Eight alleged narco-terrorists were killed Monday when U.S. forces struck three suspected drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific, defense officials said.
U.S. Southern Command said in a social media post that the strikes were ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and were part of a broader campaign targeting maritime drug trafficking routes. The latest operations bring the total number of strikes in the region to roughly two dozen since early September.
Southern Command said three people were killed aboard the first vessel, two aboard the second and three aboard the third. The boats were operating in international waters and were allegedly linked to U.S.-designated terrorist groups using established narco-trafficking routes.
On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/IQfCVvUpau
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 16, 2025
The strikes come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Venezuela and renewed scrutiny of a Sept. 2 operation in which U.S. forces carried out a follow-up strike on survivors of an initial attack on a suspected drug boat.
Monday’s operations marked the 23rd through 25th known U.S. strikes on suspected narco vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. Those strikes have killed at least 94 people, according to publicly available figures.
The Trump administration has defended the escalating campaign as a necessary move to choke off the flow of fentanyl into the United States. The synthetic opioid, often manufactured using precursor chemicals from China and trafficked through Mexico, remains the leading cause of overdose deaths nationwide.
“The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said on X last month. “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
Earlier Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating fentanyl and its core precursor chemical as weapons of mass destruction, further escalating the administration’s war on drug cartels operating at sea.
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