The United States military has killed two people in a strike on a small vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, US Southern Command announced on Friday via its social media account on X. General Francis L. Donovan directed Joint Task Force Southern Spear, the counter-narcotics unit operating in the region, to carry out the attack. The military described the two dead as "male drug terrorists" and published a short unclassified video showing the boat engulfed in flames after an explosion. No American military personnel were reported injured.
Friday's strike is the latest in a series of operations targeting vessels in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean that the Trump administration says are linked to drug cartel activity. US Southern Command stated that the boat was travelling along known drug smuggling routes and was operated by terrorist organisations, though it did not name any specific groups. According to available tallies, the campaign has now killed at least 178 people since it began in September 2024. The military has not released detailed evidence confirming that the vessels targeted were actually carrying drugs.
President Donald Trump has consistently defended the campaign as essential to stemming the flow of illicit substances into the United States and reducing overdose deaths. His administration argues the strikes are lawful, claiming the US is engaged in an armed conflict with Latin American cartels and is therefore operating within the laws of conflict. "What we're doing is actually an act of kindness," Trump said in reference to the strikes.
However, the campaign has drawn sharp and sustained criticism from legal experts, human rights organisations, and international bodies. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have described the operations as unlawful extrajudicial killings. The American Civil Liberties Union has called the administration's justifications "unsubstantiated and alarming," and has asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — a body of the Organization of American States — to investigate the killings. Families of two men from Trinidad who died in an earlier strike have filed a lawsuit against the US government. UN officials have also characterised the campaign as a flagrant violation of human rights.
A key legal flashpoint is that the strikes take place in international waters, where questions of jurisdiction and the use of lethal force are particularly complex under international law. Despite mounting pressure, the Trump administration has shown no indication that it intends to halt the operations.