Oct. 24 (UPI) — The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is headed to the Caribbean Sea to escalate the nation’s military presence amid strikes on alleged drug-running vessels.
The carrier strike group currently is in the Mediterranean Sea and includes three destroyers, in addition to the aircraft carrier, NBC News reported.
“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the [Southern Command area] will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post.
“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle [transnational criminal organizations],” he added.
The strike group will take about a week to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the Caribbean for its new deployment, where it will nearly double the number of vessels already deployed there.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike group to the Caribbean, where the U.S. military conducted its first nighttime strike on a vessel allegedly running drugs, he announced on Friday.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transitioning along a known narco-trafficking route and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said in a post on X.
“Six male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters,” Hegseth said. “All six terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed.”
The nighttime strike was the third conducted this week, including one in the Pacific Ocean near Central America.
The strike also was the 10th conducted by the U.S. military against alleged drug runners, during which 43 reportedly have been killed while in international waters.
The United States has eight surface vessels, a submarine and about 6,000 sailors deployed in the Caribbean as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on drug running to the United States.
President Donald Trump previously notified Congress that the United States is engaged in conflict with drug cartels that send fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and other potentially deadly and illicit drugs to the nation.
The president also has designated several transnational gangs as terrorist organizations, including the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua.
Trump also has authorized the CIA to operate in Venezuela, where it is gathering intelligence on what the administration says is planned drug-smuggling to the United States.
The president is considering allowing strikes inside Venezuela to weaken President Nicolas Maduro‘s administration.
Trump has accused Maduro of profiting from Venezuelan drug smuggling to the United States and flooding the nation with deadly fentanyl and other narcotics.
The Trump administration recently raised to $50 million its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.