Key takeaways:
- U.S. Southern Command said two people were killed and six male survivors were reported after the latest strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat.
- More than 60 vessels have been hit and more than 210 people killed since the U.S. campaign began in September.
- The Pentagon’s inspector general is reviewing whether the military followed standard targeting procedures, but not the legality of the strikes.
A U.S. military strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat killed two people and left six survivors, U.S. Southern Command said, extending a campaign that has hit more than 60 vessels and killed more than 210 people since September.
SOUTHCOM said in a post on X that the boat was traveling along a known drug-smuggling route and that it notified the U.S. Coast Guard about the “six male survivors.” The command did not provide details on whether the survivors were rescued, their condition or evidence that the vessel was carrying narcotics.
CBS News reported the strike took place in the Caribbean, while Al Jazeera reported the military described the attack as occurring in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Both outlets reported that SOUTHCOM released grainy black-and-white video showing a boat moving across the water before a projectile struck it and it burst into flames.
The attack is part of the Trump administration’s operation against people it calls “narcoterrorists” in Latin America. President Donald Trump has said the United States is in “armed conflict” with cartels and has described the strikes as a necessary escalation to reduce the flow of drugs into the United States and combat fatal overdoses.
The administration has offered little public evidence to support its claims about the people killed in the strikes. Critics have questioned both the legality and the effectiveness of the campaign, noting that fentanyl linked to many fatal U.S. overdoses is typically smuggled over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
The latest strike has also renewed questions about what happens when people survive attacks at sea. In a similar incident on June 16, the military notified the Coast Guard after two survivors were reported. The Coast Guard later suspended its search, saying there were “no signs of survivors or debris.” The Coast Guard had no comment on the survivors from the latest strike, CBS News reported.
Lawmakers have demanded that the Pentagon release “unedited video” of the first strike in the campaign after reports that the U.S. carried out a follow-up strike on survivors of an initial attack. Al Jazeera reported that two men initially survived that strike, which killed nine others, and were clinging to wreckage when the boat was hit again, killing them.
The White House confirmed the follow-up strike, saying it was carried out “in self-defence” to ensure the boat was destroyed and that it complied with the laws of armed conflict. Some lawmakers have questioned whether the second strike constituted a war crime. The Defense Department and several congressional Republicans have said the survivors may still have been in the fight, warranting another strike.
Some legal scholars said a second strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, whether or not an armed conflict existed, Al Jazeera reported.
The Pentagon’s inspector general said in May that it would review whether the military followed its established targeting process, known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle, when carrying out the strikes. The inspector general’s office said the evaluation would not examine the legality of the attacks.
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