Cuba said it thwarted the attempt of gunmen trying to infiltrate from the United States as its coastguard opened fire on Wednesday at a Florida-registered speedboat near its shores, killing four people and wounding six.
Havana's Interior Ministry said the speedboat's passengers opened fire on a coast guard vessel that approached them near an island off the country's northern coast.
The ministry claimed the passengers were armed and intended to “carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
Handguns, assault rifles and improvised explosive devices were recovered on the speedboat, according to the statement, along with other tactical gear.
The ministry said the 10 passengers are all Cuban citizens living in the US.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was seeking its own facts about the shooting and would “respond accordingly.”
“We're not going to base our conclusions on what they've (Cuba) told us, and I'm very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here,” Rubio told reporters while on a trip to the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis. “As we gather more information, then we'll be prepared to respond accordingly.”
James Uthmeier, Florida's attorney general, said he would direct local law enforcement to investigate the incident.
“The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,” he said.
In an earlier statement posted on X, the Cuban interior ministry said the Florida-registered vessel was detected near Cayo Falcones, in the country's central Villa Clara province on Wednesday morning.
When a Cuban boat carrying five members of the ministry's border guard approached the vessel for identification, “the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire” and wounded the Cuban commander, the statement said.
It added that “As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six injured.”
Those injured were evacuated and given medical assistance, the statement said.
In Washington, US Vice President JD Vance said the White House was “monitoring” the incident but added that he hoped it was not a serious one.
“Certainly, you know, a situation that we're monitoring, hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it could be. But can't say more, because I just don't know more,” Vance told reporters.
The confrontation comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba, which lies just 160 km across the Florida Straits. It also comes as the US softened a virtual oil siege of the island imposed by President Donald Trump in January after the US ouster of top Cuba ally, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
Before Maduro's capture by US forces on 3 January, Cuba had relied on Venezuela for about half its fuel needs.
Faced with an outcry from Caribbean leaders, worried that starving Cuba of oil would cause the economy to quickly collapse, the US said it would allow shipments of Venezuelan oil for “commercial and humanitarian use.”
