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The US has struck an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Pacific Ocean, expanding its military campaign beyond the Caribbean Sea.
The strike, which took place on Tuesday but was announced in a social media post by US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, was the eighth to be acknowledged by the Trump administration since it began its campaign against alleged drug smuggling boats, but was the first in the Pacific.
“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Hegseth said in the post. “Just as al-Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.”
The previous seven US strikes hit vessels in the Caribbean, where the US has built up a significant military presence, with a particular focus on boats coming from Venezuela.
Hegseth said Tuesday’s strike killed two alleged narco-traffickers in international waters in the “eastern Pacific”, taking the total death toll from Washington’s strikes to 34. The Pentagon declined to confirm reports that the boat was hit off the coast of Colombia.
The defence secretary posted a 23-second aerial video showing a boat travelling on water before being engulfed by flames.
The US has deployed 10,000 troops, eight warships, a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine and F-35 fighter jets to the Caribbean since August, in the largest American military build-up in the region in decades.
As of Monday, about 8 per cent of US warships deployed globally were in the Caribbean, according to a marine tracker from the US Naval Institute.
President Donald Trump has also authorised the CIA to conduct covert action inside Venezuela and a floating special forces command ship has been spotted near the South American country.
Congressman Jason Crow, a Democrat on the House armed services committee, on Wednesday said the government has spent “close to hundreds of millions” of dollars on the Caribbean build-up.
The Trump administration has said its military build-up and strikes are part of a counter-narcotics operation, but they also appear aimed at pushing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to leave power.
Before the use of military force began over the summer, US drug interdiction at sea was usually considered a matter of law enforcement for the coastguard.
A strike in the Pacific would align better with the narcotics trafficking routes to the US than actions in the Caribbean. “Most of the seaborne traffic of drugs in the Americas is up the Pacific coast,” said a former Pentagon official.
Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the legality of the military campaign. The White House has failed to provide evidence of narcotics on the targeted boats.
The campaign has outraged Venezuela and Colombia.
Trump’s relationship with Colombia’s leader Gustavo Petro has become increasingly antagonistic as they have sparred over drug policy.
Trump on Sunday week called Colombia “a drug manufacturing machine”, and said he was cutting off funding for the country, accusing Petro of being “an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs”.
He also threatened Colombia with new tariffs.
Additional reporting by Abigail Hauslohner in Washington
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