The Pentagon has issued a stark warning to drug traffickers alongside newly released surveillance images of suspected smuggling vessels.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson delivered the message in a statement last week, nearly a year after the Trump administration began its campaign of strikes against suspected narcotics boats. “Nearly one year after the first strike, the message to narco-terrorists remains unchanged: if you traffic deadly illicit narcotics and threaten the American people, we hunt you down, we will find you, and we will kill you,” Wilson said in the statement.
The unclassified photos, dated Oct. 27, Oct. 29 and Dec. 4, show boats loaded with apparent narcotics speeding through open water under US military surveillance. Wilson said the operation, known as Operation Southern Spear, has carried out 67 strikes since its first attack on Sept. 2.
“Operation Southern Spear has disrupted trafficking networks, forced trafficker adaptations, removed dangerous narcoterrorists, and demonstrated that the United States will use every lawful tool available to defend our Homeland and protect our communities,” Wilson said.
The administration’s campaign has drawn scrutiny over its targets and legal basis. The strikes have hit vessels in both the Atlantic and Pacific, with the White House framing the effort as an “armed conflict” with Latin American cartels. President Trump has argued the attacks are necessary to stop drugs from reaching American communities and fueling fatal overdoses.
One of the most recent operations came Aug. 25, when US Southern Command said four alleged drug smugglers were killed aboard a fast boat in the Caribbean. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” SOUTHCOM wrote in a post on X, attributing the operation to Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere under Gen. Francis L. Donovan.
“Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere continues executing precise, lethal operations against the cartels,” Donovan said in a statement quoted in the post. “We will hunt, disrupt, and defeat these narco-terrorist networks.”
“SOUTHCOM is resolved to neutralizing cartel terror and violence throughout the region and into the US homeland,” he added.
Days before the Caribbean strike, the US military reported killing two people in a strike on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific, the first reported strike in more than two months. A video posted to X showed what appeared to be a moving boat before a flash filled the screen.
The administration is now seeking to expand its campaign beyond maritime strikes. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a visit to Panama this month that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to allow US joint operations against criminal groups on their soil, though Guatemala denied any agreement had been reached. Ecuador began similar missions with the US in March.
The first strike under Operation Southern Spear occurred on Sept. 2, launching a sustained military campaign against suspected drug-trafficking vessels that has now reached 67 reported strikes across multiple bodies of water.
Hegseth is expected to continue pressing for expanded ground operations during upcoming regional visits.