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WASHINGTON (AA) - Six people were killed after the US military struck an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean Sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.

Hegseth said in a post on US social media company X that the “lethal kinetic strike” was carried out overnight at the direction of President Donald Trump against a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a group Washington has designated a terrorist organization.

The vessel was “transiting along a known narco-trafficking route” and carrying narcotics, he said, adding that the operation took place in international waters and that no US forces were harmed. Hegseth said the six people aboard — whom the US deemed “narco-terrorists” — were killed in the strike.

He did not provide evidence to support the claim that the vessel was carrying narcotics or identify the group allegedly operating it.

The strike marks the latest in a series of US attacks on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against “narco-terrorism.”

Rights groups and legal experts have questioned the legality of the operations, arguing that US strikes on drug cartels are pushing the bounds of international law.

The UN’s top counterterrorism and human rights expert, Ben Saul, condemned the operations this week as “illegal killings” under international law. “There is no authority in international law for using military force on the high seas to kill suspected drug traffickers,” he said at a briefing in New York.

President Trump defended the strikes, calling them a lawful response to a “national security problem.”