U.S. military forces launched a deadly strike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean Sea late Saturday, killing all three people aboard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. The Pentagon said the attack was part of the administration’s broader campaign to target narcotics traffickers that U.S. officials have labeled “narco-terrorists.”
Hegseth said in a post on X that U.S. intelligence had long tracked the vessel as part of an illicit smuggling route in the Caribbean. He identified the three men killed as members of a “Designated Terrorist Organization” but provided no evidence to substantiate the claims.
“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 wrote. “We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them.”
No U.S. personnel were injured in the operation, which marked at least the 15th strike since early September on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has tied to narcotics trafficking. At least 64 people have been killed in those strikes, according to official estimates.
Hegseth described the attack as part of an effort to dismantle criminal networks that he said “poison Americans at home.” He vowed to continue targeting smugglers with the same intensity that U.S. forces once used against al-Qaida.
Last month, the Pentagon redeployed the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean to bolster U.S. naval operations in the region, according to Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell.
The ongoing campaign, however, has sparked growing scrutiny in Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have demanded greater transparency about the intelligence behind the strikes and how the administration determines the alleged affiliations of those killed.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the administration last week for failing to include Democrats in a classified briefing on the Caribbean operations. “That’s not how two-party accountability is supposed to work,” Warner said.
Hegseth’s latest statement offered no details about the identities or nationalities of the three people killed, nor evidence linking them to any terrorist or criminal organizations. In earlier operations, the administration has released limited background on the targeted vessels and crews.
