US bombs another drug-smuggling ship, killing 3 Colombian terrorists: Hegseth

The US killed three Colombian “narco-terrorists” in another airstrike on a boat involved in drug smuggling, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revealed Sunday.

Declassified footage of Friday’s strike shows a vessel floating in international waters when a bomb is dropped on the ship, obliterating it and killing all its occupants.

“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics,” Hegseth wrote on X.

“There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike — which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed in this strike,” he added.

The strike is the seventh known attack by the US against vessels operating in Latin America that the Trump administration has claimed are involved in drug trafficking.

Those killed in the Friday assault were allegedly members of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a designated terrorist group, said Hegseth, who likened the group to al Qaeda.

“These cartels are the al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people,” Hegseth wrote.

“The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda.”

The ELN stands as one of the oldest and most powerful insurgent groups operating in Colombia, with the US designating it a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, according to the Office oof the Director of National Intelligence.

The announcement of Friday’s strike comes after Trump accused Colombia President Gustavo Petro of being an “illegal drug leader” and announced that the US is cutting off all subsidies to the Latin American country.

The move appeared to be a direct response to allegations from Petro that the US killed innocent people during a Sept. 15 strike, which Trump initially claimed hit “confirmed narco terrorists from Venezuela.”

Colombian officials have countered that the vessel hit was a fishing boat that “was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.” 

A Colombian national was among two survivors who were hit in another previous US airstrike in the region. The Trump administration said the two survivors would be repatriated to their countries.