United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says that US troops have carried out another strike on a ship in the Caribbean, killing at least three men on board the vessel.

In a post on X late on Saturday, Hegseth said the attack was carried out on the orders of President Donald Trump and targeted a vessel that “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling”.

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He said “three male narco-terrorists” were on board the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters.

All three were killed, he added.

The attack on Saturday follows another on Wednesday that killed four men and a series of bombings that killed 14 others on Monday.

The operation, which began in early September, has killed more than 62 people and destroyed 14 boats and a semi-submersible.

The Trump administration has said the attacks are targeting alleged drug smuggling, but has yet to present any evidence to the public to substantiate its claims.

Critics have called the strikes a form of extrajudicial killing and a violation of international law, which largely prohibits countries from using lethal military force against noncombatants outside a conflict zone.

The United Nations’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk decried the attacks “and their mounting human cost” as “unacceptable” in a statement on Friday.

“The US must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them,” Turk said.