U.S. strike on suspected drug boat kills one in eastern Pacific
Southern Command said two people survived the latest attack in a campaign that has killed at least 208 people, the AP reported.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
A U.S. military strike hit a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday after officials accused it of carrying drug traffickers, killing one man and leaving two people alive, U.S. Southern Command said. The attack adds to a Trump administration campaign against alleged smugglers in waters near Latin America that has drawn legal questions and congressional scrutiny.
The Associated Press reported that at least 208 people have been killed in U.S. boat strikes since the administration began targeting people it describes as “narcoterrorists” in early September. The latest strike was part of operations in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that the administration says are aimed at stopping drugs from reaching the United States.
Southern Command said the vessel was traveling along known smuggling routes and identified those aboard as suspected drug traffickers. The military did not release evidence showing the boat was carrying drugs, according to the AP.
A video posted on X showed a boat moving through the water before it was struck and caught fire, the AP reported. Southern Command said it immediately alerted the U.S. Coast Guard to start search-and-rescue procedures for the survivors.
Trump has framed the strikes as an armed conflict
President Donald Trump has said the United States is in an “armed conflict” with Latin American cartels. He has defended the strikes as a needed step to slow drug trafficking into the United States and reduce deadly overdoses, according to the AP.
The administration has provided little public evidence to back its claims that those killed were narcoterrorists, the AP reported. Critics have also questioned whether the strikes are effective, noting that fentanyl tied to many overdose deaths is usually moved into the United States by land from Mexico, where it is made with chemicals imported from China and India.
The attacks have faced close examination from some Democratic lawmakers and military law experts. Concerns grew after the first U.S. strike in early September, when two men initially survived an attack that killed nine others, according to the AP.
Those two men were holding on to wreckage when the boat was hit again, killing them, the AP reported. The White House confirmed the second strike and said it was carried out “in self-defense” to make sure the vessel was destroyed and complied with the laws of armed conflict.
Some legal scholars said a follow-up strike that killed survivors would be unlawful under any circumstances, regardless of whether an armed conflict existed, according to the AP.
Pentagon watchdog plans a review
The Pentagon’s inspector general said in May that it plans to examine whether the military used an established targeting process when conducting the boat strikes. The watchdog’s office said the review will focus on the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle, the AP reported.
The inspector general’s office said that evaluation will not decide whether the strikes themselves were legal. The narrower review leaves unresolved broader questions from critics about the authority for the campaign and the standards used to identify targets at sea.
This story draws on original reporting from NPR.