Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the Pentagon carried out another “lethal kinetic strike” at President Donald Trump’s direction on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean that left four men dead.
“Earlier today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on yet another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth wrote on X, using the secondary title of the Defense Department.
It’s the 12th known time that the Trump administration has launched military strikes against alleged drug-carrying boats in recent months.
The announcement comes a day after Hegseth said that the U.S. military had conducted three strikes Monday on four vessels in the same area that killed 14 people, whom he similarly described as “narco-terrorists.”
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