28.10.2025
US Secretary of War Pete Hegesth has ordered more strikes on suspected drug cartels.
Mr. Hegeseth disclosed that the military carried out three strikes on Monday in the Eastern Pacific against boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing 14 and leaving one survivor. The death toll from September 57.
So far, the Trump administration has shown no evidence to support its claims about the boats’ links to drug cartels.
The announcement, made on social media on Tuesday, marks a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September.
This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day.
Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person would stay in their custody or be handed over to the US.
In a strike earlier in October which had two survivors, the US military rescued the pair and later repatriated them to Colombia and Ecuador.
In his announcement of the latest strikes, Hegseth also continued to draw parallels between the military’s actions against drug trafficking and the war on terrorism following the 11 September 2001 attacks that saw New York’s World Trade Centre towers destroyed.
US strike "drug boats" in the Pacific.