Cuba has accused 10 people aboard a US-registered speedboat it intercepted off its coast on Wednesday of planning “an infiltration with terrorist aims”.
Border guards shot dead four people and injured the other six on the boat, the Cuban interior ministry said, alleging that those on the Florida-registered vessel had fired first.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was investigating the “highly unusual” incident.
The deadly shooting comes at a time of increased tension between the two countries, less than two months after US forces seized Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and stopped his successor from supplying it with oil.
Cuba’s interior ministry said in an online statement that the speedboat had entered Cuban territorial waters and was “one nautical mile off Cayo Falcones”, on the country’s northern coast, when it was intercepted.
It added that the commander of the Cuban boat was injured in the firefight that ensued.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba would “defend itself with determination and firmness against any terrorist and mercenary aggression against its sovereignty and national stability”.
Later, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told reporters the US had shown a “willingness” to cooperate on “clarifying these regrettable events”.
He named 10 individuals believed to be on board, confirming four of them had been killed. Cuban authorities said earlier all 10 were Cuban nationals residing in the US.
They also identified an 11th person they said had been arrested and had confessed to being part of the alleged plot.
Fernandez de Cossio said all information was still preliminary but more details would be provided in coming days.
The Cuban authorities added that most of them had “prior records involving criminal and violent activity”.
Handguns, assault rifles and improvised explosive devices were recovered from the speedboat, along with other tactical gear, according to the statement.
BBC Verify checked the speedboat’s registration details provided by the Cuban embassy in US (FL7726SH, Florida registered) but they yielded no ownership details or tracking history on any of the platforms the BBC relies on.
Cuba’s interior ministry has in the past denounced other incursions into its territorial waters by privately owned US boats it said were engaged in smuggling Cubans from the Caribbean island to the US.
The incident also comes almost 30 years to the day since Cuban defence forces shot down two small civilian planes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue, a US-based group that searched for rafts carrying migrants from Cuba to the US.
Four people aboard were killed in the 1996 incident, triggering outrage in the US.
Before the Cuban government released some of the passengers’ identities of Wednesday’s incident, Rubio had said that the speedboat intercepted by the Cubans had not been carrying US government personnel.
The US secretary of state said Washington would not rely on information provided by the Cuban government, and would instead independently verify the facts of the case and what those on board were doing in the area.
He spoke from Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he had travelled to meet Caribbean leaders amid the Trump administration’s push to ramp up pressure on Cuba’s government, as well as other regional issues.
Rubio, whose parents emigrated to the US from Cuba in the 1950s, has been a harsh critic of the Communist-run government in Havana.
He said on Wednesday that “Cuba’s status quo is unacceptable” and “needs to change”.
“They need to make dramatic reforms,” he said, urging its Communist leadership to “open the space for both economic, and eventually political, freedom for the people of Cuba”.
Last month, following the seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro in a US military operation, Donald Trump told Cuba to “make a deal” or face unspecified consequences.
The US president also said at the time that there would be “no more oil going to Cuba”. His administration has blocked shipments from Venezuela and threatened tariffs on other nations delivering oil to the island.
The move has further exacerbated the already crippling oil and fuel shortages Cuba has been suffering for years.
On Wednesday, however, the US Treasury said it would ease some small private sector transactions, including oil sales, to “support the Cuban people, for commercial and humanitarian use”.
The first Cuban interior ministry statement alluded to these tensions, saying that “in the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters” and safeguard its sovereignty. (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24drvj8yl2o)
