WASHINGTON — The U.S. military carried out an attack Thursday on a boat suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in three deaths. The strike is part of an ongoing campaign by the Trump administration against individuals it labels as drug traffickers operating throughout Latin America.
With this latest strike, the total number of people killed in U.S. military boat attacks has climbed to at least 211 since the administration began going after those it refers to as “narcoterrorists” in early September.
Following the pattern of most military announcements regarding operations in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command stated that the vessel was targeted along established drug smuggling corridors. However, the military did not provide evidence confirming the boat was actually carrying drugs. Footage shared on X showed the vessel moving rapidly through open water before being hit and engulfing in flames.
President Donald Trump has characterized the situation as an “armed conflict” between the United States and Latin American cartels, framing the attacks as a necessary step to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into the country and curb deadly overdoses among Americans. Despite that justification, the administration has provided little evidence to back up its assertions that those killed were “narcoterrorists.”
The strikes have drawn criticism over both their legality and their actual impact. Skeptics point out that fentanyl — the drug responsible for a large share of overdose deaths — typically enters the U.S. by land through Mexico, where it is manufactured using chemicals sourced from China and India.
On Thursday, a group of U.S. senators called on the Pentagon to release “unedited video” of the attacks. Democratic lawmakers and scholars who specialize in military law have raised serious concerns about the strikes. The very first strike carried out in early September drew especially sharp criticism from some members of Congress and those who study the legal boundaries of military action.
That initial strike killed nine people aboard the vessel, but two survivors were left clinging to the wreckage — only to be killed when the boat was struck a second time. The White House defended the follow-up attack, saying it was carried out “in self-defense” to ensure the destruction of the vessel and that it complied with the laws of armed conflict.
Some legal scholars, however, argued that striking survivors a second time would have been unlawful regardless of whether the situation was classified as armed conflict.
The Pentagon’s internal watchdog announced in May that it intends to examine whether the military adhered to an established targeting process when conducting the strikes. The inspector general’s office clarified, though, that the review will focus specifically on what is known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle — not on whether the strikes were legal.
