Pentagon Says 4 Killed in New Drug Boat Strike

The boat was ’transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific,' according to U.S. Southern Command.

A still from footage of a boat strike targeting drug trafficking in the Eastern Pacific in a file photo. @Southcom/X

The Pentagon announced that it had conducted a lethal strike on Dec. 4 on a drug trafficking boat in the Eastern Pacific.

The U.S. Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Caribbean and near Latin America, wrote in a Thursday social media post that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth directed Joint Task Force Southern Spear to conduct a “lethal kinetic strike” on a boat in international waters being operated by suspected narco-terrorists.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific,” U.S. Southern Command wrote, adding that four men aboard the boat died in the strike.

The strike was announced hours after Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine sat down for classified hearings on Capitol Hill regarding a U.S. strike in September that killed two survivors of an initial strike on another vessel.

Bradley told lawmakers that Hegseth did not give a “kill them all” order in the strike, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told reporters on Thursday after leaving one of the classified briefings.

“He was given an order that, of course, was written down in great detail, as our military always does,” Cotton said. “There’s no vocal order either.”

The hearings came amid a congressional investigation into the September boat strike and the Trump administration’s ongoing military buildup near Venezuela, which began with missile attacks targeting drug trafficking boats earlier this year.

President Donald Trump said recently that he is considering hitting land targets within Venezuela soon.

Lawmakers are sharply divided in reaction to the September boat strike, which killed two survivors of a previous strike.

Cotton, who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, defended Hegseth and the Trump administration, saying that in his view, all such strikes on boats in the South Caribbean “were entirely lawful and needed.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Dec. 4 that what he witnessed on video in the classified briefing he attended “was one of the most troubling things” he’s seen in his career in public service.

“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States,” Himes said.

During Trump’s Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2, Hegseth said he was not in the room when the second strike was approved.

“I watched that first strike live,” Hegseth told reporters at the White House. “As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we’ve got a lot of things to do ... so I moved on to my next meeting.”

Ryan Morgan contributed to this report.