The U.S. military conducted another lethal strike on boat piloted by alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed Saturday.
Posting on X with video of what appeared to be a night-time explosion of the vessel, Hegseth said the boat operated by a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
He did not name which group was targeted.
The secretary said three people were killed in the strike.
The Associated Press (AP) reported it was at least the 15th such strike in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.
Hegseth wrote in his X post:
This vessel—like EVERY OTHER—was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.
“These narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home—and they will not succeed,” he added. “The Department will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda. We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them.”
At least 64 people in three months of strikes, according to AP.
President Trump has said the attacks are necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S., relying on the legal authority used by the Bush administration when it launched the war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Earlier last week, as Breitbart News reported, President Trump told troops during his visit to an aircraft carrier stationed in Japan that the military campaign against smugglers was so successful that it was getting hard to find smuggling ships to hit.
“Those drug ships aren’t coming in anymore,” Trump said. “We can’t find a ship. There’s no ships coming in with drugs. “
Apparently, U.S. military intelligence found at least one more. But not everyone is so pleased with the deadly anti-drug strikes.
Senate Democrats have again requested more information about the strikes in a letter on Friday to Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.
“We also request that you provide all legal opinions related to these strikes and a list of the groups or other entities the President has deemed targetable,” the senators wrote, according to the AP coverage of the latest strike.
The top Republican and Democrat Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee also released two letters previously sent to Hegseth. They requested the department’s legal justification for the strikes and asked for the list of drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorists.
Also on Friday, Volker Turk, the human rights chief at the United Nations, was warning that the military strikes were “unacceptable” and called for them to immediately cease, Breitbart News reported.
“These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable.,” the Austrian-born U.N. bureaucrat said in a statement. “The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.”
President Trump has shown no signs of stopping the military’s anti-drug-smuggling efforts that began in September.
“When it comes to defending the United States, we’re no longer politically correct,” Trump told the troops in Japan. “We’re going to defend our country any way we have to. And that’s usually not the politically correct way.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
