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Three alleged narco-terrorists were killed in a U.S. strike on a drug smuggling vessel affiliated with Colombia’s National Liberation Army, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Sunday.
The “lethal kinetic strike” happened Friday in international waters at the direction of President Donald Trump, Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics,” Hegseth wrote. “There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters.”
“All three terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike,” he added.
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Hegseth also shared unclassified video showing the moment of the strike.
Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) is a Designated Terrorist Organization. Hegseth likened the Colombian rebel group to the Al Qaeda terror group founded by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people,” Hegseth wrote. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro disputed that the vessel was affiliated with ELN, calling it a fishing boat that belonged to a “humble family.”
“The fisherman’s boat from Santa Marta was not from the ELN; it belonged to a humble family, lovers of the sea, from which they drew their food,” Petro wrote in a post on X. “What do you say to that family? Explain to me why you helped assassinate a humble fisherman from Santa Marta, the land where Bolívar died, and which they say is the heart of the world.”
“What do you say to the family of the fisherman Alejandro Carranza? He was a humble human being,” Petro continued.
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The Friday strike brings the death toll from the Trump administration’s military campaign against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the region to at least 31. The operations began last month and are part of Trump’s broader effort to dismantle transnational cartels by force.
On Thursday, the U.S. military carried out a strike on what Trump later called a “very large drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, killing two suspected narco-terrorists and capturing two others alive.
Fox News previously confirmed that two survivors were rescued by the U.S. Navy after the strike and were being held aboard an American warship.
A separate strike on Tuesday killed six suspected smugglers aboard a vessel off the coast of Venezuela.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano and Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
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