WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military is sending the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on social media Friday.

The U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility includes the land mass of Latin America south of Mexico, the waters adjacent to Central and South America, and the Caribbean Sea.

The deployment was made "in support of the President's directive to dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland," Parnell said on X.

"These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs," he said.

Local analysts view the move as an indication that the Trump administration intends to broaden its anti-cartel campaign, shifting from targeting small vessels in international waters to potentially striking land-based operations across Latin America.

The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean is already the largest in the region in more than three decades, since the American invasion of Panama, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Earlier on Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the military sank a suspected drug-smuggling vessel overnight in international waters of the Caribbean, killing all six people on board.

It was the first nighttime strike on a suspected narcotics vessel and the 10th such operation since September, bringing the total death toll from these U.S. strikes to more than 40.

On Oct. 2, the Trump administration notified Congress in a memo that the United States is in a "non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels it has designated as terrorist organizations and will treat their members as "unlawful combatants."

The strikes have drawn sharp criticism from congressional Democrats. Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, said the U.S. government "offered no credible legal justification, evidence or intelligence" for the strikes.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused the United States of invoking cartel threats as a pretext for pursuing regime change and expanding its military presence in Latin America. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. government of "murder" for killing drug suspects at sea. ■