WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Two men were killed in U.S. military strike targeting a boat suspected of carrying drugs in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
U.S. Southern Command said that the attack, 'on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations', was carried out by Joint Task Force Southern Spear at the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, on Monday.
Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations, the U.S. Southern Command said in a press release. It described the victims as 'two male narco-terrorists', but did not specify to which terrorist group they belonged.
No U.S. military forces were harmed in the operation, it added.
Operation Southern Spear is a U.S. military and surveillance campaign with the goal of 'detecting, disrupting, and degrading transnational criminal and illicit maritime networks' according to the Trump administration.
Amid concerns from the administration around defending the U.S. from drug trafficking, and heightened tensions with Venezuela, the Pentagon began deploying military forces to the Caribbean Sea in mid-August, and conducting airstrikes on vessels allegedly controlled by narco-terrorists trafficking drugs to the U.S.
The U.S. began seizing, intercepting or pursuing tankers transporting Venezuelan oil on December 11, and on December 17, President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers heading to and from Venezuela.
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