U.S. forces killed four men described as “narco-terrorists” in a drone strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean this week, a move that has intensified debate over the legality of Washington’s expanding anti-narcotics campaign at sea.
Pentagon spokesman Pete Hegseth said Thursday the targeted vessel was “operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization” and known to be carrying illegal narcotics along a well-established trafficking route. The attack, conducted in international waters, marked the latest in a string of U.S. military operations aimed at drug-smuggling boats across the Pacific and Caribbean.
“This vessel, like all the others, was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” Hegseth said in a statement posted on social media, alongside aerial footage of the strike. None of the four men killed have been publicly identified.
The operation came just days after U.S. forces carried out three similar strikes on Monday, which reportedly killed 14 people and left one survivor. Since September 2, at least 14 strikes have been conducted against suspected trafficking vessels, killing 61 people, according to U.S. defense officials.
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Hegseth defended the campaign as part of a broader effort to “defend our own homeland,” saying the Department of Defense had spent “over two decades defending other homelands.” The Pentagon has not provided public evidence linking the targeted boats to drug cartels or terrorist groups.
Human rights experts and United Nations officials have questioned the legal basis for the operations. Critics argue the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings in violation of international law, which generally prohibits the use of lethal military force against noncombatants outside an active conflict zone.
“We continue to emphasize the need for all efforts to counter transnational organized crime to be conducted in accordance with international law,” Miroslav Jenča, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for the Americas, told the UN Security Council earlier this month.
The White House has framed the strikes as a national security measure, classifying the alleged traffickers as “unlawful combatants” engaged in a non-international armed conflict. However, the administration has not sought formal congressional authorization for the campaign.
The latest strike occurred while President Donald Trump was on the final leg of a three-nation tour in Asia, which included stops in Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea, where he held his first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping since 2019.