US secretary of War and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has said that US forces struck two boats linked to a Drug cartel in the Pacific Ocean.
The US has intensified its anti-drug smuggling operations in the Caribbean waters to restrict drugs from entering the country.
It has carried out 9 such strikes, out of which four were carried out near the Venezuelan waters, one near the coast of Colombia and two in Pacific waters, killing at least 37 people over the past two months.
The latest strikes on the alleged drug-cartel boats in the eastern Pacific have killed five people in total, Hegseth said.
In his post on X, Hegseth wrote that both vessels were "known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling", were "transiting along a known Narco-trafficking route", and were "carrying narcotics".
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Both of the alleged boats were in international waters, he said. The videos from two strikes appeared to show similar speedboats moving fast along the water before being hit by a projectile.
The Trump administration deployed some 8 warships and one nuclear-powered submarine in the Caribbean waters to counter drug trafficking to the United States.
According to the US Justice Department’s official statistics, Mexico remains the top source of drugs entering the United States.
Colombia, Peru and Venezuela are collectively called the cocaine capital of the world for the overwhelming production of the illicit drugs.
Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday vowed to end all aid to Colombia, the world's leading cocaine producer, and branded Petro as an "illegal drug dealer". Colombia on Monday recalled its ambassador to the United States.
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