U.S. Military Kills Two in Latest Eastern Pacific Drug Boat Strike

The U.S. military killed two men in a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, according to U.S. Southern Command. This brings the total death toll to at least 170 since such strikes began last September. The vessel was reportedly transiting known narcotics trafficking routes and engaged in drug operations, Southern Command said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. The two deceased were described only as male “narco-terrorists,” and no U.S. military personnel were harmed during the operation.

The strike was directed by Marine Gen. Francis Donovan and was part of an ongoing enforcement campaign called Joint Task Force Southern Spear, targeting alleged drug traffickers off Latin American coastlines and in the Caribbean. A black-and-white video released by Southern Command showed a small boat, possibly a panga, being struck by munitions from the air and left smoking.

This latest attack follows strikes two days earlier that killed five people on two boats in the same region, with one survivor reported. In several instances, survivors have been found and rescued, though some search efforts have been called off. Notably, during the first strike on September 2, two survivors were killed in a subsequent attack, raising accusations of potential war crimes. While Democratic lawmakers criticized that follow-up strike, the Defense Department and some congressional Republicans defended it, stating the survivors might have still posed a threat.

The Trump administration has labeled major drug cartels as terrorist groups and described the conflict with them as a “non-international armed conflict.” It argues that the cartels’ role in supplying deadly narcotics like fentanyl to the U.S. constitutes hostile acts of war. However, the administration has not provided definitive public evidence linking the targeted vessels to drug trafficking, leading to debate over the legality of the strikes. Families of some deceased have disputed the characterization of those killed as drug smugglers, and some Democrats in Congress have questioned the operations’ legality due to the lack of due process and public documentation.

International law experts and human rights groups have expressed concern that the strikes may amount to extrajudicial killings, as they appear to target civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States. Since last September, the U.S. military has conducted approximately 50 strikes, destroying 51 vessels and killing 170 people, according to NBC News.

Southern Command emphasized that the operations aim to apply “total systemic friction on the cartels,” reflecting the administration’s intensified efforts to combat narcotics trafficking in the region.