The US Army Southern Command announced that the military attacked three ships, killing five people. The Coast Guard said it was searching for survivors.
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The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for survivors of a U.S. military attack on a suspected drug-smuggling convoy in the Pacific Ocean, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Since September, President Donald Trump’s administration has carried out more than 30 airstrikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 110 people.
The U.S. Army Southern Command said in a statement that its troops attacked three ships.
“Three narco-terrorists on board the first ship were killed in the initial engagement. The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two ships, jumped from the ship and distanced themselves, sinking each ship in the ensuing engagement,” Southern Command wrote to X.
Southern Command announced late Wednesday that it had attacked two ships. He did not say where the attack took place, but said five people were killed as a result.
US searching for 8 people: authorities
Eight people have abandoned the ship and are being searched, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
The Coast Guard told Reuters it had deployed a C-130 aircraft to search for survivors and was working with nearby vessels.
This is not the first time that a U.S. airstrike has left a survivor alive under the Trump administration. In October, two survivors of the US attack were repatriated to their home country.
Later that month, Mexican authorities launched a search-and-rescue operation after another U.S. airstrike revealed survivors. That person was not found.
The decision to attack the vessel but not the survivors was made after it emerged that the US military had carried out an additional attack on a vessel believed to be a drug carrier with two survivors on board during the September attack.
The deadly attack on the drug ship is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration aimed at disrupting the supply of illegal drugs. Legal experts and Democratic lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strike.
The airstrikes came amid a pressure campaign against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and a major U.S. military buildup in the region.
President Trump said Monday that the United States had “struck” an area where drugs were being loaded onto boats in Venezuela, marking the first known ground operation by the U.S. government in Venezuela.
Officials said the ground attack was not carried out by the U.S. military, and President Trump had previously said he authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
