Two people on board an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific were killed by a U.S. military strike, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday.
Hegseth said on X that the boat was targeted in a “lethal kinetic strike” in international waters and killed two “narco-terrorists.” He also included video of the strike in the X post.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” he said.
The term kinetic strike can generally describe deploying launched or fired munitions, but can also mean a strike from a moving aircraft, such as a drone.
Hegseth did not provide the exact location of the strike or the evidence of the trafficking operation claims. The Trump administration has provided more information about the groups involved or the origin country of crew members in previous strikes.
The vessel was being operated by a “Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth said Tuesday.
“We will find and terminate EVERY vessel with the intention of trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens,” Hegseth said. “Protecting the homeland is our TOP priority. NO cartel terrorist stands a chance against the American military.”
The strike was at least the 16th on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, Eastern Pacific, or off the coastline of Latin America since President Donald Trump returned to office. The strikes have killed at least 66 people.
Tuesday’s strike was carried out at President Donald Trump’s direction, the defense secretary said. The president has previously said he won’t seek congressional approval or issue a declaration of war against cartels, which his administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
“I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war,” he said last month at a White House roundtable on homeland security. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
Also last month, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a request to obtain the White House Office of Legal Counsel’s guidance on the strikes.
The groups contend the strikes are not legal because those on board are civilians and no war has been declared against the alleged drug organizations.
“In a constitutional system, no president can arbitrarily choose to assassinate individuals from the sky based on his whim or say-so,” Baher Azmy, legal director of Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement. “The Trump administration is taking its indiscriminate pattern of lawlessness to a lethal level.”
Mosheh Gains and Gemma DiCasimirro contributed.
