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WASHINGTON\/QUITO, March 6 – The\u00a0U.S.<\/a>\u00a0and Ecuador carried out a \u200bjoint operation targeting drug trafficking operations in the South American \u200ccountry, authorities in both countries said on Friday, with the U.S. calling the move “lethal kinetic operations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither the U.S. Southern Command, a branch of its military that oversees forces \u200bin Latin America, nor Ecuador’s defense ministry, said if anyone \u200bwas killed or captured in the strike, which Ecuador dubbed \u2060operation “Total Extermination.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The operations used helicopters, aircraft, river boats and drones to \u200blocate and bomb a drug traffickers’ training camp in north-east Ecuador near \u200bthe Colombian border, Ecuador’s defense ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camp belonged to the Comandos de la Frontera (CDF), a Colombian crime group made up of FARC dissidents, and \u200bhad a capacity for 50 people, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa \u200bhas made a military crackdown on organised crime a cornerstone of his administration, and \u200chis \u2060government imposed tariffs<\/a> on its larger neighbor Colombia, accusing it of not doing enough to fight drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is set to travel to Miami this weekend to take part in the Trump administration’s “Shield of the Americas” \u200bsummit, which brings \u200btogether many right-wing \u2060leaders across the region with a focus on regional security and organized crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The United States is a key ally \u200bin this fight,” the defense ministry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “At the \u200brequest of \u2060Ecuador, the Department of War executed targeted action to advance our shared objective of dismantling narco-terrorist networks,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n