Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US will “blow up” foreign crime groups if needed, possibly in collaboration with other countries.
“Now they’re gonna help us find these people and blow them up, if that’s what it takes,” Rubio said during a visit to Ecuador.
He also announced the US will designate two of Ecuador’s largest criminal gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, as foreign terrorist organisations.
The comments come days after US forces carried out a strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea. The White House says it killed 11 drug-traffickers, though it did not release their identities.
Asked whether smugglers coming from US allies, like Mexico and Ecuador, could face “unilateral execution” from US forces, Rubio said “co-operative governments” would help identify smugglers.
“The president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they’ve been waging war on us for 30 years and no-one has responded.
“But there’s no need to do that in many cases with the friendly governments, because the friendly governments are going to help us.”
The Ecuadorian and Mexican governments have not said they would assist with military strikes.
In the wake of Tuesday’s strike on the vessel in the southern Caribbean, President Donald Trump said the military operation had targeted members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as they transported illegal narcotics towards the US.
Legal experts told BBC Verify the strike may have violated international human rights and maritime law.
Late on Thursday, the defence department accused two Venezuelan military aircraft of flying near a US vessel in a “highly provocative move designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations”. Venezuela is yet to respond to the claim.
Also on Thursday, Rubio announced Washington would issue $13.5m (£10m) in security aid and $6m in drone technology to help Ecuador crack down on drug trafficking.
Violence in Ecuador has soared in recent years as criminal gangs battle for control over lucrative cocaine routes
According to government data, about 70% of the world’s cocaine now passes through Ecuador in transit from neighbouring producing countries, like Colombia and Peru, to markets in the US, Europe and Asia.
This designation was desired by the Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, who described his clampdown on criminal gangs as a “war.”
In an interview with the BBC earlier this year, he said he would be “glad” if the US considered Los Lobos and Los Choneros, as terrorist groups because “that’s what they really are”.
He also said he wanted US and European armies to join his fight.
Noboa is trying to change Ecuador’s constitution to allow foreign military bases in the country again – after the last US one was closed in 2009.
The designation means the US can target the assets and properties of anyone associated with the groups and share intelligence with the Ecuadorian government without limitations so it could take “potentially lethal” actions.
Soaring cartel violence in Ecuador has been a driver behind migration from the South American country to the US, too.
According to immigration law experts, it is unclear whether designating cartels as terrorist organisations may help or hinder their victims who seek asylum in the US.
On the one hand, it may mean they are now considered victims of “terrorism’, but on the other hand some fear those who have had to pay extortions to gangs could be penalised for ‘materially supporting’ them.