U.S. forces carried out a strike on another suspected drug boat in international waters, killing all three people on board, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said late Saturday.
He said the boat was in the Caribbean Sea and was known by U.S. intelligence as a drug-smuggling vessel. The three males on board were described as “narco-terrorists” associated with a “Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth said.
“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,” Hegseth said in a post on his X account, which did not include any evidence for the claims.
No U.S. forces were harmed, Hegseth said.
The strike is at least the 15th since early September against vessels and crews in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has claimed were involved with drug trafficking. At least 64 people have been killed in the strikes, according to official estimates.
Hegseth claimed that boats like the one struck in the Caribbean are part of an effort by narco-terrorists to “poison Americans at home” and reiterated his policy to treat the alleged smugglers “EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda,” he said.
“We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them,” Hegseth said.
The Trump administration late last month directed the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to travel from its position in the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean to support the strikes, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.
Members of Congress have increasingly called for transparency around the strikes.
On Thursday, some legislators criticized the administration for failing to invite Democratic lawmakers to a briefing on the strikes. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the shutout was contrary to the dynamics of two-party accountability.
Both Republicans and Democrats also have said the administration is not providing sufficient information about the strategy and intelligence behind the strikes, including how people on the boats were determined to be allegedly linked to drug trafficking gangs, NBC News reported last month.
Hegseth’s post did not include additional information about the people reportedly killed in the strike announced Saturday. In some previous cases, the Trump administration has provided more information about the alleged groups involved or the origin country of crew members.
