The United States military conducted its eighth strike against an alleged drug-snuggling vessel, this time in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday, October 22. Pete Hegseth also equated these suspected drug-carrying vessels to Al-Qaeda – a militant organisation – and warned that for anyone trying to snuggle drugs into America, “there will be no refuge or forgiveness.”
The Tuesday night strike occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The seven previous strikes all targeted vessels in the Caribbean. According to Hegseth in a social media post, the strike killed two people, bringing the death toll from all the strikes to at least 34 people.
Pete Hegseth also released a brief video where a small boat, half-filled with packages, is seen moving along the water. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water in flames.
Pete Hegseth said, “Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.”
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route, and carrying narcotics. There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. Both terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike,” he said.
He Defense Secretary further said, “Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere. Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice.”
Earlier, President Donald Trump had shared a video of an American military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean, as he confirmed that the two survivors from the vessel would be repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia, their home countries, “for detention and prosecution.”
“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route. U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The US President warned, “Under my watch, the United States of America will not tolerate narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs, by land or by sea.”
Donald Trump has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and is relying on the same legal authority used by President George W. Bush’s administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the September 11 Twin Towers attack.
