The U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said on Sunday that it conducted a “lethal kinetic strike” against a drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing the “six male narco-terrorists” on board.
SOUTHCOM said the vessel was “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” and was “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific” while “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the SOUTHCOM statement added.
The strike was directed by SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan and conducted by Joint Task Force Southern Spear, the anti-drug operation formally launched by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in November 2025.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Sunday’s strike “brought the death toll to at least 157 people” from 45 strikes since the operation was launched.
“Going on offense with Operation Southern Spear has restored deterrence against the narco-terrorist cartels that profited from poisoning Americans,” Hegseth said at the Americas Counter Cartel Conference last week.
Hegseth noted that the much weaker deterrence — being “arrested and then released” — was “priced in” by the drug cartels long ago.
“Last month, we went a few weeks without targeting a single boat. Why? Well, because we couldn’t find a whole lot of boats to sink, and that’s the whole point is to establish deterrence from narcoterrorists who have been able to traffic almost unfettered,” he said.
“Drug overdoses that kill our citizens have dropped; flows of fentanyl, a weapon of mass destruction, are down 56 percent. We will continue to destroy these threats,” he vowed.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump held a “Shield of the Americas” summit with Latin American leaders at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He encouraged the attendees to follow the example set by Operation Southern Spear.
“The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries. We have to use our military. You have to use your military,” he said.
Trump pointed to Mexico, which did not attend the Shield of the Americas summit, as a cautionary example of allowing drug lords to unleash “bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”
“The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us. Too close to you,” Trump told his guests.
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