The U.S. military carried out strikes on four different vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 14 people on Monday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Tuesday.
“Yesterday, at the direction of President [Donald] Trump, the Department of War carried out three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific. The four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics,” he said.
There was one survivor aboard the targeted vessels, and Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue,” the secretary added. The nationality of the survivor is unknown, as is whether they will be prosecuted upon repatriation to their country of origin.
These newly announced strikes appear to bring the death toll of U.S. strikes in the western hemisphere, which began last month, to north of 50.
The Pentagon has not released evidence to prove there were drugs aboard these vessels, nor have they released the identities of any of the people aboard them.
The U.S. has deployed thousands of troops to the region, and more are on their way. Hegseth deployed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to aid the mission last week, though they still have not yet arrived in the area of responsibility.
“We had a ton of combat power there already, and the arrival of the Ford Carrier Strike Group is going to dramatically increase that,” Bradley Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner. “This is way more firepower than one would need to target these alleged drug boats. It seems clear to me that at a minimum, the Trump administration is trying to show combat power for the purpose of enforcing diplomatic efforts with [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro.”
There have also been a number of American shows of force, demonstrating that firepower.
Trump said he approved the CIA to carry out operations in Venezuela and has suggested the military could conduct similar strikes on Venezuelan soil, though doing so would be a great escalation compared to the current strategy of carrying out these operations in international waters.
“Let’s be clear that U.S. military strikes inside Venezuela is a whole different thing, and it would be a significant escalation that would have, I am confident, unintended consequences that some may not foresee,” Bowman added.
The head of U.S. Southern Command — the combatant command covering Central and South America — Adm. Alvin Hosley announced his upcoming retirement for mid-December, only about a year into his three-year term.
The United States does not consider Maduro Venezuela’s legitimate leader, and he was indicted in 2020 on federal narco-terrorism charges, which accused him of flooding the U.S. with cocaine. Earlier this year, the U.S. government also doubled the bounty for Maduro’s capture.
A U.S. federal agent working under the Department of Homeland Security reportedly tried to bribe one of Maduro’s pilots to discreetly fly him somewhere the U.S. could take custody of him, but the lieutenant ultimately did not take the offer, according to the Associated Press.
