By: Staff Writer
November 18, 2025
The US military has made it’s 20th successful strike on a boat in Caribbean waters that they suspect to be used for trafficking drugs to the US.
The latest strike happened Monday, according to a social media post on Friday by U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean and Latin America. The latest strike brings the death toll from the attacks that began in September to 80, with the Mexican Navy suspending its search for a survivor of a strike in late October after four days.
Southern Command’s post on X shows a boat speeding over water before it’s engulfed in flames. The command said intelligence confirmed the vessel “was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”
The Trump administration has announced kinetic strikes against boats it has accused of carrying narcotics traffickers and members of the Tren de Aragua gang at a steady pace over the last few weeks. In late October, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed an aircraft carrier strike group to move into the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility to bolster these attacks.
This month, the United States has conducted at least three similar attacks, separately killing three people in one strike, two people in the next and six people in the third strike.
As the strikes escalates, so does the US presence in the Caribean.
Meanwhile, United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on last Friday, has formally announced the launch of a US military operation to target so-called “narco-terrorists” as Washington’s large-scale build-up of troops, warships and fighter jets continues in Latin America.
“Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR. Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and @SOUTHCOM, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Hegseth said in a post on X.
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it,” he said.
SOUTHCOM is the acronym for US Southern Command, whose area of responsibility covers 31 countries through South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
In a post on social media, SOUTHCOM said US Marines were conducting artillery training onboard the USS Iwo Jima – an amphibious assault ship – in the Caribbean in support of US President Donald Trump’s “priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland”.