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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The U.S. military said Thursday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel<\/a> accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat \u201cwas transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.\u201d It said the strike killed two people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.<\/p>\n The strike was announced just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that \u201csome top cartel drug-traffickers\u201d in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.\u201d However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.<\/p>\n Neither U.S. Southern Command nor the Pentagon would answer follow-up questions about Hegseth\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n The boat attacks, which began in September 2025, have slowed in frequency since January \u2014 a month that only saw one strike after the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>. By contrast, the Pentagon struck more than dozen boats in December 2025.<\/p>\n Thursday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration\u2019s strikes on alleged drug boats to 128 people. Last week, the military said that figure was up to 126 people, with the inclusion of those presumed dead after being lost at sea. That figure included 116 people who were killed immediately in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, U.S. Southern Command said. Ten others are believed dead because searchers did not locate them following a strike. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump administration boat strike in October<\/a>sued the federal government last week<\/a>, calling the attack a war crime and part of an \u201cunprecedented and manifestly unlawful U.S. military campaign.\u201d The suit is believed to be the first wrongful death case arising from the campaign and will test the legal justification of the attacks, which many experts say are a brazen violation of the laws<\/a> of armed conflict.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in \u201carmed conflict\u201d with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks<\/a> as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing \u201cnarcoterrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n