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US forces have struck another vessel alleged to be carrying drugs, this time in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said.
According to defence secretary Pete Hegseth, two people on board the vessel were killed and no US forces were harmed. The vessel was known to US intelligence and was believed to be carrying drugs along a known trafficking route in international waters, Hegseth added.
The strike marks the eighth US strike against suspected drug boats since 2 September – but the first in the Pacific.
President Donald Trump said he has legal authority to continue bombing boats in international water but said he may go to the US Congress if he decides to expand targets on land.
“We’re allowed to do that, and if we do (it) by land, we may go back to Congress,” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
He said his administration was “totally prepared” to expand the anti-drug operations on land, which would mark a deep escalation.
In the Oval Office with Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that “if people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States”.
Video of the strike appears to show a long, blue speed boat moving through the water before being struck by US ordinance.
“Narco-terrorists intending to bring position to our shores will find no safe harbour anywhere in our hemisphere,” Hegseth wrote on X. “Just as Al Qaeda wages war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people.”
“There will be no refuge or forgiveness – only justice,” he added.
In a leaked memo recently sent to US lawmakers, the Trump administration said it determined it was involved in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug-trafficking organisations.
At least 34 people have been killed in the American strikes on alleged drug boats, including a recent strike on a semi-submersible vessel in the Caribbean.
Two men survived a strike last week, and were repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador.
Ecuador’s government later released one man – identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño – saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing. The other man, from Colombia, reportedly remains hospitalised.
US President Donald Trump and administration officials have repeatedly justified the strikes as counter-narcotics measures necessary to fight drug-trafficking organisations, several of which have been designated as terrorist organisations by the US.
Citing a defence official, CBS has reported that the strike took place in international waters near Colombia.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump defended the operations, calling them “a national security problem”.
News of the strike comes amid rising tensions between the Trump administration and the Colombian government of President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump has characterised as “a thug and a bad guy”.
“He better watch it or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country,” Trump said. “He has led his country into a death trap.”
On Sunday, Trump denounced Petro as an “illegal drug leader” who is “strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Colombia.”
Trump added that the US will no longer offer subsidies to Colombia, which has historically been one of its closest allies in Latin America.
Both Colombia and nearby Ecuador have significant Pacific coastlines that experts have said are used to funnel drugs north towards the US through Central America and Mexico.
US estimates from the Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA, indicate that the vast majority of cocaine bound for US cities passes through the Pacific.
Drug seizures in the Caribbean – where the bulk of confirmed US strikes have so far taken place – account for a relatively small percentage of the total, although US officials have warned it is rising.
To date, US officials have offered few details on the identities of those killed in the strikes or what drug trafficking organisations they allegedly belong to.
Around 10,000 US troops, as well as dozens of military aircraft and ships, have been deployed to the Caribbean as part of the operation.
