"On December 4, at the behest of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the confederate Spear Joint Task Force conducted a deadly kinetic attack on a vessel in global waters belonging to a terrorist organization. Intelligence confirmed that the ship was carrying illegal drugs and was passing along a known drug smuggling way in the east Pacific," SOUTHCOM said in a message on X. The command said 4 "narco-terrorists" were killed as a consequence of the attack.