WASHINGTON — The U.S. military carried out a lethal strike against a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, killing both people aboard, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
Hegseth said the strike was conducted at the direction of President Donald Trump and targeted a vessel “being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.” The operation marks the **eighth known U.S. strike** on alleged drug-smuggling vessels since early September, and the first outside the Caribbean.
At least **34 people have been killed** in those eight strikes, U.S. officials said.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Both terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.”
Hegseth described the operation as part of an intensified campaign against what he called “narco-terrorists” seeking to bring drugs into the United States.“Just as al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” he said. “There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice.”
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to combat transnational cartels it labels terrorist organizations. **CNN previously reported** that a classified legal opinion produced by the administration sought to justify lethal strikes against a secret list of cartels and suspected traffickers — a move that effectively treats them as enemy combatants.
Critics and legal scholars have questioned the legality of such operations, arguing that targeting suspected traffickers without judicial oversight could violate international law and set a dangerous precedent.
The strike comes just days after two similar attacks in the Caribbean, one of which left survivors who were detained by the U.S. Navy before being repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia. That incident raised questions about the administration’s authority to hold foreign nationals captured in anti-narcotics operations.
The Pentagon has not disclosed the nationality of the latest vessel or the identities of those killed.
This is a developing story.