US launches deadly Caribbean strike; kills four in anti-cartel operation

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

A Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ers in the Caribbean has left four men dead, in what of­fi­cials de­scribe as a “lethal ki­net­ic strike” along a known drug traf­fick­ing route.

In a state­ment is­sued on March 25, US South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) said the op­er­a­tion was car­ried out un­der the di­rec­tion of its com­man­der, Gen. Fran­cis L. Dono­van.

“Joint Task Force South­ern Spear con­duct­ed a lethal ki­net­ic strike on a ves­sel… en­gaged in nar­co-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions,” the state­ment said.

Ac­cord­ing to SOUTH­COM, in­tel­li­gence con­firmed the ves­sel was be­ing op­er­at­ed by what it de­scribed as “Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­ga­ni­za­tions” and was tran­sit­ing along es­tab­lished nar­cotics cor­ri­dors in the Caribbean.

SOUTH­COM was not more spe­cif­ic as to where ex­act­ly the in­ci­dent took place in the re­gion.

The com­mand added that “four male nar­co-ter­ror­ists were killed dur­ing this ac­tion,” and not­ed that “no U.S. mil­i­tary forces were harmed.”

The strike was framed as part of a broad­er strat­e­gy of “ap­ply­ing to­tal sys­temic fric­tion on the car­tels,” sig­nalling a more ag­gres­sive pos­ture by US forces op­er­at­ing in the re­gion.

The de­vel­op­ment comes just weeks af­ter the for­ma­tion of the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), an ini­tia­tive an­nounced at the March 7 Shield of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is one of two Cari­com na­tions which are mem­bers of the AC­CC.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who signed on­to the agree­ment on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go, lat­er retweet­ed the SOUTH­COM state­ment.

A cen­tral man­date of the AC­CC's fo­cus is on op­er­a­tional­is­ing "hard pow­er" to de­stroy.