The United States military says it killed two people and left one survivor in its latest strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, continuing a controversial campaign against boats it alleges are involved in drug trafficking.
U.S. Southern Command, which oversees American military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the strike on Friday and released video showing a moving boat being hit and engulfed in flames. SOUTHCOM said the vessel was operated by “Designated Terrorist Organizations” and was travelling along known narco-trafficking routes, but it did not publicly provide evidence to support the claim.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the command said, adding that no U.S. forces were harmed.
The strike was the third such attack reported in May. Earlier in the week, the U.S. military said it killed three people in another eastern Pacific strike and two others in a Caribbean operation. The Associated Press reported that the broader campaign, which began in September, has killed at least 188 people, though some estimates vary.
The Trump administration has defended the operations by arguing that drug trafficking networks pose a national security threat comparable to armed attacks on the United States. It has designated several criminal groups involved in narcotics smuggling as terrorist organizations, creating the legal framework it says permits military action.
But international legal experts, human rights advocates and some regional leaders have strongly challenged that rationale. Critics argue that suspected traffickers should be arrested and prosecuted, not killed without trial, and warn that the strikes may amount to extrajudicial killings if they occur outside an armed conflict.
Past strikes have also drawn anger from families in Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries, who have disputed U.S. descriptions of the victims as “narco-terrorists.” Some relatives have said those killed were fishermen or informal workers travelling between Caribbean and South American communities.
The latest survivor may become central to questions about what intelligence the U.S. used, whether the vessel posed an imminent threat, and how Washington identifies targets before launching lethal force.
For now, the campaign shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. military continues to frame the strikes as part of a counter-narcotics and counterterrorism mission, while critics say the operations are stretching the laws of war into a dangerous new precedent.
