Deployment of a carrier group marks a major escalation of U.S. forces in a region that has already seen an unusually large military buildup.

The strike is the first to be conducted at night, and the third consecutive strike this week. The first two operations this week were conducted in the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. military has launched its ninth strike against an alleged drug-carrying vessel, and the second such strike in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It killed three people.

The U.S. killed two individuals in a strike on an alleged drug vessel Tuesday night, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, but this time the strike came in the Pacific Ocean rather than in the Caribbean Sea.

Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve came to the Pentagon in April to become the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The functions of the provisional Integrated Capabilities Command, or ICC, will be folded into a restructured version of Air Force Futures by April.

Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, will retire by the end of the year, an announcement that comes less than a year into his tenure and as U.S. operations in the Caribbean grow.

The plane landed based on standard procedures and everyone onboard, including Secretary Hegseth, is safe, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.

It’s the fifth known deadly strike in the region as the Trump administration has asserted that it is treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.

There are no foreign military bases in the U.S., but some foreign militaries do maintain a presence for training. Singapore’s air force also has a presence at Mountain Home Air Force Base.