Eleven people were killed in multiple strikes on three alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, the US military says.
Officials said that of the 11 “male narco-terrorists” killed, four died on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, four on a second vessel also in the Eastern Pacific and three on a third vessel in the Caribbean.
The Trump administration has carried out more than 40 lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since September.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the US Southern Command said in a social media post.
No US military personnel were injured in the operation conducted late on Monday night.
US forces have been targeting vessels they suspect of smuggling narcotics through the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September.
But the frequency of the strikes has notably ebbed since US forces in early January captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – who has been accused by the Trump administration of working with drug trafficking groups.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the overall operation is aimed at removing “narco-terrorists from our hemisphere” and securing the US from “the drugs that are killing our people”.
The US has provided no evidence to back up its allegations that the boats it has struck have been carrying drugs.
Some legal experts have also said that the strikes could be illegal and violate international law by targeting civilians, with no due process.
The Trump administration has said the killings are lawful. In a statement to Congress, the White House said President Trump had “determined” that the US was in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that crews of drug-running boats were “combatants”.
More than 130 people have been killed in the strikes.
Last week, a US Marine who fell overboard from an attack ship in the Caribbean became the first known American casualty in the Trump administration’s operation targeting drug-trafficking boats.
A few families of the alleged drug-traffickers killed in strikes have gone to court against the US government.
The families of two Trinidadian men killed in a 14 October strike filed a lawsuit alleging the strike amounted to “lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theatre”.
By BBC News
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