Latest strike on boat in Caribbean Sea kills 3, Hegseth says

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth participates in a roundtable talk regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart drug cartels and human trafficking, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Oct, 23, 2025. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By CAROL ROSENBERG

The U.S. military killed at least three people in another strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Saturday, in the latest attack on vessels that the Trump administration has claimed are being used to smuggle drugs. It was the 15th announced strike in the offensive that began in early September.

Announcing the attack on social media, Hegseth posted a video that appeared to show an explosion. He said the vessel “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” but he did not provide evidence to support the claim. He said Saturday’s strike took place in international waters.

The latest attack raised the toll of the campaign to about 65 people killed, including a man who is presumed dead after a search by the Mexican navy failed to find someone whom the United States described as surviving an attack Oct. 27 in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

A wide range of specialists in laws governing the use of force have decried the killings as illegal because the military is not allowed to deliberately target civilians who pose no threat of imminent violence, even criminal suspects.

The administration says the strikes are lawful because President Donald Trump determined that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. The Pentagon has about 10,000 U.S. troops ashore and afloat in the region, and an additional 5,000 are on their way aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying warships.