The 10 passengers on a U.S.-registered speedboat fired on by a Cuban Coast Guard vessel were armed exiles trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism, Havana alleged Thursday.
The claim was made public in the hours after Cuba’s soldiers said they killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speedboat that had entered Cuban waters and allegedly opened fire on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer, as Breitbart News reported.
No evidence was offered to support the claim the victims were exiled Cubans tasked by the U.S. to infiltrate the island nation.
Cuba’s government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat “have a known history of criminal and violent activity.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told reporters earlier that he was made aware of the incident and that the U.S. is now gathering its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents, AP reports.
Cuba’s military shot at a U.S.-registered boat Wednesday close to its shoreline, authorities said. (AP Digital Embed)
“We have various different elements of the U.S. government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.
The Cuban government identified two of the boat passengers as Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, who are wanted by Cuban authorities “based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in connection with acts of terrorism,” the AP report noted.
Cuban coast guard ships docked at the port of Havana on February 25, 2026. Cuba’s coast guard said on February 25, 2026, it shot dead four people and wounded six others traveling in a US-registered speedboat during an exchange of fire near Cuba’s shores that came amid heightened tensions with Washington. (Adalberto ROQUE / AFP via Getty Images)
Havana said it had arrested Duniel Hernández Santos, adding he was “sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions.”
It wasn’t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters.
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