WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States (US) is planning land attacks against drug traffickers in Latin America, expanding an airstrike campaign against presumed drug-running boats in international waters, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said in Panama.

Last September, US President Donald Trump’s administration launched a bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, leaving at least 215 people dead. The campaign has been criticised as amounting to extra-judicial killings.

Plans for anti-drug operations on land are on the agenda of an alliance of 19 countries led by Trump that could expand to wherever drug gangs operate, Hegseth told journalists.

He said the United States hopes to deploy forces alongside its allies with “operational capability like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats” in the Caribbean and Pacific.

It will be the “same effect on land, and so we’re working with Ecuador, we’re working with Colombia, we’re working with partners to bring the fight to the DTOs on land,” Hegseth said Wednesday night in an unidentified location in the Panamanian jungle, referring to drug trafficking organisations.

He travelled to Panama for annual joint military exercises carried out by over 20 countries.

“Anywhere you traffic drugs or you threaten the American people or our partners, you are a target just like ISIS or Al Qaeda,” Hegseth said, wearing an olive-green shirt while surrounded by soldiers.

The Americans Counter Cartel Coalition brings together countries with right-wing governments, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru.

Hegseth said cartels should be “on notice.”

Mexico, with a left-leaning government, is not part of the alliance even though it is home to powerful drug cartels.

Hegseth defended the attacks against alleged drug boats, which legal experts and human rights organisations have warned could constitute extrajudicial executions.

“We’re going to close with and destroy these networks with every capability of the American government,” he warned.