The announcement on Wednesday came hours after Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speedboat that had entered Cuban waters and opened fire on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer.
Cuba's government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat "have a known history of criminal and violent activity".
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told reporters earlier that the US was gathering its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.
"We have various different elements of the US government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now," Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.
The Cuban government identified two of the boat passengers as Amijail Sanchez Gonzalez and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gomez, who were wanted by Cuban authorities "in connection with acts of terrorism".
The government said it also had arrested Duniel Hernandez Santos, adding that he was "sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions".
Cuba's government said it obtained the details about the passengers aboard the boat from the suspects detained following the shootout.
It had identified seven of the 10 passengers, it said.
US President Donald Trump's top diplomat refused to speculate on what happened, saying it could be a "wide range of things", and the US would not solely rely on what the Cuban authorities had provided.
"Suffice it to say, 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," Rubio said.
He said the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Coast Guard were investigating and he stressed that he wanted to verify the facts.
It was not a US government operation, Rubio said.
One of the men identified by the Cuban government, Conrado Galindo Sariol, was interviewed in June 2025 by Marti Noticias, a US-based news site that has long called for regime change in Cuba.
Galindo was quoted as saying he wanted to support Cubans' struggle, and the protests in the country at that time were "not a spark that's going to be extinguished".
Earlier, Cuba's interior ministry issued a statement that provided few details about the shooting, but noted the boat was roughly 1.6km northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba's north coast.
The ministry said Cuba's government was "safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region".
The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said it would pursue answers through all legal and diplomatic channels, adding that "facts remain unclear and conflicting".
US Vice-President JD Vance said the White House was monitoring the situation, adding: "Hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it could be."
The shooting threatens to increase tensions between the US and Cuba.
Following the ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration has taken an increasingly aggressive stance towards Cuba, which had been largely kept economically afloat by Venezuela's oil.
Cuba's energy crisis entered new extremes in January when Trump signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any country that sold or provided oil to Cuba.
With AP
