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US hits another drug boat in international waters in Pacific — Pentagon

According to the Southern Command, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear "conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters"

NEW YORK, December 18. /TASS/. The US military struck a vessel allegedly used to smuggle drugs in international waters in the Eastern Pacific, the US Southern Command said.

"Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. A total of four male narco-terrorists were killed, and no U.S. military forces were harmed," it wrote on X.

According to the Southern Command, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear "conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters" at the direction of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

In August, The New York Times reported that Trump had signed a classified directive to begin using military force against Latin American drug cartels. Afterward, significant additional US military units were deployed to the Caribbean Sea region. Washington then began launching airstrikes against boats that the US government claimed were transporting drugs to the US in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. In November, the Pentagon announced that a strike group of US ships led by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford had entered the area of responsibility of the US Southern Command to combat drug smuggling in the region.

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