By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
The U.S. military carried out an airstrike on Friday on a boat that officials had declared a drug trafficking vessel, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on social media.
The attack marks at least the fourth known U.S. military strike in the Caribbean Sea since the start of September. Officials said the boats were struck because of their affiliation with drug cartels and several gangs that earlier this year were designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S government.
Hegseth said in a post on X on Wednesday morning that, at the behest of President Donald Trump, his office “directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with designated terrorist organizations in the [U.S. Southern Command] area of responsibility.”
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation,” the Pentagon chief said. “The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics” and was “headed to America to poison our people.”
Hegseth did not say what terrorist organization was involved in the drug-trafficking boat that was struck. Other details about the strike were not provided.
But he said U.S. intelligence confirmed “without a doubt” that the boat “was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route.”
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over,” he added.
The move comes after Trump declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and stated that the United States is currently engaged in an “armed conflict” with those organizations, according to a memo to Congress.
“Although friendly foreign nations have made significant efforts to combat these organizations, suffering significant losses of life, these groups are now transnational and conduct ongoing attacks throughout the Western Hemisphere as organized cartels,” an administration report said Thursday.
It also said Trump has “determined these cartels are non-state armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
Aside from Friday’s attack, the U.S. military last month carried out three deadly strikes against boats in the Caribbean that the U.S. government accused of ferrying drugs. At least two of those operations were carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela.
The memo did not include a timestamp, but it makes reference to a Sept. 15 U.S. strike that “resulted in the destruction of the vessel, the illicit narcotics, and the death of approximately three unlawful combatants.”
Trump said the U.S. military is seeing fewer vessels in the Caribbean since the first strike was carried out, but that the cartels are still smuggling drugs by land.
“We’re telling the cartels right now we’re going to be stopping them, too,” Trump told reporters in the White House on Sept. 15. “When they come by land, we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats … but maybe by talking about it a little bit, it won’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, that’s good.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
