The US military carried out another strike on a suspected drug vessel, this time in the Eastern Pacific, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
The strike Tuesday against a boat allegedly carrying drugs is the eighth conducted by the Trump administration. The previous seven happened in the Caribbean.
“Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific. The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said.
“There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. Both terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed in this strike,” he added.
Earlier this week, Hegseth announced that three alleged narco-terrorists were killed in a US strike on a drug smuggling vessel affiliated with Colombia’s National Liberation Army.
That “lethal kinetic strike” happened Friday in international waters at the direction of President Donald Trump, Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics,” Hegseth wrote. “There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters.”
“All three terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed in this strike,” he added.
Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) is a Designated Terrorist Organization. Hegseth likened the Colombian rebel group to the Al Qaeda terror group founded by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The death toll from the Trump administration’s military campaign against suspected drug-smuggling vessels is at least 33. The operations began last month and are part of Trump’s broader effort to dismantle transnational cartels by force.
Last Thursday, the US military carried out a strike on what Trump later called a “very large drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, killing two suspected narco-terrorists and capturing two others alive.
A separate strike on Tuesday killed six suspected smugglers aboard a vessel off the coast of Venezuela.
