Newly unclassified Pentagon photos present suspected drug-smuggling boats at sea, together with vessels loaded with obvious narcotics.
The photographs come because the division warned traffickers that the US will proceed looking down those that threaten People, practically a 12 months after the Trump administration started putting suspected drug-trafficking vessels.
“Practically one 12 months after the primary strike, the message to narco-terrorists stays unchanged: in the event you visitors lethal illicit narcotics and threaten the American individuals, we hunt you down, we are going to discover you, and we are going to kill you,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson stated in a press release supplied to Fox Information Digital.
The pictures, dated Oct. 27, Oct. 29 and Dec. 4, 2025, present the boats rushing via open water underneath US army surveillance.
Wilson stated Operation Southern Spear has disrupted trafficking networks, compelled traffickers to adapt their strategies and eliminated “harmful narcoterrorists.”
“Operation Southern Spear has disrupted trafficking networks, compelled trafficker diversifications, eliminated harmful narcoterrorists, and demonstrated that the US will use each lawful device obtainable to defend our Homeland and shield our communities,” Wilson stated.
The Pentagon instructed Fox Information Digital the operation has carried out 67 strikes, together with the primary strike on Sept. 2, 2025.
Some of the latest strikes got here Aug. 25, when US Southern Command stated 4 alleged drug smugglers have been killed aboard a quick boat working alongside recognized trafficking routes within the Caribbean.
“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s energetic involvement in narco-trafficking,” SOUTHCOM wrote in a put up on X, saying the operation was carried out by Joint Job Power Western Hemisphere underneath the course of Gen. Francis L. Donovan.
“Joint Job Power Western Hemisphere continues executing exact, deadly operations towards the cartels,” Donovan stated in a press release quoted within the put up. “We are going to hunt, disrupt, and defeat these narco-terrorist networks.”
“SOUTHCOM is resolved to neutralizing cartel terror and violence all through the area and into the US homeland,” he added.
Days earlier than the Caribbean strike, the US army stated two individuals have been killed in a strike on a vessel within the Japanese Pacific. That was the primary reported strike in additional than two months. A video posted to X confirmed what seemed to be a shifting boat earlier than a flash stuffed the display screen.
Because the first strike final September, the Trump administration has focused suspected cartel vessels within the Atlantic and Pacific that it says have been carrying narcotics.
Trump has described the battle as an “armed battle” with cartels in Latin America and has argued the assaults are essential to cease medication from reaching American communities and fueling deadly overdoses.
The administration can be pursuing agreements with allied nations that would prolong its marketing campaign onto land in a number of Latin American international locations.
Battle Secretary Pete Hegseth stated throughout a go to to Panama this month that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to permit the US to conduct joint operations towards prison teams on their soil, although Guatemala denied an settlement had been reached. Ecuador started related missions with the US in March.
Reuters, The Related Press and Fox Information Digital’s Eric Mack contributed to this report.
