The US campaign to hunt down and destroy boats allegedly bringing drugs from South America has been so successful it is now hard to find targets, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said Thursday.
The United States began targeting these alleged smuggling speedboats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in early September and has since destroyed dozens of them, with at least 150 people killed.
The attacks have drawn criticism that they amount to extrajudicial killings.
Hegseth hailed them as he spoke at a conference on fighting drug cartels that was attended by officials from 18 Latin American countries.
"Last month, we went a few weeks without targeting a single boat. Why? Well, because we couldn't find a whole lot of boats to sink," Hegseth said.
"And that's the whole point, is to establish deterrence from narco-terrorists who have been able to traffic almost unfettered," AFP quoted Hegseth as saying.
President Donald Trump's administration insists it is effectively at war with what it calls "narco-terrorists" operating in Latin America.
But it has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations.
International law experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings as they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States.
Washington has deployed a large naval force in the Caribbean, where its forces have in recent months struck alleged drug-smuggling boats, seized oil tankers and carried out a stunning raid in which Venezuelan leftist leader Nicolas Maduro was captured and flown to New York for trial on drug trafficking charges.
