The U.S. military killed 14 people in three strikes in the eastern Pacific, an operation disclosed Tuesday on X by War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who labeled the slain “narco-terrorists.”

The attacks have deepened a diplomatic crisis and renewed scrutiny of their legality and purpose.

Hegseth wrote the vessels were “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” and vowed “we will track them… and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

According to the war secretary, a single individual survived the strikes, with Mexican search-and-rescue authorities having “accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue.”

The attacks are the latest in a campaign since early September that, according to unofficial tallies, brings the death toll from 13 disclosed strikes to at least 57 people.

Caracas has denounced such attacks as provocations and has accused Washington of staging “false-flag” operations following the detention of alleged mercenaries.

It has also pointed to a stepped-up U.S. naval posture — including carrier and destroyer deployments as well as joint exercises with Caribbean partners — as evidence of coercive pressure on Venezuela.

Colombia has called the boat bombings “murder,” and rights observers have warned that lethal force in international waters without a transparent legal basis risks amounting to extrajudicial executions.

Critics say the Trump administration’s militarized campaign resembles a pretext for coercive pressure on Venezuela to shape outcomes around its vast oil and mineral wealth.