The United States Southern Command carried out a lethal strike yesterday against a vessel linked to drug trafficking in the Eastern Pacific, killing its two crew members without any U.S. military personnel being injured.
According to the official statement published on the verified account of SOUTHCOM, the operation was ordered by General Francis L. Donovan, commander of the Southern Command, and carried out by the Southern Spear Joint Task Force on Wednesday, June 3rd.
"The intelligence confirmed that the vessel was traveling through known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was involved in drug trafficking operations. Two male narco-terrorists were killed during the operation," the statement reads.
Along with the text, SOUTHCOM released a declassified infrared night surveillance image showing the vessel sailing at high speed with a tracking grid overlay and the caption "UNCLASSIFIED" in green.
The attack is part of the Southern Spear Operation, a military campaign that began in November 2025 under the Trump administration to target cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations directly.
The Department of Defense informed Congress that the target groups "have been declared hostile and are subject to lethal targeting" under this operation, which authorizes direct kinetic attacks against vessels linked to drug trafficking.
The operation on Wednesday is the latest in a string of attacks at a very high frequency in 2026. Just four days earlier, on May 29, SOUTHCOM conducted another attack in the Eastern Pacific that killed three narcoterrorists.
Before that operation, on May 8, another attack was recorded in the same area that left two dead and one survivor, prompting search and rescue operations by the Coast Guard.
Among the documented operations, there were also attacks on April 13 in the Eastern Pacific, April 26 resulting in three fatalities, and May 4 in the Caribbean with two enemy casualties.
By May 8, prior to yesterday's attack, the campaign had reported at least 205 deaths in at least 62 attacks against 63 vessels, with three captured and two extradited, according to data based on official communications from SOUTHCOM.
Among the organizations under the responsibility of Southern Command are dissidents of the FARC, the ELN, and another 13 foreign terrorist organizations designated by Washington.
General Donovan, who took command of SOUTHCOM on February 5, 2026, has been the public face of this strategy of direct confrontation. In previous statements, he warned that "narcoterrorist organizations traffic drugs, weapons, and people, and fuel corruption and instability in the region."
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