Pentagon announces strike on 10th suspected drug boat, says US ships en route to South America | American military

The United States carried out another military strike against a boat it said was carrying illegal drugs in the Caribbean, killing six people on board, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said Friday morning.

Later Friday, the Pentagon said an aircraft carrier was being moved to waters off South America, part of the administration’s declared campaign to combat drug trafficking.

In a social media post Friday morning, Hegseth said the U.S. military carried out its 10th strike against a ship suspected of drug trafficking.

Hegseth alleged that the boat was “known by our intelligence services to be involved in the illicit smuggling of narcotics, that it was transiting a known drug trafficking route and that it was transporting narcotics.”

He said the strike, carried out in international waters, killed all six people on board and was “the first night strike.”

No U.S. forces were injured, he added.

As has become common with announcements of such attacks, Hegseth shared a short video showing a boat at sea suddenly exploding when hit by military munitions.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced that Hegseth had also ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford and its strike group to be sent to US Southern Command to “enhance the United States’ ability to detect, monitor and disrupt illicit actors and activities that undermine the security and prosperity of the US homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere”.

“These forces will strengthen and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs,” he said, referring to transnational criminal organizations.

According to the Associated Press, the Ford is currently deployed in the Mediterranean Sea with three destroyers. The AP reports that it will likely take several days for the ships to arrive in South America.

Since early September, the Trump administration has announced 10 strikes against ships it says are trafficking narcotics. These attacks have taken place both in the Caribbean and, as of this week, off the Pacific coast of South America. According to the Associated Press, at least 43 people have been killed in strikes since September.

The Trump administration has not released many details about the targets, other than the number of people killed and allegations that the boats were carrying narcotics.

The strikes drew widespread condemnation, including from civil liberties groups and several South American countries, and some lawmakers and human rights groups questioned the legality of the attacks.

On Tuesday, the Guardian reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided much of the intelligence used to carry out airstrikes. Experts have said the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select targets will almost certainly remain secret.

On Friday morning, in announcing the latest strike, Hegseth claimed, without providing any evidence, that the target of the attack was “a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a designated terrorist organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.”

The administration has labeled Tren de Aragua and other gangs terrorist organizations. Legal experts have suggested that simply labeling gangs and drug cartels as terrorist organizations does not give the administration additional authority to use deadly force.

White House officials also sought to justify the domestic and foreign strikes by saying Trump was exercising his powers under Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which authorizes the president to use military force in self-defense in limited engagements.

Earlier this week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the US strikes, calling them “murder.”

“The US government’s strategy violates the norms of international law,” Petro said.