The U.S. military struck a drug-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific on Wednesday, killing two men it described as narco-terrorists, U.S. Southern Command said Thursday. The strike brings the total number of people killed under the Trump administration’s counter-narcotics campaign to at least 207 since September.
“On June 3, at the direction of SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” SOUTHCOM said in a post on X. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
No U.S. military personnel were injured in the operation.
SOUTHCOM released a black-and-white video showing the vessel speeding through open water before erupting in flames. The command did not specify which terrorist organizations were tied to the boat or say whether anyone on board survived.
Wednesday’s strike followed a string of similar operations in recent days. A Saturday strike in the Eastern Pacific killed three suspected narco-terrorists. A separate operation Friday also killed three. The prior Wednesday, another strike took out two more.
The Trump administration launched the military counter-narcotics campaign in September, targeting cartel-linked trafficking networks across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Both corridors serve as primary routes for drug shipments moving toward the United States and Central America. At least 21 kinetic strikes have been carried out to date, according to Pentagon figures.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has backed the campaign without reservation. “When it comes to killing narco-terrorists, we have only just begun,” Hegseth wrote on social media following a recent Pentagon briefing.
