Cuba’s account of a deadly encounter at sea—between its troops and a speedboat carrying armed expatriates—has sharpened scrutiny on Cubans living in the United States who continue to support a counter-revolution, 67 years after a guerrilla uprising ushered in communism. In comments issued after the incident, Cuba said its soldiers confronted the boat as it approached the island and that the exchange left four people dead and six wounded.
Cuba’s deputy foreign minister said communication about the firefight is underway with U.S. officials, while the United States said at least one American was killed and another wounded. The Cuban government identified one of the four killed as Michel Ortega Casanova, saying his brother in Florida portrayed him as pursuing Cuba’s freedom from the current circumstances.
Misael Ortega Casanova told The Associated Press that his brother Michel is an American citizen who has lived in the United States for more than 20 years and that the pursuit reflected deep concern about what Cubans endure. Misael Ortega Casanova said family members were caught by surprise, adding that he did not recognize the names Cuba released in connection with the boat incursion.
Cuban authorities also described competing narratives about who stole what and who brought weapons. Cuba said Ortega Casanova was accompanied by two men wanted in connection with what it described as terrorism-related activities and released names of alleged suspects, framing them as involved in promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission tied to terrorism. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would gather its own information about the people involved and told reporters, “It’s highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that,” adding that “It’s something that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time.”
Cuba said the watercraft was a Florida-registered speedboat and that a search found multiple categories of weapons and equipment, including assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms. The episode also drew attention to the boat’s reported origins, including a report that it was stolen from an island in the Florida Keys archipelago about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Miami, according to the Monroe County Sheriffs’ Office.
The incident unfolded amid heightened U.S.-Cuba tensions as the Trump administration tightens the embargo and threatens tariffs against countries providing Cuba with oil, according to the Associated Press reporting. The article described those pressures as coming alongside wider regional strains, including the United States arresting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a Jan. 3 stealth nighttime raid by U.S. military forces and halting crucial oil shipments to Cuba from Venezuela.
An academic who has studied Cuba for decades, William LeoGrande of American University, said the pattern of seeking regime change in response to external pressure is likely to be driving new incursions into Cuban waters. He also tied the moment to what he said the Trump administration is publicly signaling about Cuba’s stability. LeoGrande pointed to a conference at Florida International University in Miami titled “Cuba: The Day After Tomorrow,” which a release described as focused on possibilities for a “national refoundation following a political transition.”
Among Cuban exiles in Miami, some said they were skeptical of Cuba’s initial depiction. Emilio Izquierdo, who spent two years jailed in Cuba before arriving in the United States in 1980, said it was more believable, he said, that foreign agents could have infiltrated Miami’s Cuban exile community and tricked opponents into risking their lives on what he called a suicide mission. Izquierdo said, “Nobody with a 25-foot speedboat tries to overthrow a government,” and he also described the timing—when U.S.-Cuba tensions were, in his view, at their highest in decades—as suspicious.
Izquierdo’s doubts extended to the credibility of Cuba’s framing of the incident, while another exiled activist and leader of Movimiento Democracia, Ramón Saul Sanchez, told the Associated Press he suspects the Cuban government knew in advance that the speedboat was planning to approach. Reporting from Florida also said Conrado Galindo Sariol was identified as a former political prisoner in a 2025 interview with Martí Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has called for a change of government in Cuba.