Washington, Oct 25 : The US military is sending the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on social media.

The US 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 Organisations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defence 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, Xinhua news agency reported.

The US 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, US Secretary of Defence 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 US strikes to more than 40.

On October 2, the Trump administration notified Congress in a memo that the US is in a "non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels it has designated as terrorist organisations 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 US Senate Committee on Armed Services, said the US 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 US government of "murder" for killing drug suspects at sea.

/IANS