The United States military executed a strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific, as disclosed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.
This recent strike, which took place on Tuesday, targeted a boat allegedly involved in narcotics transport. It marks the eighth such operation under the Trump administration, with the previous seven occurring in the Caribbean.
“Yesterday, acting on President Trump’s directive, the Department of Defense launched a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization that was actively engaged in drug trafficking in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth stated. “Our intelligence identified the vessel as part of a narcotics smuggling operation along a known trafficking route, and it was carrying illicit drugs.”
Hegseth further elaborated, “The operation took place in international waters and involved two individuals identified as narco-terrorists who were aboard the vessel. Both were killed in the strike, and no American forces were harmed.”
An image shows the suspect drug-smuggling vessel moments before it was destroyed by the U.S. strike on Tuesday, October 21, 2025. (X.com/SecWar)
Earlier this week, Hegseth also reported that a U.S. strike had eliminated three alleged narco-terrorists linked to Colombia’s National Liberation Army aboard another drug-trafficking vessel.
That “lethal kinetic strike” happened Friday in international waters at the direction of President Donald Trump, Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics,” Hegseth wrote. “There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters.”
“All three terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike,” he added.
The suspect drug smuggling vessel is shown at left, moments before it was destroyed in a U.S. strike on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. (X.com/SecWar)
Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) is a designated terrorist organization. Hegseth likened the Colombian rebel group to the al Qaeda terror group founded by Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The death toll from the Trump administration’s military campaign against suspected drug-smuggling vessels is at least 34. The operations began last month and are part of Trump’s broader effort to dismantle transnational cartels by force.
Last Thursday, the U.S. military carried out a strike on what Trump later called a “very large drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, killing two suspected narco-terrorists and capturing two others alive.
The U.S. killed six alleged drug traffickers on a boat in international waters near Venezuela, President Donald Trump announced Oct. 14, 2025. (realDonaldTrump/Truth Social)
A separate strike on Tuesday killed six suspected smugglers aboard a vessel off the coast of Venezuela.
