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The US military has attacked and destroyed another boat in its ongoing and controversial fight against what it says are drug-trafficking activities.
The strike for the first time was carried out on the Pacific side of South America. Previous attacks have hit seven vessels in the Caribbean and killed at least 32 people.
The latest strike took place off the coast of Colombia and killed two people, according to a person briefed on the operation. It marked a departure from previous strikes, which have occurred off the coast of Venezuela, where the US has deployed an extraordinary military presence.
In a brief video released by US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, is seen moving along at sea. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless in flames.
In his post, Hegseth took the unusual step of equating the alleged drug traffickers to the terror group that conducted the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.
“Just as al-Qaida waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” Hegseth said, adding that “there will be no refuge or forgiveness – only justice”.
In striking a boat in the Pacific, the administration widened the scope of its campaign, although the reasons for the expansion were not immediately clear. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and Hegseth gave no additional details other than the video on X.
Donald Trump announced what appears to have been the first strike on a boat on 3 September, releasing a brief video of the attack.
Since then, the Trump administration has detailed more strikes without disclosing many details about the targets other than the number of people killed, and the allegation that the boats carried narcotics. The attacks have prompted widespread condemnation, both from civil liberties groups and South American nations.
On Tuesday the Guardian revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the airstrikes. Experts say the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select the targets will almost certainly remain secret.
The president confirmed last Wednesday that he had authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela, but not what the agency would be doing.
White House officials have tried to justify the increasing number of strikes with a dubious legal theory that claims the boats are affiliated with “designated terrorist organizations” with which the US was now in a “non-international armed conflict”, the Guardian has reported.
Until this month, the administration has referred to Tren de Aragua and other cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs. Legal experts suggested that simply characterizing drugs cartels as an FTO did not give the administration any additional authority to use lethal force.
White House officials have also sought to justify the strikes internally and externally by claiming Trump was exercising his article two powers, which allow the president to use military force in self-defense in limited engagements.
The self-defense argument revolves around Trump’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, a claim advanced by Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, in order to defend the deportations of dozens of Venezuelans earlier this year under the Alien Enemies Act.
The administration claimed that Tren de Aragua had infiltrated the regime of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro – and so the presence of the cartel’s members in the US amounted to a “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation, allowing for the deportation of any Venezuelan national.
But the administration has yet to provide concrete evidence that Tren de Aragua has become an instrument of the Venezuelan government, and legal experts contacted for this story said the White House could only justify the strikes if it could make that showing.
The strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats have largely been overseen by Miller and Tony Salisbury, his top lieutenant at the White House homeland security council (HSC), the Guardian has previously reported.
Miller empowered the HSC earlier this year to become its own entity in Trump’s second term, a notable departure from previous administrations where it was considered part of the national security council and ultimately reported to the national security adviser.
That was the case, for instance, with the second Venezuelan boat hit with hellfire missiles on 15 September. While the White House was informed the Pentagon had identified the boat as a viable target more than four days before, many top White House officials only learned of the impending strike hours before it happened.
Reuters contributed to this report
