US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the US armed forces have carried out their 10th strike against a boat suspected of transporting drugs. Six people were killed. The death toll in Washington's campaign against drug cartels has reached at least 46 people, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
In a post on social media, Hegseth said that the boat belonged to the "Tren de Aragua" cartel and that the strike was carried out in the Caribbean Sea.
In recent days, the pace of these operations has accelerated from one every few weeks in September, when they began, to three per week now. Two of this week's attacks were also launched in the eastern Pacific Ocean, expanding the area where the U.S. military is prepared to carry them out.
Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 24, 2025
The vessel was known by our… pic.twitter.com/lVlw0FLBv4
A 20-second black-and-white video of the strike posted to social media shows a small boat seemingly motionless in the water as a thin, elongated projectile falls on it, causing an explosion. The video ends before the explosion subsides enough for the wreckage of the boat to become visible again.
In his post, Hegseth said the strike was carried out in international waters and boasted that it was the first to be carried out at night.
"If you are a narcoterrorist who is transporting drugs into our hemisphere, we will treat you like "Al Qaeda", Hegseth said in the post. "Day or night, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down and kill you."