US military carried out lethal strike on vessel in Pacific, killing four, says Pete Hegseth | US news

The US military launched a deadly attack on a ship in the eastern Pacific, killing four people, according to defense secretary Pete Hegseth.

In a post on Twitter/X, Hegseth wrote: “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic attack on a ship operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed the ship was traveling along a known drug smuggling route in the Eastern Pacific and was involved in drug smuggling operations. A total of four male narco-terrorists were killed and no U.S. military forces were harmed.”

The announcement came a day after Donald Trump announced a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela. Announcing the blockade on social media, the US president accused Venezuela of using its oil to finance drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to increase military reinforcements.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it attacked three boats in the Pacific that it accused of drug smuggling, killing eight people. At least 99 people have been killed in more than 20 attacks since September 2, most of them off the coast of Venezuela.

The administration has faced mounting pressure to release video of the Sept. 2 ship attack, but Hegseth has refused to do so, and the administration has defended its efforts as successful, saying it prevented the drugs from reaching U.S. shores and pushed back on concerns that it was expanding the legal battle.

The administration has also said the campaign is about stopping drugs heading to the United States, but Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, confirmed in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is part of an effort to oust Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Wiles said Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle.”