Americas
US conducts 17th strike on alleged drug boat, killing 3
Stars and Stripes
November 7, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, announced in a post on X another deadly U.S. strike on a boat he said was trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea. (Secretary of Defense via X)
A new strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean killed three “male narco-terrorists,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Thursday night in a post on X.
No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike, which targeted a boat in international waters “operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth wrote.
The incident marks the Trump administration’s 17th known strike against alleged drug traffickers at sea, which have now killed at least 69 people.
Most strikes have taken place in the Caribbean, near Venezuela, though some took place in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Hegseth’s post came hours after the Senate rejected a bipartisan resolution to block President Donald Trump from conducting strikes against Venezuela as the U.S. continued to surge troops and military assets to the region.
Senators voted down the measure mostly along party lines, 51-49. The vote mirrored a similar unsuccessful effort last month to end the Trump administration’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The looming arrival of the Ford Carrier Strike Group in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility would concentrate nearly 20% of the Navy’s deployed warships in the region. Hegseth announced the carrier group’s deployment last month.
Reports on whether the U.S. will strike Venezuela directly, possibly to cause a regime change, are conflicting. The Miami Herald reported last week that strikes on military installations in Venezuela could come “within days,” and a Democratic lawmaker told the Associated Press on Wednesday that information presented by the administration indicated the strikes do not aim to overthrow Maduro.
Stars and Stripes reporters Svetlana Shkolnikova and Alison Bath, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.