The U.S. military fired upon a suspected drug boat operating in the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 4, killing four.
“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said in a press statement announcing the strike. “The operation killed four narco-terrorists.”
Along with the statement, SOUTHCOM shared footage purporting to show the moment the suspect vessel was bombed.
The military command did not provide any additional identifying information about those killed aboard the vessel or their affiliations.
Since early 2025, the State Department has designated several Latin American drug trafficking cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
In September 2025, U.S. forces launched a new campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug boats, dubbed Operation Southern Spear. In the past year, U.S. forces have claimed responsibility for at least 70 such lethal strikes in the Caribbean and East Pacific, killing more than 200 people.
Amid this ongoing campaign of strikes on suspected drug boats, the United States has led in the formation of a new multinational effort known as the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. Eighteen Western Hemisphere nations have since partnered with the United States on this countertrafficking effort.
“We’re definitely expanding our presence and our footprint in Central and South America with partners,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters on Oct. 3, while visiting the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Hegseth said the United States has expanded options for its military posture in Central and South America after capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a special operations raid on Jan. 3.
He said growing partnerships with Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Panama have also strengthened U.S. influence in the region.
“We are at war with the drug cartels … the president has been clear about that,” Hegseth said. “So, we’re going to posture and base as necessary to ensure that we have our foot on the pedal and are taking the fight to those ISIS and Al Qaeda of our hemisphere.”
While President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have said strikes on suspected drug boats are a necessary measure in a war against narcoterrorism, some critics have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes and the lack of clarity about who has been killed in these operations.
In January, the families of two Trinidadian nationals who have been missing since October 2025 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the United States. The plaintiffs alleged the two missing men had been working as migrant laborers in neighboring Venezuela, and were likely killed by U.S. forces in an Oct. 14 strike as they tried to return to Trinidad and Tobago. “Congress and the American people have yet to see any evidence to support the president’s unilateral determinations that these vessels, or the activities of those on board, warrant lethal military force rather than law enforcement-led interdiction,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said last month as the campaign of boat strikes crossed the one-year mark.
Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) cited the ongoing campaign of drone strikes in a set of impeachment articles he brought against Hegseth last month. Massie said the campaign of strikes on suspected drug boats replaced regular maritime law enforcement with extrajudicial killings.
Ryan Morgan, Epoch Times
