WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the U.S. military has carried out three strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean against boats accused of carrying drugs, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor.
This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day. Carried out Monday, the strikes mark a continued escalation in the pace of the attacks in South American waters, which began in early September and had been spaced weeks apart.
A statement provided by a Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the operation, said the strikes were conducted off the coast of Colombia. Following one attack on a boat, the military spotted a person in the water clinging to some wreckage.
The military passed the survivor's precise location to the U.S. Coast Guard and a Mexican military aircraft that was operating in the area.
Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities "assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue" of the sole survivor but didn't say if that person was successfully rescued or would stay in Mexico's custody or be handed over to the U.S.
In a strike earlier this month with two survivors, the U.S. military rescued the pair and repatriated them to Colombia and Ecuador. Authorities released the Ecuadorian man after prosecutors said they had no evidence he committed a crime in Ecuador.
Hegseth posted footage of the latest strikes to social media in which two boats can be seen moving through the water in separate clips. One is visibly laden with a large amount of parcels or bundles. Both then suddenly explode and are seen in flames.
The third strike appears to have been conducted on a pair of boats that were stationary in the water alongside each other. They appear to be largely empty, with at least two people seen moving before an explosion engulfs both boats.
Hegseth said "the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics."
The Trump administration has shown no evidence to support its claims about the boats, their connection to drug cartels, or the even the identity of the people killed in these strikes.
The death toll from the 13 disclosed strikes since early September now stands at at least 57 people.
In his announcement of the latest strikes, Hegseth also continued to draw parallels between the military's actions against drug trafficking and the war on terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
He claimed that cartels "have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same."
President Donald Trump has also justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels and proclaiming the criminal organizations to be unlawful combatants, relying on the same legal authority used by President George W. Bush's administration for the war on terrorism.
