U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Mexican authorities had assumed responsibility for the rescue of one survivor from U.S. military attacks that claimed the lives of 14 men on board alleged drug boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Hegseth said that the United States Southern Command “immediately initiated Search and Rescue (SAR) standard protocols” after learning one person survived the U.S. attacks. “Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue,” he wrote. An anonymous U.S. military official told the New York Times that the lone survivor was picked up on Tuesday. However, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday morning that the Mexican Navy “failed to rescue” the victim, leaving their fate unclear.
Hegseth said on social media on Tuesday morning that the U.S. Department of War, “at the direction of President Trump,” carried out on Monday “three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific.”
“… A total of 14 narco-terrorists were killed during the three strikes, with one survivor. All strikes were in international waters with no U.S. forces harmed,” he said.
According to the Associated Press, an unnamed Pentagon official said in a statement that the strikes were conducted off the coast of Colombia, but the Mexican Navy said on Tuesday that it was carrying out a search mission for the survivor 830 kilometers southwest of Acapulco, which would indicate that the attacks took place in international waters that are closer to Mexico than Colombia.
“Following one attack on a boat, the [U.S.] military spotted a person in the water clinging to some wreckage,” AP reported.
“The military passed the survivor’s precise location to the U.S. Coast Guard and a Mexican military aircraft that was operating in the area,” the news agency said.
President Claudia Sheinbaum told her Tuesday morning press conference that the Mexican Navy (Semar), “for humanitarian reasons” and in accordance with “international treaties, decided to rescue” the survivor of the U.S. strikes.
Semar subsequently said that in accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, and “after a request from the U.S. Coast Guard,” the Mexican Navy was carrying out “a maritime search and rescue mission more than 400 miles (830 km) southwest of Acapulco with the objective of protecting human life at sea.”
There is a discrepancy between the two distances Semar cited. Four hundred miles is equivalent to about 643 kilometers, whereas 400 nautical miles is around 741 kilometers. Both conversions indicate that the U.S. strikes may have occurred off the coast of Mexico or Central America, albeit in international waters.
Sheinbaum also said that her government “doesn’t agree with these attacks as they occur” and that she would seek a meeting with United States Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson to discuss “this situation.”
Mexico and US hold meeting on maritime coordination
On Tuesday evening, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and Semar reported that a meeting was held between Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Navy Minister Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles and United States Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson at the SRE headquarters.
According to a statement released by Semar, the parties agreed that the main priority is the safeguarding of human life at sea, as well as full respect for national sovereignty, reaffirming their commitment to the understanding and cooperation that have historically characterized the relationship between the two nations.
Hegseth: Vessels were following known trafficking routes
Hegseth said that the four vessels that were attacked by the U.S. military on Monday were “known by our intelligence apparatus” and “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes.”
He also said that the boats were “carrying narcotics,” but didn’t provide further details or evidence. It is possible that the vessels were headed to Mexico to unload their allegedly illicit cargo. Significant quantities of cocaine are smuggled into Mexico from South America and subsequently transported north to the United States.
Hegseth said that the U.S. military’s first strike hit two vessels carrying “eight male narco-terrorists.”
He said that the second strike hit a vessel carrying “four male narco-terrorists,” while the third strike targeted a boat transporting “three male narco-terrorists.”
Hegseth’s social media post also included footage of the military’s strikes.
“The Department [of Defense/War] has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them,” he wrote.
AP reported that it was the first time that multiple U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats were announced in a single day.
The strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean came after previous U.S. military attacks on alleged drug boats in the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea.
CNN reported that “the total number of known strikes carried out by the US military on alleged drug-smuggling vessels” since the start of September now stands at 13.
“To date, those operations have destroyed a total of 14 boats and killed 57 people — with three total survivors,” CNN said.
“… Last week, the US military conducted its first round of strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which appeared to mark an expansion of the campaign as all seven previous strikes had targeted boats in the Caribbean Sea,” CNN wrote.
The Trump administration has ramped up the United States’ fight against drugs and drug cartels, and earlier this year, it designated a number of Western Hemisphere criminal organizations, including six Mexican cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. However, experts say his offense against foreign nationals navigating in international waters is illegal.
In August, The New York Times reported that Trump had “secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations.”
While the United States has recently shown that it is prepared to use lethal military force against alleged drug traffickers, Sheinbaum has ruled out the possibility of U.S. armed forces targeting Mexican cartels on Mexican soil.
“Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country, and no foreign government would dare to violate our sovereignty,” she said in August when asked whether a U.S. strike against Mexican cartels was a possibility.
In May, Sheinbaum revealed that she had rejected an offer from Trump to send the U.S. army into Mexico to combat drug cartels.
“We can share information, but we’re never going to accept the presence of the United States Army in our territory,” Sheinbaum said at the time.
