JTF Southern Spear killed 3 aboard suspected narcotics vessel in Caribbean; 7th strike, ~18 campaign deaths

On October 17, 2025, U.S. Southern Command forces conducted an airstrike against a vessel in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration claimed was affiliated with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Colombian armed group. The strike killed three people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the action on October 19, 2025, but provided no legal justification for U.S. military operations against a foreign armed group's alleged members in international waters.

The ELN, Colombia's largest remaining guerrilla organization engaged in that country's internal conflict, denied that the targeted vessel was involved in drug trafficking. The administration had not previously linked the Southern Spear campaign to targets alleged to be ELN personnel, raising new questions about the legal and strategic rationale for the strikes. The international humanitarian law implications of U.S. military operations against foreign armed group members in third countries—without declared war, congressional authorization, or clear evidence of imminent threat—remain unaddressed in public administration statements.

This was the seventh recorded strike in the southcom-drug-boat-strikes episode, the first to explicitly target an alleged foreign armed group rather than an unnamed vessel.