By Ginika Igboke
Five male narco-terrorists were killed Thursday after U.S. forces struck two vessels operating in the Eastern Pacific, according to U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
In a statement posted on X, SOUTHCOM said three individuals were killed aboard the first vessel and two aboard the second. No U.S. military personnel were injured during the operation.
The strikes were carried out by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and targeted two boats operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. SOUTHCOM said intelligence confirmed the vessels were traveling along known drug-trafficking routes and actively engaged in smuggling operations. The mission was conducted under the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The action was part of Operation Southern Spear, an expanded initiative following President Donald Trump’s decision in February to designate several Mexican cartels and foreign criminal gangs as global terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department has labeled the Sinaloa cartel, Gulf cartel, Jalisco New Generation cartel, United Cartels, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and the Northeast cartel as terrorist groups, along with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s MS-13. The designations established a legal framework for military action by classifying large-scale drug trafficking as a national security threat.
At an October White House briefing, Hegseth said the United States would aggressively pursue these groups. “We will track them, we will map them, we will network them, and we will hunt them and kill them because they’re trying to and they are killing and poisoning the American people,” he said. He added that the U.S. military has full legal authority to carry out kinetic strikes and warned that other designated narco-terrorists operating in the region would face similar consequences.
As of mid-December, the U.S. military has conducted at least 26 strikes against drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, resulting in more than 99 deaths among individuals identified by officials as narco-terrorists. A Dec. 17 strike killed one person in the Eastern Pacific, while a Dec. 15 operation targeting three vessels resulted in eight deaths.
The strikes coincide with a broader series of executive actions by Trump, including designating fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and imposing a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers accused of financing drug trafficking operations linked to Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has condemned these actions as “international piracy.”
Efforts in Congress to require additional approval for the strikes have failed in the House. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) described a classified briefing on the operations as deeply troubling, saying individuals in distress were killed. Supporters of the campaign, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), have defended the strikes as lawful and necessary to protect Americans from deadly illicit drugs.
Hegseth has emphasized the precision of the missions, calling them “deadly serious.” Reflecting on a previous strike, he said, “We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented.”
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