U.S. Launches First Anti-Drug Strike in Pacific Side of South America, Its Eighth Attack During Pressure Campaign

The United States carried out another strike against an alleged drug-trafficking vessel Tuesday night — this time on the Pacific side of South America — marking the first such attack outside the Caribbean, to two U.S. officials told CBS News.

The strike, the eighth known attack since September 2, killed at least two people aboard the vessel, the officials said. Previous U.S. operations under the Trump administration's new counter-narcotics campaign targeted boats in the Caribbean, where at least 34 people have been killed in similar strikes.

The latest strike in the Pacific suggests the campaign is widening its scope. It began as part of a broader effort to disrupt smuggling routes in the Caribbean and pressure Venezuela's government. According to a New York Times article published on October 14, traffickers have been shifting operations away from U.S. naval patrols, rerouting cocaine shipments through the Pacific and other less-monitored corridors.

Regional officials confirmed to the NYT that the strikes have not eliminated drug trafficking but have instead pushed smugglers to adapt — dividing shipments into smaller loads, concealing narcotics in food containers, or conducting sea transfers farther from monitored zones.

On Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. forces had destroyed another suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea, killing three men allegedly linked to Colombia's National Liberation Army (E.L.N.), a Marxist insurgent group designated as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997. Hegseth described the groups targeted as "the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere," saying they would be "hunted and killed" like terrorists.

The Pentagon has not released evidence linking the vessels to cartels or insurgent groups. However, Hegseth said the most recent Caribbean strike targeted "a vessel known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling" and traveling along a known trafficking route.

The Pentagon has not publicly commented on the Pacific strike or provided footage, as it has in previous incidents.