US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced it had targeted a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean Sea, and Green Berets conducted anti-drug operations in Ecuador. President Donald Trump ordered increased military operations in Central and South America against cartels.
“Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” SOUTHCOM posted on X Tuesday. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists.”
Over the past year, the US has attacked more than 60 vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing over 200 people. The Pentagon asserts that vessels are operated by cartel members. However, some family members of the victims have gone public, claiming their relatives were engaged in legal activities.
On Wednesday, the DEA said SOUTHCOM was involved in operations in Ecuador.
“Ecuadorian authorities, supported by the DEA and SOUTHCOM, conducted a series of coordinated enforcement operations today targeting transnational criminal organizations involved in international cocaine trafficking.” The agency’s statement continued,
Last week, A local Ecuadorian official told AFP and UPI that US special forces have been conducting direct operations against suspected cartels in the Esmeraldas province.
Last month, The Washington Post reported reviewing a DEA assessment that found the strikes on vessels operated by alleged narco-terrorists have not changed the amount or price of cocaine entering the US. US military officials also admitted to Congress that the operations have had no impact on purity.
The DEA said that cartels have designed new methods to smuggle drugs into the US. Cartels have bribed Colombian officials to get the location of US warships and used small aircraft for alternative routes to traffic cocaine into the US. “When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.”
