The U.S. military has carried out another airstrike on an alleged drug cartel vessel on Tuesday night, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X. (Screengrab from X)






WASHINGTON — The U.S. killed two individuals in a strike on an alleged drug vessel Tuesday night, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday. This time the strike came in the Pacific Ocean rather than in the Caribbean Sea.


The U.S. military conducted a strike on a vessel being operated by a “designated terrorist organization” in the eastern Pacific, Hegseth said in a post on X. He did not say which organization the individuals were associated with. Both individuals on the boat were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation, he said.


“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere. There will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice,” Hegseth said.


Hegseth’s post included a 23-second clip of the strike.



The latest operation is at least the eighth known strike conducted in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility since September. The strikes come following a buildup of maritime forces in the region, including eight surface warships and more than 6,000 sailors and Marines. The operations have killed at least 34 people.


Tuesday’s operation comes after two people survived a U.S. strike last Thursday. Trump said Saturday in a post on Truth Social that the survivors would be sent back to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia for “detention and prosecution.”


Before Thursday’s operation, U.S. military strikes against suspected drug vessels had not left any known survivors, and the Trump administration posted to social media short videos of vessels being destroyed.


Hegseth posted Sunday about a U.S. strike Friday that killed three people allegedly affiliated with Colombian organization Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) as it operated in international waters.


The Trump administration has asserted that drug traffickers are armed combatants threatening the United States, creating justification to use military force. But that assertion has been met with some unease on Capitol Hill.


Operations have continued following the announcement last Thursday that Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, would retire by the end of the year.