Hegseth announces 14 dead in Pacific military strike on alleged drug boats
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. In an unprecedented gathering, almost 800 generals, admirals and their senior enlisted leaders have been ordered into one location from around the world on short notice. Andrew Harnik

President Donald Trump authorized three more strikes late Monday night that killed 14 people the administration claims were suspected of trafficking narcotics to the United States.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the new Eastern Pacific strikes Tuesday as scrutiny over campaign continues to intensify across the political spectrum.

“The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands,” Hegseth wrote Tuesday in a social media post on X. “Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

The Trump administration launched its strikes on suspected drug traffickers coming from Venezuela last month, having authorized at least 11 strikes and killing at least 57 people.

The latest strike, which comes just days after the most-recent strike on Friday that killed six, saw the destruction of four sea vessels, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor, who Mexican authorities have agreed to locate and rescue, according to Hegseth.

Condemnation for the strikes has grown, being universally condemned by Democratic lawmakers, as well as a growing number of Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who on Sunday labeled the strikes as illegal “extrajudicial killings,” comparing them unfavorably to how the Iranian government operates.

“No one's said their name, no one's said what evidence, no one's said whether they're armed, and we've had no evidence presented,” Rand said, speaking with Fox News. “So at this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings.”

Details on the strikes have also been scant, with Paul claiming that as a senator, he hadn’t been briefed on the strikes whatsoeve. The Trump administration has been tight-lipped on the operations, with one whistleblower within the Trump administration admitting that one of the vessels was retreating before it was struck, a key detail omitted by Hegseth when announcing the strike.


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