US military kills three in strike on drug-trafficking vessel in Caribbean, Hegseth says

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike on a vessel operated by a drug trafficking organization in the Caribbean, killing three men aboard.

The operation, directed by President Donald Trump and carried out in international waters, targeted a vessel known to be carrying narcotics along a smuggling route, with no U.S. forces harmed, Hegseth said in an X post.

The U.S. military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes.

Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has asserted the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.