The United States Army carried out a new lethal attack on Saturday in the Caribbean against a vessel suspected of engaging in drug trafficking, as part of the military offensive ordered by President Donald Trump to combat the so-called "Designated Terrorist Organizations" (DTOs) linked to drug trafficking.
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, confirmed the operation through his official account on X (formerly Twitter). “Today, at the order of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike against another drug trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization in the Caribbean,” the official wrote, asserting that the three men on board, classified as “narcoterrorists,” were killed during the action.
The attack, carried out according to Hegseth in international waters, resulted in no casualties among U.S. forces. The secretary added that the ship "was transporting narcotics" and was sailing through a maritime route known to authorities as a smuggling corridor.
With this, the confirmed attacks now total fifteen since the beginning of the military campaign in September, an operation that Washington describes as part of its “war against narco-terrorists,” which has resulted in at least 64 deaths in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, according to counts from U.S. media.
"These narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to poison Americans. They will not succeed. We will treat them exactly as we treat Al-Qaeda," warned Hegseth, who has intensified his rhetoric since taking over as head of the Department of Defense.
However, the new attack reignites criticism both within and outside the United States. Democratic lawmakers and international organizations are questioning the legality of the operations, carried out without judicial oversight and outside U.S. territory.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, described the actions as “violations of international law” and called for an immediate end to the “extrajudicial executions at sea.”
On its part, sources cited by CNN revealed that the Department of Justice drafted a classified opinion authorizing the use of lethal force against a secret list of cartels, arguing that they pose "an imminent threat" to American citizens.
Although the Pentagon defends the campaign as a "surgical" offensive against criminal networks, criticism is growing due to the lack of transparency and the risks involved in the expansion of U.S. military presence in Caribbean waters, which targets the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro as the central focus of the campaign against drug cartels in the region.
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