developing “survivable, high-altitude airborne early warning and control aircraft” for the South Korean Air Force alongside L3Harris Technologies and Korean Air.
Battlefield management
Amongst many other areas of work, L3-Harris is active in electronic warfare and battlefield management, manufactures night-vision equipment for soldiers and is involved in space-based war capability: L3-Harris’s capabilities “provide the foundation for space domain control, protecting assets and preserving strategic advantages… L3Harris has served the space superiority mission for more than 30 years.”
Communications surveillance
L3Harris produces a range of communications surveillance products. These include the ubiquitous Stingray IMSI catcher widely sold to US police forces. In 2018, the company acquired two ‘hacking companies’, Azimuth and Linchpin, which reportedly sell zero-day exploits to Five Eyes intelligence agencies to enable targeted device surveillance. L3Harris’ division Trenchant now develops surveillance and hacking tools for Western governments. In 2025, a former general manager at L3 Harris Trenchant pled guilty to selling exploits to Russia. In 2022, L3Harris briefly considered acquiring scandal-riven Israeli company NSO Group, which produces spyware found to have been deployed globally to spy on against activists and politicians.
Controversies
Israel and the Palestinian territories
L3Harris produces several arms and aircraft components used by Israel in its war in Gaza.
L3Harris manufactures over 1,600 components for each F-35 plane, including its weapon release systems. These include components for Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets in Brighton, enabling the plane to fire bombs and missiles. This includes ones specifically designed to modify Israel’s F-35s to use Israeli-made munitions as well as US-made ones.
L3Harris makes components for the Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) guidance kit. KDI Precision Products, a company subsidiary participated in the sale of bomb fuzes to Israel. JDAMs are used in Gaza. In October 2025, Israel signed an MOU with L3Harris to produce a modified version of the American light-attack aircraft Sky Warden, known locally as the Blue Sky Warden. L3 has also built management systems for Israeli warships Sa’ar 5 and Sa’ar 6 warships.
Because it supplies the IDF, L3Harris is the frequent target of protest actions and vandalism in the US, Canada and the UK. University students including at the University of San Francisco and Kings College London have successfully pressured their administrations to divest from L3Harris, among other companies arming Israel.
Turkey
L3-Harris’s UK subsidiary EDO-MBM in Brighton produces bomb release mechanisms for UAVs, which has caused protestors to target EDO-MBM’s facilities. In recent years, substantial evidence has emerged that EDO-MBM’s Hornet bomb racks, or an almost identical copy, are used in Turkey’s Bayraktar TB-2 drones, which have been used in conflicts in Turkey itself, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, and Libya. The company received numerous export licences to Turkey for technology related to the bomb racks between 2014 and 2020. The successful weaponisation of the TB-2 drone took place during 2015-16. The Bayraktar is in high demand worldwide, in particular in Africa.
L3Harris Wescam, a Canadian subsidiary, has also supplied drone technology to Turkey in the past. Canada cancelled the permits in April 2021 after finding credible evidence that Bayraktar TB2 drones equipped with Wescam sensors had been used in the conflict. In 2020, the Republic of Artsakh filed a lawsuit on behalf of its civilian population against L3 Harris alleging that the company had aided and abetted war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, extrajudicial killings, and torture committed by Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Saudi Arabia
L3Harris has an office in Saudi Arabia and as of 2021, a joint venture, SAMI L3Harris, with Saudi arms company SAMI. Currently it produces production line for software-defined radios for the Saudi armed forces. Its joint venture has partnered with Saudi company Zamil Shipyards to design and construct autonomous maritime platforms.
In 2019, L3Harris launched a pilot training programme with a SAMI company for Royal Saudi Air Force pilots. L3Harris BlackRock Communications Intelligence Sensor Suites are integrated into Saudi Arabia’s Boeing RE-3A Tactical Airborne Surveillance System (TASS) aircraft fleet, which were due an upgrade in 2023 following the US government clearing funds for an upgrade package.
Iraq war crimes allegations
In 2024, a group of Iraqi men who are former prisoners detained by the US at Abu Ghraib prison filed a criminal claim under the Alien Tort Claims Act against companies including L3 Harris predecessor companies L3 Services. They alleged that the companies operating Abu Ghraib prison participated in torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Border and drugs enforcement
L3Harris is a major provider of services and equipment to the US’ border agencies, US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Between 2006 and July 2021, L3Harris was awarded 136 CBP and ICE contracts worth over US$ 300 million. In 2022, L3 Harris won a US$ 4.4 million contract to provide location equipment to target mobile phones to ICE. In 2025, media reported that L3Harris had been awarded a “no-bid deal” worth US$ 7.5 million to provide night vision goggles to the CBP’s controversial Special Operations Group. L3Harris was also overhauling President Trump’s personal 747-400 plane, gifted to him by Qatar. In 2025, Project Ploughshares alleged that the US military used a Canadian-made L3Harris WESCAM MX-Series sensor system to track and surveil boats alleged to be transporting drugs from Venezuela, who were later struck by drones.
Corruption scandals
According to an indictment, which became public in September 2023, the American Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and his wife were implicated in a corruption case involving three businessmen and the sale of equipment including likely L3 Harris Air Defense Radar Systems in Egypt.
In 2024, court documents revealed that Harris Corporation, a predecessor company of L3Harris, paid commissions to a Saudi company later alleged to have been a conduit for bribes for the Saudi royal family for over two decades for services in the Kingdom.
