Politics
BREAKING: US Strikes Drug Boat Linked To Colombian Terrorist Group
Just hours after President Donald Trump cancelled all subsidies with Colombia and warned leftist President Gustavo Petro that he would be taking action against drug-trafficking organizations within the country if the Colombian president failed to deal with them, War secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. Military had carried out a successful strike on a drug-trafficking boat linked to a leftist terrorist group.
“On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Hegseth announced in an X post.
The ELN is a far-left guerrilla organization that is designated as terrorist by several governments, including the United States, Colombia, the European Union, Canada and others.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics,” Hegseth said of Friday’s strike. He went on to state that three drug smugglers were killed in the strike, which was conducted in international waters, adding that no U.S. personnel were harmed in the operation.
The ELN dominates coca-growing regions along Colombia’s Pacific coast and the Venezuelan border, where it oversees cultivation zones and trafficking corridors. This control allows the group to impose “taxes” (extortion fees) on coca farmers, processors, and traffickers, generating millions annually. Government officials and analysts note that ELN fronts have expanded into these criminal economies, particularly after the Colombian government reached a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people,” Hegseth wrote. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda.”
The announcement comes just hours after President Donald Trump warned Colombia’s self-described socialist president, Gustavo Petro, that the U.S. would be taking action against drug-trafficking organizations operating within Colombia’s borders if Petro’s government failed to do so.
While speaking at the UN General Assembly last month, Petro erupted into a fiery tirade in which he denounced the U.S. as an “imperialist” state and called for criminal proceedings against President Trump. He has also sought to strengthen ties with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime as the U.S. ramps up strikes on Venezuelan drug-trafficking organizations.
“President Gustavo Petro, of Columbia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Columbia (sic),” the president posted on Truth Social. “It has become the biggest business in Columbia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America,” he added.
Pointing to Petro’s low approval ratings, which have hovered in the high 20’s, Trump described his Colombian counterpart as a “low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America.”
He went on to warn Petro that his government must “close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
