US Southern Command Carries Out 68th Strike on Suspected Drug Vessel
The campaign's estimated toll now stands at 227 suspects killed
US Southern Command has carried out its 68th airstrike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel, bringing the estimated toll of its campaign to 227 deceased suspects.
The strike occurred on Monday on what the command described as an established narco-trafficking route in the Caribbean. Southern Command said it had intelligence confirming the boat's involvement in trafficking and ordered a strike, destroying the vessel and killing four people.
"Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere continues executing precise, lethal operations against the cartels. We will hunt, disrupt, and defeat these narco-terrorist networks," said Southern Command commander General Francis L. Donovan in a statement. "SOUTHCOM is resolved to neutralizing cartel terror and violence throughout the region and into the U.S. homeland."
The command has adopted unmanned systems for target identification and tracking in line with Pentagon directives. The newly established Southcom Autonomous Warfare Command is tasked with using cost-effective autonomous and unmanned systems to inject what it terms total systemic friction into cartel business models, including aerial and surface drones for maritime domain awareness.
"From the seafloor to space and across the cyber domain, we fully intend to leverage the clear superiority of the American defense ecosystem by deploying cutting-edge innovation," Donovan said earlier this year.
More conventional interdiction continues alongside the strike campaign. The effort to capture live smugglers, led by Joint Interagency Task Force South and the US Coast Guard, remains in operation and cooperates with Southern Command.
Coast Guard intercepts are consistently non-lethal. Drug enforcement veterans note that debriefing live suspects yields intelligence about onshore smuggling networks and midlevel leaders, information that is not recoverable from a destroyed vessel.
