US Navy Intercepts Drug Vessel – Pacific Update

The US Southern Command indicated on social media that the boat “was transiting known drug trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was involved in drug trafficking operations.” He noted that two people died in the attack. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving on the water before exploding in flames.

The attack was announced just hours after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared that “some of the major drug cartels” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations indefinitely due to recent (and highly effective) kinetic actions in the Caribbean.” However, Hegseth did not provide details or data to support this claim, made in a post on his personal social media account.

Neither US Southern Command nor the Pentagon responded to follow-up questions about Hegseth’s claim.

The attacks on boats, which began in September 2025, have decreased in frequency since January, a month in which there was only one after the raid in which then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured. In contrast, the Pentagon attacked more than a dozen vessels in December of that year.

Thursday’s attack brings to 128 the death toll from the Trump administration’s attacks on suspected drug vessels. Last week, the military indicated that number was up to 126 people, including those presumed dead after being lost at sea. That figure included 116 individuals who were immediately killed in at least 36 strikes carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the US Southern Command. Ten other people are believed to be dead because rescuers did not locate them after an attack.

Meanwhile, the families of two Trinidad and Tobago citizens killed in October in a ship attack by the Trump administration sued the U.S. government last week, calling the attack a war crime and part of an “unprecedented and patently illegal U.S. military campaign.” The lawsuit is believed to be the first involuntary manslaughter case stemming from the campaign and will test the legal justification for the attacks, which many experts say are a flagrant violation of the laws of armed conflict.

President Donald Trump has said the United States is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and justified the attacks, saying they are a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his government has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narco-terrorists.”

This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.