US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Thursday a US military operationthat, he said, seeks to “eliminate narco-terrorists from our hemisphere.”
“Today I am announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR . Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and @SOUTHCOM, this mission defends our homeland, eliminates narco-terrorists from our hemisphere, and protects our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Hegseth said on his X account .
Hegseth did not give concrete details about the operation beyond explaining that it will be led by a specific joint task force and the Southern Command, which comprises US military operations in South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Last January, the U.S. government had already announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear. Commander Foster Edwards, director of the 4th Fleet’s Hybrid Fleet, explained that it would deploy “a heterogeneous mix of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) to support the detection and tracking of illicit trafficking , while also learning lessons for other operational scenarios.”
The U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command stated that the operation would deploy “long-endurance robotic surface craft, small robotic interceptor boats , and robotic vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in the Southern Command area of responsibility. The 4th Fleet will operationalize these unmanned systems by integrating them with U.S. Coast Guard cutters at sea and the 4th Fleet and Joint Interagency Task Force South operations centers. The results of Southern Spear will help determine the combinations of unmanned vehicles and manned forces needed to provide coordinated maritime domain awareness and conduct counternarcotics operations.”
Although Hegseth did not specify, it is understood that the name ‘Spear of the South’ could encompass the large military deployment that the United States has maintained in the Caribbean, off the Venezuelan coast, since this summer.
Hegseth’s announcement comes just days after the arrival in the southern Caribbean of the largest and most sophisticated US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford , and its strike group, joining the deployment of destroyers or amphibious landing ships that Washington has maintained in the area since mid-August.
This military deployment has been accompanied by threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House calls “illegitimate,” and by the Pentagon’s summary destruction of some 20 vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific (killing about 70 of their occupants), which Washington claims are boats transporting fentanyl to the United States.
Leave a Reply