HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba\u2019s government said late Wednesday that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire on its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the U.S. who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.<\/p>\n
The announcement came hours after Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speed boat that had entered Cuban waters and opened fire on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer.<\/p>\n
Cuba\u2019s government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat \u201chave a known history of criminal and violent activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.<\/p>\n
The Cuban government identified two of the boat passengers as Amijail S\u00e1nchez Gonz\u00e1lez and Leordan Enrique Cruz G\u00f3mez, who are wanted by Cuban authorities \u201cbased 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government said it also had arrested Duniel Hern\u00e1ndez Santos, adding that he was \u201csent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associated Press was not immediately able to independently verify that information.<\/p>\n
Cuba\u2019s government said it obtained the details about the passengers aboard the boat from the suspects detained following the shootout.<\/p>\n
It identified seven of the 10 passengers, including Conrado Galindo Sariol, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Rodr\u00edguez Castell\u00f3, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra. Cuba\u2019s government said that one of the four killed was Michel Ortega Casanova. Three others have not yet been identified.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe investigation process continues until the facts are fully clarified,\u201d the ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Misael Ortega Casanova, brother of Michel Ortega Casanova, told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was mourning his brother\u2019s death but lamented that he fell into what he called an \u201cobsessive and diabolical\u201d quest for Cuba\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly us Cubans who have lived over there understand,\u201d Misael Ortega Casanova said, referring to the \u201cgreat suffering\u201d that he and other Cubans on the island have faced.<\/p>\n
He noted that his brother, who was a truck driver and an American citizen who lived for more than 20 years in the U.S., leaves behind his wife, his mother, two sisters \u2014 one of whom lives in Cuba \u2014 and a daughter who is pregnant.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knew,\u201d Misael said of his brother\u2019s plans. \u201cMy mother is devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThey became so obsessed that they didn\u2019t think about the consequences nor their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Misael said that he did not recognize any of the names that the Cuban government released.<\/p>\n
He said that while he doesn\u2019t believe in heroes \u2014 \u201cbecause that is ignorance\u201d \u2014 he hopes that his brother\u2019s death might be a worthwhile sacrifice: \u201cmaybe it will justify that some day Cuba will be free.\u201d<\/p>\n
A \u2018highly unusual\u2019 shootout<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> top diplomat refused to speculate on what happened, saying that it could be a \u201cwide range of things,\u201d and that the U.S. will not solely rely on what the Cuban authorities have provided thus far.<\/p>\n \u201cSuffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It\u2019s not something that happens every day. It\u2019s something, frankly, that hasn\u2019t happened with Cuba in a very long time,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n He said both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident and stressed that he wants to verify the facts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of the facts being publicly reported are those by the information provided by the Cubans. We will verify that independently as we gather more information, and we\u2019ll be prepared to respond accordingly,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have our own information on this. We\u2019re going to figure out exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n He said it was not a U.S. government operation and that he wasn\u2019t \u201cgoing to speculate about whose boat it was, what they were doing, why they were there, what actually happened.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the men identified by the Cuban government, Conrado Galindo Sariol, was interviewed in June 2025 by Mart\u00ed Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has long called for a change of government in Cuba.<\/p>\n Galindo, whom the host called \u201ca legend,\u201d was quoted as saying that he wants to support the struggles that Cubans face, especially in the eastern part of the island \u201cto achieve the freedom that is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the protests in Cuba at that time were \u201cnot a spark that\u2019s going to be extinguished.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe regime\u2019s leaders are crisscrossing Cuba, trying to mitigate what\u2019s coming very soon because … they know they\u2019re out of power, that they can\u2019t do anything about it, and they\u2019re looking for ways to prevent the protests from growing in other parts of the country,\u201d Galindo was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n Fear over increased tensions<\/p>\n Rubio said he found out about the shooting before the Cuban government posted on social media, noting that the U.S. has \u201cconstant contact\u201d with the country \u201cat the Coast Guard level.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier, Cuba\u2019s Interior Ministry issued a statement that provided few details about the shooting, but noted that the boat was roughly 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba\u2019s north coast. <\/p>\n The government provided the boat\u2019s registration number, but The Associated Press was unable to readily verify details of the boat because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters. In the statement, the ministry said Cuba\u2019s government was \u201csafeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Vice President JD Vance said late Wednesday afternoon that Rubio had briefed him on the incident. He added that the White House was monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully it\u2019s not as bad as we fear it could be,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n The shooting threatens to increase tensions<\/a> between the U.S. and Cuba. Following the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, President Donald Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba, which had been largely kept economically afloat<\/a> by Venezuela\u2019s oil.<\/p>\n The energy crisis Cuba has been grappling with in recent years entered new extremes last month when Trump signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The move put pressure on Mexico, which Cuba became largely dependent on for petroleum after Trump halted oil shipments from Venezuela.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, James Uthmeier, Florida\u2019s attorney general, said he has ordered prosecutors to work with federal, state and law enforcement partners to start an investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not unusual for skirmishes to erupt between Cuba\u2019s Coast Guard and U.S.-flagged speedboats in Cuban waters, but there have been no recent reports of passengers opening fire or being killed.<\/p>\n In past years, some of those U.S.-flagged boats were laden with unidentified items headed toward the island or they were going to pick up Cubans and smuggle them into the U.S.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Lee reported from Basseterre, St. Kitts and Coto from San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica. Associated Press reporters Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska and Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba\u2019s government said late Wednesday that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20368,80755,80759,1016,80753,409,26757,28,30,29,477,4260,8871,80760,3446,8877,80754,80756,4389,99,80757,6889,2374,80758,10645],"class_list":{"0":"post-169574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-central-america","9":"tag-conrado-galindo-sariol","10":"tag-cristian-ernesto-acosta-guevara","11":"tag-cuba","12":"tag-cuba-government","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-energy-industry","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-florida-headlines","17":"tag-florida-news","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-james-uthmeier","20":"tag-jd-vance","21":"tag-jos-manuel-rodrguez-castell","22":"tag-latin-america","23":"tag-marco-rubio","24":"tag-michel-ortega-casanova","25":"tag-misael-ortega-casanova","26":"tag-nicolas-maduro","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-roberto-azcorra-consuegra","29":"tag-shootings","30":"tag-terrorism","31":"tag-u-s-venezuela-conflict","32":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}