WASHINGTON (TNND) — The U.S. Coast Guard on Friday said it was still searching for alleged narco-terrorists who apparently jumped off boats when the U.S. military launched deadly attacks earlier this week.
The search started on Tuesday afternoon.
“On Dec. 30th, the @uscg was notified by the @DeptofWar of mariners in distress in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting search and rescue operations,” the Coast Guard wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “Updates will be provided when available.”
Search efforts began after the military notified the Coast Guard that survivors were in the water about 400 miles southwest of the border between Mexico and Guatemala, the maritime service said in a statement.
The Coast Guard dispatched a plane from Sacramento to search an area covering more than 1,000 miles, while issuing an urgent warning to ships nearby. The agency said it coordinated more than 65 hours of search efforts, working with other countries as well as civilian ships and boats in the area.
During the attacks, three people, who the U.S. Southern Command described as “narco-terrorists,” were killed, while an unknown number of others jumped overboard. Three vessels were targeted.
“On Dec. 30, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted kinetic strikes against three narco-trafficking vessels traveling as a convoy. These vessels were operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,” the U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X.”Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and had transferred narcotics between the three vessels prior to the strikes. Three narco-terrorists aboard the first vessel were killed in the first engagement. The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard and distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels. Following the engagements, USSOUTHCOM immediately notified @USCG to activate the Search and Rescue system,” the U.S. Southern Command added.
The U.S. Southern Command also said the military launched a New Year’s Eve strike on two alleged “narco-trafficking” boats, killing five more alleged drug smugglers.
“A total of five narco-terrorists were killed during these actions — three in the first vessel and two in the second,” the U.S. Southern Command wrote in a separate X post.
Amid the strikes, which have been carried out in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth has faced scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
In December, Hegseth refused to show all members of Congress the full video of a deadly double strike that killed two survivors on an alleged drug boat on September 2.
Some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the military committed a crime, while the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers say the follow-up strike was legal.
Hegseth recently spoke about the strikes during an event, vowing to continue to protect America despite the criticism. He said the U.S. is not a safe haven for narco-terrorists — and spoke directly to them amid his speech.
“Right now, the world is seeing the strength of American resolve and stemming the flow of lethal drugs to our country. Here again, we’ve been focused and here we’ve been clear: if you’re working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you — make no doubt about it,” he said.
As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.