U.S. forces attacked a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, the same day President Donald Trump called Colombian President Gustavo Petro an "illegal drug leader" and said payments to the South American nation would cease.

Hegseth wrote on X that the Pentagon had destroyed a vessel and killed three people on Friday "in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility," which includes the Caribbean. He said the ship was affiliated with the leftist rebel group National Liberation Army and was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, without offering evidence to back the claim.

It was the latest in a series of U.S. strikes

in the Caribbean on vessels that the Trump administration says were transporting drugs. The Pentagon said it had nothi

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