The four vessels were targeted in international waters with three "lethal kinetic strikes" as the weekslong assault on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean have now spread to the United States' west coast.
"The department has spent over two decades defending other homelands -- now, we're defending our own," Hegseth said in a post on X that included video of the strikes.
"These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same," he said. "We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them."
The four vessels were known by U.S. intelligence to have been operated by designated terrorist organizations, he noted.
In the three strikes, eight men aboard two vessels were killed in the first strike, four men on a third vessel were killed in the second strike and three men were killed in a fourth vessel in the third strike.
In addition to the 14 alleged "narco-terrorists" who were killed in the strikes, Hegseth said there was one survivor, with U.S. Southern Command initiating search and rescue operations and handing them off to Mexican authorities.
Since Sept. 2, the United States has carried out at least 10 attacks on alleged drug smuggling boats off the coast of Venezuela, killing at least 43 people.
The strikes are part the Trump administration's effort against an alleged drug-smuggling operation run by the country's government and a criminal organization there called Tren de Aragua.
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