U.S. forces killed six alleged drug smugglers in the waters off Latin America on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media, pushing the death toll from President Donald Trump’s counternarcotics campaign past 75.
Hegseth said separate U.S. attacks in the eastern Pacific Ocean targeted two boats, each carrying three men. He described the men as “cartel terrorists” but disclosed no evidence verifying that assertion or his claim that the vessels were hauling illicit drugs. His social media post Monday included overhead video of the strikes, but it is not clear from that imagery what was on board the boats or who was operating them.
U.S. forces killed six alleged drug smugglers in the waters off Latin America on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media, pushing the death toll from President Donald Trump’s counternarcotics campaign past 75.
Hegseth said separate U.S. attacks in the eastern Pacific Ocean targeted two boats, each carrying three men. He described the men as “cartel terrorists” but disclosed no evidence verifying that assertion or his claim that the vessels were hauling illicit drugs. His social media post Monday included overhead video of the strikes, but it is not clear from that imagery what was on board the boats or who was operating them.
U.S. intelligence had determined that the vessels were “associated” with drug smuggling, Hegseth said, describing their positions as a “known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific.” Colombia and Ecuador, which share a border along the Pacific Ocean, are known hubs for the Latin American drug trade.
Sunday’s attacks marked the 18th and 19th time since early September that U.S. military personnel have killed people in the waters off Latin America, according to public disclosures by the Trump administration. Several of those strikes occurred off Venezuela, in the Caribbean Sea, where a sprawling U.S. naval presence has been assembled.
The deadly military campaign, which the administration says is needed to thwart the flow of illegal narcotics coming into the United States, has upended the U.S. government’s long-standing approach to drug interdiction. Previously, suspected drug boats were stopped by U.S. Coast Guard personnel, who typically would detain the crew and turn them over to law enforcement for prosecution.
Experts on the law of war contend that the Trump administration’s approach is illegal because the small vessels being targeted are carrying civilians allegedly involved in the commercial sale of drugs, not armed hostilities against the U.S. or its citizens.
Democrats, aghast at the killings, have pushed unsuccessfully for Congress to assert its war-declaration authorities under the Constitution. Separate legislative efforts in the Senate — one aimed at halting the boat strikes and another at blocking Trump from starting a war in Venezuela — were rejected by a majority of Republicans.
Alex Horton and Noah Robertson contributed to this report.
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