The U.S. military carried out a strike on a vessel it said was smuggling illicit narcotics to the United States, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed in an X post in the early hours of Sunday morning. Three men were killed in the Caribbean Sea operation, he said.
Hegseth said the vessel was being operated by a terrorist organization.
“Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.”
The Trump administration has conducted at least 14 strikes against vessels. The strikes have targeted vessels traveling along the drug-smuggling routes in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, all in international waters.
More than 60 people, whom the administration has called narco-terrorists, have been killed.
“Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on U.S. military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous,” he said in an Oct. 29 statement. “Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party.”
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said that the recent U.S. strikes have been covered in past bipartisan briefings.
“The Department of War has briefed the appropriate committees of jurisdiction, including the Senate Intelligence committee, numerous times throughout the operations targeting narco-terrorists,“ Wilson said in an emailed statement. ”These have occurred on a bipartisan basis and will continue as such.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.