The Pentagon has declassified photographs of suspected drug-smuggling vessels and confirmed that U.S. forces have carried out 67 strikes on trafficking boats since the campaign began on Sept. 2, 2025.
The images, dated Oct. 27, Oct. 29 and Dec. 4, 2025, show go-fast boats loaded with apparent narcotics speeding through open water while under U.S. military surveillance.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson issued a blunt warning to traffickers in a statement provided to Fox News Digital: “Nearly one year after the first strike, the message to narco-terrorists remains unchanged: if you traffic deadly illicit narcotics and threaten the American people, we hunt you down, we will find you, and we will kill you.”
Wilson said the operation, known as Operation Southern Spear, has disrupted trafficking networks, forced traffickers to change their methods, and removed “dangerous narcoterrorists” from the field.
“Operation Southern Spear has disrupted trafficking networks, forced trafficker adaptations, removed dangerous narcoterrorists, and demonstrated that the United States will use every lawful tool available to defend our Homeland and protect our communities,” Wilson said.
Latest Strikes
One of the most recent strikes came Aug. 25, when U.S. Southern Command reported that four alleged drug smugglers were killed aboard a fast boat operating along known trafficking routes in the Caribbean. SOUTHCOM said on X that “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking.”
The operation was carried out by Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere under Gen. Francis L. Donovan, who said in a statement, “Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere continues executing precise, lethal operations against the cartels. We will hunt, disrupt, and defeat these narco-terrorist networks.”
“SOUTHCOM is resolved to neutralizing cartel terror and violence throughout the region and into the U.S. homeland,” Donovan added.
Days before that Caribbean strike, the military reported that two people were killed in a strike on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific — the first reported strike in more than two months. Video posted to X showed a moving boat before a flash filled the screen.
A Widening Campaign
Since the first strike last September, the administration has targeted suspected cartel vessels in both the Atlantic and Pacific that officials say were carrying narcotics. President Trump has described the effort as an “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America, arguing the strikes are necessary to keep drugs from reaching American communities and fueling fatal overdoses.
The campaign is not staying confined to the water. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a visit to Panama this month that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to let the U.S. conduct joint operations against criminal groups on their own soil — though Guatemala has denied any such agreement was reached. Ecuador began similar joint missions with U.S. forces in March.
A Democratic senator has separately accused the Pentagon of murder over the boat strikes targeting alleged traffickers, a charge the administration has not walked back as it continues expanding the operation.
