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Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducts a lethal kinetic strike on an alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific on Feb. 20, 2026, in a still from video. US Southern Command/Screenshot via The Epoch Times
The U.S. military struck another drug-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific on Feb. 20, killing three occupants onboard, according to U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
Southern Command stated that it conducted a lethal kinetic strike after intelligence confirmed that the boat was operated by a designated terrorist organization and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.
Intelligence found the vessel was traveling along known drug-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific, according to the U.S. military. Southern Command did not specify the terrorist group it was referring to.
“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” SOUTHCOM said in a post on X.
It also released a 16-second video of the strike on social media.
This was the second strike this week, after a Feb. 16 attack in which U.S. forces struck two drug-smuggling boats in the Eastern Pacific and one vessel in the Caribbean Sea. Eleven traffickers onboard the three vessels were killed in that attack, and no U.S. personnel were harmed, Southern Command stated.
Both operations are part of Operation Southern Spear, which War Secretary Pete Hegseth launched in November 2025 to tackle narco-terrorist activities in the Western Hemisphere.
Hegseth said the operation is part of the Pentagon’s mission to defend the homeland, remove narco-terrorists from the hemisphere, and stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
“President Trump ordered action—and the Department of War is delivering,” the Pentagon chief said at the time. “The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood—and we will protect it.”
Numerous strikes have been conducted in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific since September 2025 as the Trump administration seeks to curb the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
Prior to the latest attack, the U.S. military stated that it had carried out 42 boat strikes in the course of the operation, which resulted in 144 deaths.
President Donald Trump told Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow on Feb. 10 that future U.S. military actions against drug traffickers would include strikes on land-based targets.
“If you hit them on land, they go to the boats,” the president said during the interview. “Now we’re gonna hit them on land. We’re gonna hit them very hard on land.”
Trump did not specify when the U.S. military may initiate land strikes targeting drug smugglers.
In October 2025, the Pentagon deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford, known as the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the Southern Command area of responsibility—which encompasses Central America, South America, and the Caribbean—to support counter-narcotics operations in the region.
