Washington: Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the US military has carried out three strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean against boats accused of carrying drugs, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor.
This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day. Carried out Monday, the strikes mark a continued escalation in the pace of the attacks in South American waters, which began in early September and had been spaced weeks apart.
A statement provided by a Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the operation, said the strikes were conducted off the coast of Colombia. Following one attack on a boat, the military spotted a person in the water clinging to some wreckage.
The military passed the survivor’s precise location to the US Coast Guard and a Mexican military aircraft that was operating in the area. Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person was successfully rescued or would stay in Mexico’s custody or be handed over to the US.agencies