On Sunday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reported that the U.S. conducted an airstrike that killed three Colombian individuals labeled as “narco-terrorists.” This operation targeted a boat involved in drug trafficking.
Footage released from the airstrike shows a bomb being released over the vessel in international waters, resulting in its complete destruction and the deaths of all aboard.
Hegseth stated, “Our information indicates that this vessel was involved in illegal drug smuggling, was traveling along known drug smuggling routes, and was transporting significant quantities of drugs.”
The defense secretary mentioned that this marks the seventh U.S. strike on vessels purportedly tied to drug cartels in Latin America during the Trump administration.
He identified the deceased as members of the Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ELN), which is considered a terrorist organization comparable to al-Qaeda.
“These cartels are the al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere. They employ violence and terrorism to exert influence and threaten our nation’s security,” Hegseth remarked.
He asserted that the U.S. military would pursue these groups with the same intensity as they would terrorists, focusing on targeting and eliminating them.
The ELN, one of Colombia’s oldest and most influential rebel factions, was deemed a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. back in 1997.
This announcement of the strike followed President Trump’s criticism of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom he labeled an “illegal drug leader,” and the subsequent decision to withdraw all subsidies to Colombia.
This decision appears linked to Petro’s previous comments regarding the U.S. airstrike on September 15, where he alleged that innocent people had been killed, contradicting Trump’s assertion that the operation targeted known Venezuelan narco-terrorists.
Colombian officials noted that the boat involved was a fishing vessel that had encountered engine troubles and issued a distress signal.
One Colombian survivor from a prior U.S. airstrike in the region is among those being repatriated, according to the Trump administration.
