The U.S. military has carried out another airstrike on an alleged drug cartel vessel — the second vessel to be hit in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in as many days.
The latest strike was announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a social media post on Wednesday that also included video of the attack, which he said took place in international waters earlier that day.
Hegseth alleged the vessel was transporting narcotics and said three men were killed in the strike.
“These strikes will continue, day after day,” Hegseth wrote. “These are not simply drug runners — these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities,” he said in the post.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on his X account that the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific on Oct. 21, 2022.
@SecWar/X
According to a government account, 37 people have been killed in nine known U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats since early September.
Two people have survived and were returned by the U.S. Navy to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia. The survivor sent to Ecuador has been released, according to authorities there
Hegseth called the drug cartels the “al Qaeda of our hemisphere” and said they “will not escape justice.”
The U.S. military carried out a previous strike in the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, U.S. officials said.
That strike occurred in the waters west of Central America, according to a U.S. official.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on his X account that the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific on Oct. 21, 2022.
@SecWar/X
Hegseth also released video of that strike on social media earlier Wednesday. Hegseth confirmed the strike killed two people and took place in the Eastern Pacific. He wrote that no U.S. forces were harmed in the strike.
All the previous strikes had been carried out in the Caribbean Sea.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday the operation has reduced the number of boats trying to bring drugs into the U.S. and that smugglers will now try to bring in drugs by land. “And we will hit them very hard when they come in by land and they haven’t experienced that yet,” he said.
Trump said if the operation grew to include targets on land, the White House would “probably” go to Congress and explain what it’s doing, but he asserted “We don’t have to do that.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks before a lunch with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Oct. 17, 2025, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
The use of lethal military force against alleged drug smugglers is unprecedented and has raised legal questions. Past administrations relied on law enforcement to interdict drug shipments. The Trump administration has defended the strikes as part of what it said is a “war” against cartels.
“They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously — I mean, they’re world-class speedboats — but they’re not faster than missiles,” Trump said last week.
