On October 22 local time, U.S. Secretary of Defence Hertz declared:U.S. troops attacked a ship suspected of drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific that day, killing three people.This is the ninth U.S. attack on South America¡¯s near-sea ¡°drug smuggling¡± operation since early September.

Earlier that day, Hertz said that on the night of the 21st, the U.S. military attacked another ship in the Pacific, killing two people.