By Aldgra Fredly
Contributing Writer
The U.S. military said it struck a drug-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific on Sunday, killing six people, the latest in a series of actions under the Trump administration’s campaign to curb drug smuggling.
U.S. Southern Command said it launched the lethal kinetic strike after intelligence confirmed the vessel was moving along known drug-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.
Intelligence indicated the vessel was operated by “designated terrorist organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, but did not specify which terrorist group it was referring to.
No U.S. military personnel were harmed in the action ordered by Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the commander of SOUTHCOM, which oversees U.S. military operations across Latin America and the Caribbean.
The strike was part of Operation Southern Spear, which the Pentagon launched in November 2025 to combat narco-terrorist activities in the Western Hemisphere.
Two weeks earlier, on Feb. 23, the U.S. military struck a vessel it said was engaged in drug trafficking activity in the Caribbean, killing three suspected narco-terrorists aboard the vessel.
SOUTHCOM said the vessel was operated by designated terrorist organizations and was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean.
During a military conference in Florida on Thursday, Donovan said the operation reflects the U.S. commitment to security in the region. He said the military’s actions are guided by the principles outlined in the U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.
“These documents give our military a clear mandate in the Western Hemisphere: to defend the U.S. homeland and increase burden-sharing with our allies and partners to do so,” he said. “The Western Hemisphere is our neighborhood and the narco-terrorists who seek to export drugs and death to our shores and your shores will be dismantled and defeated.”
Numerous similar strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific since September 2025 as the Trump administration seeks to curb the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
In October 2025, the Pentagon deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford, known as the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the Southern Command area of responsibility — which encompasses Central America, South America, and the Caribbean — to support counter-narcotics operations in the region.
U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow on Feb. 10 that future U.S. military actions against drug traffickers could potentially include strikes on land-based targets.
“If you hit them on land, they go to the boats,” the president said during the interview. “Now we’re gonna hit them on land. We’re gonna hit them very hard on land.”
The campaign has drawn criticism from some human rights organizations and international bodies. In its 2026 annual report, Human Rights Watch described U.S. strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific as “blatantly unlawful.”
