The Cuban Interior Ministry detained seven others involved in the plot, including one who “had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group.”
The National Capitol of Cuba in Havana, built in 1929, 2014. (Michael Oswald / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)
The Cuban government said the men on a Florida-registered boat who opened fire on Cuban soldiers in the island’s territorial waters on Wednesday were bent on carrying out “an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
In a statement following news that Cuban forces had killed four people on the boat, the besieged Caribbean nation’s Interior Ministry said the vessel was carrying 10 men, all “Cuban nationals residing in the United States.”
The ministry said it seized assault rifles, explosives, body armor, and other items from the boat and identified seven of its passengers, six of whom were detained. Four men on the boat — which, according to reports, was last purchased in 2022 — were killed in the gunfight with Cuban soldiers, who had reportedly “approached the vessel for identification.”
Cuban authorities also said another individual, Duniel Hernández Santos, was arrested “within national territory.” The Interior Ministry said Santos “had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group and has confessed to his role.”
“The investigation remains ongoing until all facts have been fully established,” the ministry said.
The deadly incident came as Cuba continued to reel from the Trump administration’s recent intensification of decades-long economic warfare against the island. The administration is “actively seeking regime change in Cuba,” according to Wall Street Journal reporting from last month.
Wednesday’s incident called to the minds of observers past efforts, backed by the U.S., to topple the Cuban government, from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to Operation Mongoose.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, denied that any American government personnel were involved in the incident and said it was under investigation.
“We’re going to find out exactly what happened here, and then we’ll respond accordingly,” said Rubio, a longtime supporter of regime change in Cuba. “It is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It’s not something that happens every day. It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time.”
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Do you hear the outcry
Abandoned ship of fools
ola…ya… bring back the pigs in the bay… Sorry ..budget cuts .. real mercenary are so busy …pick a number will call you back …
your call is important to US…..please ..have a snack we got ‘ proxy ‘…. au revoir….love Zion …or else
I’ve been trying to look up stats on the boat. So far I’ve seen Pro-line speedboat or sportboat from 1981. An article said 21 to 23 feet long. I tried a quick lookup, and found a boat that in a twin engine configuration had a top speed of around 50 knots. Single engine was 40 knots.
So, a boat that could carry small cargoes at relatively high speed coming out of South Florida. Maybe because I grew up watching Miami Vice, but that to me says “drug boat.” Cuba should just have said they blew up a drug boat and left it at that. That is all that is required under the modern rules of the modern order. And,they didn’t really have to wait until it entered Cuban waters. They can blow up “drug boats” in international waters, or even in the waters of another nation. Them’s the rules everyone is playin by these days.
I didn’t grow up in an NY Penthouse, but “Turn abouts is Fair play” was the rule on my dirty playgrounds.
Agent Provocateurs…
Where’s the UN?
Yes, unarmed “drug boats” are legitimate targets, but an armed rebellion is not. Or bombs are OK, but not guns. The emperor has no clothes.
Could be Cuba was not interested in unsophisticated grade school tit for tat.