Washington — The Pentagon mentioned Friday that the U.S. is sending an plane service strike group to the waters off Latin America, an escalation that can dramatically improve the variety of service members and ships devoted to the Trump administration’s campaign to counter narcotics traffickers.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said on X that Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth “has directed the Gerald R. Ford Service Strike Group and embarked service air wing to the U.S. Southern Command” space of duty. Southern Command is answerable for the Caribbean Sea, Central and South America and the encompassing waters.
Parnell mentioned the “enhanced U.S. pressure presence” will “bolster U.S. capability to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and actions that compromise the protection and prosperity of the US homeland and our safety within the Western Hemisphere.”
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni/U.S. Navy through Getty Photographs 
Information of the choice to ship the service group comes after the U.S. launched one other strike on a vessel allegedly operated by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua that Hegseth mentioned was trafficking medicine within the Caribbean Sea.
The secretary said on X that the strike killed all six males who had been on board, and befell in worldwide waters. He mentioned it was the primary strike to happen at night time.
“The vessel was identified by our intelligence to be concerned in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting alongside a identified narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” he wrote. Hegseth posted a video, marked unclassified, exhibiting the vessel because it was hit.
This newest strike seems to be the tenth carried out by the Trump administration in opposition to alleged drug trafficking boats over the previous a number of weeks, which have now led to greater than 40 deaths. The primary a number of befell within the Caribbean Sea, however this week, the administration’s marketing campaign broadened into the Pacific Ocean.
