West Palm Beach, Florida – US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Saturday that the US military carried out another fatal strike on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea.
Hegseth said in a post on social media that the ship was operated by an organization designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, but he did not name the target group. He added that three people were killed in the raid.
This is at least the fifteenth strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.
“This ship – like any other ship – was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit drug smuggling, and was transiting along a known drug smuggling route, carrying drugs,” Hegseth said in a post on X.
The US military has so far killed at least 64 people in strikes.
Trump did Justify the attacks As a necessary escalation to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. He stressed that the United States is involved in “Armed conflict” with drug gangsRelying on the same legal authority that the Bush administration used when it declared the war on terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The White House has repeatedly rejected US lawmakers’ demands that the administration release more information about the legal justifications for the strikes as well as greater details about which cartels were targeted and which individuals were killed.
Hegseth said in his Saturday post announcing the latest strike that “drug terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home” and that the Department of Defense “will treat them exactly as we treated Al Qaeda.”
Senate Democrats renewed their request for more information about the strikes in a letter Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.
“We also ask that you provide all legal opinions related to these strikes and a list of other groups or entities that the President has deemed targetable,” the senators wrote.
Among the signatories of the letter are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as Senators Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Patty Murray and Brian Schatz.
The letter says the administration has so far “selectively shared information that was sometimes contradictory” with some members, “while excluding others.”
Earlier Friday, the Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee released two letters to Hegseth written in late September and early October requesting the department’s legal rationale for the strikes and a list of drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations in its justification for the use of military force.