Konstantin Toropin | Associated Press

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The strike Tuesday came the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The strikes were launched Monday and announced on social media Tuesday. This is the first time multiple strikes have been announced in a single day. They mark a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September and had been spaced weeks apart.

Deploying an aircraft carrier is a major escalation of military power in a region that has already seen an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. military has conducted its eighth strike against an alleged drug vessel. The Tuesday night strike occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The seven previous strikes all targeted vessels in the Caribbean.

It's the fourth deadly strike in the Caribbean and the latest since revelations that President Donald Trump told lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants and military force was required to combat them.