The U.S. military killed four suspected drug traffickers on a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean via an airstrike on Tuesday, U.S. Southern Command announced.
“On April 14, at the direction of [SOUTHCOM] commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” the military command said.
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“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the command said. “Four male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed.”
The social media post announcing the strike featured aerial footage of the boat strike, as in past statements.
The airstrike was the latest in Operation Southern Spear, which War Secretary Pete Hegseth launched last fall to specifically target drug trafficking activities in the Western Hemisphere.
SOUTHCOM announced the prior strike killed two suspected narcoterrorists on Monday.
The death toll from these airstrikes is now up to 175 people since September. Eleven of those deaths happened in the last few days.
TWO KILLED IN LATEST US MILITARY STRIKE ON SUSPECTED DRUG-TRAFFICKING VESSEL
A survivor was left in one of the two attacks on Saturday. The Coast Guard suspended its search for the missing survivor, who was never found.
The anti-drug trafficking operation continues even as the U.S. military has been redirected to Operation Epic Fury in Iran. The war paused amid the fragile two-week ceasefire between both sides.
