The US military announced that six men were killed in an attack on a suspected drug smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
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Published March 9, 2026
The US military says it has attacked a suspected drug smuggling vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing six people, as part of an operation against traffickers.
Sunday’s attack killed at least 157 people since early September, when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting people it called “narco-terrorists” aboard small vessels.
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“Intelligence has confirmed that this vessel was operating along known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and was engaged in drug trafficking operations,” Gen. Francis Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, posted on X, showing a video of a small boat being blown up in the water.
Similar to most military statements about the more than 40 known airstrikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, U.S. Southern Command said they targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military provided no evidence that the ship was transporting drugs.
President Trump said the United States was in an “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America, justifying the escalation as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. But the regime has provided little evidence to support its claims that it killed “narco-terrorists.”
In a meeting with Latin American leaders on Saturday, President Trump urged them to join the United States in taking military action against drug-trafficking cartels and transnational gangs, saying they pose an “unacceptable threat” to regional security.
To this end, Ecuador and the United States last week conducted a military operation against organized crime groups in the South American country.
At Saturday’s rally, President Trump sought to demonstrate that he remains committed to focusing U.S. foreign policy on the Western Hemisphere even as he pursues a war with Iran that has implications across the Middle East.
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strike and its effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically smuggled into the United States by land from Mexico, where it is manufactured using chemicals imported from China and India.
The boat attack also drew intense criticism after it was revealed that the military had killed a survivor of the first boat attack in a pursuit. The Trump administration and many Republicans have argued that it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts have argued that the killing was murder, if not a war crime.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the operation to hunt down a ship suspected of transporting drugs from South America had been so successful that it was becoming harder to find targets.
