Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the US military has carried out another attack in the eastern Pacific, targeting suspected terrorists he said were involved in narcotics trafficking.
According to Hegseth, three suspected narco-terrorists were killed. The attacks were ordered at the direction of President Donald Trump.
Hegseth said the Pentagon “conducted yet another deadly kinetic attack on a ship operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO). Once again, the now-deceased terrorists were involved in drug trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.”
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“The ship was known to our intelligence services to be involved in the illicit smuggling of narcotics, sailing along a known narcotics trafficking route and transporting narcotics,” he continued. “Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the ship during the attack, which was carried out in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no U.S. troops were injured in this attack.”
This is the ninth ship attack since September and the second reported strike in the eastern Pacific. A total of 37 people are reported to have died, while two survived and were later repatriated to their home countries.
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A US military drone strike ordered by President Trump destroyed a ship in the eastern Pacific Ocean on October 22, 2025, killing three suspected narco-terrorists, the War Department said. (Ministry of War)
“These strikes will continue day after day,” Hegseth said Wednesday. “These are not just drug runners – these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities. These DTOs are the ‘Al Qaeda’ of our hemisphere and will not escape justice. We will find them and kill them until the threat to the American people is extinguished.”
The Pentagon has declined to release the identities of those killed or evidence of drugs on board.
The Trump administration has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for the strikes, including from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who expressed concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.
A US military drone strike ordered by President Trump destroyed a ship in the eastern Pacific Ocean on October 22, 2025, killing three suspected narco-terrorists, the War Department said. (Ministry of War)
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In a recent interview, Paul cited Coast Guard statistics showing that a significant percentage of boats boarded on suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.
The senator has also argued that if the administration plans to go to war with Venezuela as it has targeted boats in recent weeks that it says transport drugs for the Venezuela-affiliated Tren de Aragua gang, it should seek a declaration of war from Congress.
