The United States will deepen its offensive against drug trafficking cartels in Latin America and will begin to shift towards ground operations using military capabilities developed over decades of fighting against terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as announced by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
During a presentation to military personnel in Panama, the official stated that Washington considers any organization that traffics drugs or poses a threat to Americans and their allies as a target.
“Wherever they traffic drugs or threaten the American people or our partners, they are a target, just like ISIS or Al-Qaeda,” Hegseth asserted.
The Pentagon chief maintained that U.S. Armed Forces have spent 25 years perfecting mechanisms to identify, locate, and attack terrorist networks in various parts of the world and now propose to transfer those capabilities to the fight against organized crime on the American continent.
The strategy will encompass networks dedicated to cocaine and fentanyl trafficking as well as the territorial structures of Mexican cartels, and will be primarily coordinated by U.S. Southern Command and Northern Command. Hegseth also confirmed that the offensive will not be limited to maritime operations against vessels used to transport drugs.
